If you’re in the real estate business, you probably know how important farming is to your long term success. And if you’ve been following us here at Launch Your Farm, you totally get it! But with so many agents out there vying for the same prospects, it can be tough to stand out from the crowd. One way to differentiate yourself is by using video marketing to supercharge your geo farming efforts. Today, we’re going to dive into how to create a winning video marketing strategy that will help you attract more clients and close more deals in your farm.
What is real estate farming?
Before we dive into video marketing, let’s define real estate farming or “Geographic farming”. Farming is the process of targeting a specific geographic area and becoming the go-to agent for that area. This can include sending out mailers, hosting events, and engaging with the community and so many other strategies we teach here at Launch Your Farm. The goal is to become a trusted resource for buyers and sellers in that area, so they think of you when they’re ready to make a move.
Why use video marketing for real estate farming?
Video marketing is one of the most powerful tools for real estate agents for several reasons. First, it’s a great way to showcase your personality and expertise. By creating engaging videos, you can build trust with potential clients before even meeting them in person. Second, video is more memorable than text-based content, so prospects are more likely to remember you and your message. Third, you can reach more people with less effort. Imagine having the same conversation one on one to 500 people. Now imagine having that conversation once, and showing that video to 500 people. Think of the time, effort and energy you’d save. Finally, video is highly shareable, so you can extend your reach beyond your immediate sphere of influence and reach people that aren’t even in your sphere or farm.
How to create a video marketing strategy for real estate farming
Now that we’ve established why video marketing is important,it’s time to start planning our world domination with video. Let’s dive into how to create a winning video marketing strategy for real estate farming.
Define your target audience
The first step in creating any marketing strategy is to define your target audience. Who are you trying to reach with your videos? Are you targeting first-time homebuyers or luxury home sellers? Are you going to make videos for people already living in your farm or people thinking of moving to your farm? Are you trying to connect with people you already know, or people you’ve never met? There are a number of factors you want to consider at this stage. Understanding your target audience will help you create even better videos that resonate with them and get you results.
Choose your topics
Once you know who you’re targeting, it’s time to choose your topics. Your videos should be informative and engaging. They should be value adding and entertaining. They also should be videos that your audience can connect with. That is why it’s important to figure out who you are making the videos for FIRST. You need to think about what your target audience wants to know. You could create videos about the home buying process, local market trends, or tips for staging a home for sale, community based videos, things to do in the area, educational videos around real estate or around the home. It really is going to depend on your audience as well as your expertise and interests.
Plan your production
Before you start filming, you’ll need to plan your production. Think about what equipment you’ll need, where you’ll film, and who will be on camera. The great news is you don’t need a full movie studio to get started. A simple high quality smartphone and a tripod is all you need to get started. After you know the type of equipment and where you want to film, you’ll also need to plan your script and any visuals you want to include.
Film and edit your videos
Once you’ve planned your production, it’s time to film and edit your videos. Make sure your videos are well-lit and the sound quality is good. One tip that I’ve learned over the years is that while you may want to write out the perfect script, it usually doesn’t translate well on camera if you are trying to memorise it word for word. That’s why I strongly suggest creating an outline with bullet points of what you want to cover and just go with it after that.
When it comes to editing your videos, it really is going to depend on your budget, your timing and the amount of effort you want to put into it. While many people will say you must have fully professionally edited videos, we’ve seen a shift back to more “boot strapped” video production as many people don’t like the over-polished look. If you are going to do editing, it’s important that your videos have a similar look and feel to them so be sure your branding is on point.
You’ll need to decide if you want to become a video editor or have someone else do it. We’ll save that conversation for another day, as it can get pretty heated! 🙂
Promote your videos
Finally, you’ll need to promote your videos. It’s one thing to create great content, but the world needs to find out about it. An awesome video will just sit there in the internet space time continuum if no one knows about it. That’s why it’s important to share your videos on social media, include them in your email marketing campaigns, and post them on your website. Share them in local community groups, or get local businesses to help promote them. Promoting your videos should take more time and effort than it does creating them. I once read a blog a few years ago that suggested an 20/80 split. You should be spending 80% of your time promoting your videos and 20% of the time creating them. The magic happens in the promotion, not just the creation. The more exposure your videos get, the more likely they are to attract new clients and the more likely the members in your farm will know, like and trust you.
Best practices for real estate video marketing
Here are some best practices to keep in mind when creating your videos for your farm:
Keep it short
Attention spans are short, so keep your videos short and to the point. Aim for videos that are no longer than two to three minutes. (You can create long form videos as well, but be sure you have plenty of shorter videos that people can consume quickly.)
Be authentic
Your videos should showcase your personality and expertise. Don’t try to be someone you’re not. People want to work with people they can connect with, so don’t be fake, people can smell it a mile away.
Use a call to action
Include a call to action in your videos to encourage viewers to take the next step, whether that’s contacting you for more information or visiting your website, liking and subscribing or checking out other resources. Whatever you do, make sure your video has a “next step” for them to take. If you don’t tell them to take it, most likely they won’t.
Optimize for SEO
Make sure your videos are optimised for SEO by including relevant keywords in your titles, descriptions, and tags. This will help your videos rank higher in search engine results. The great news is this becomes super easy when we are hyper locally focused. Most agents and marketers are trying to catch a larger audience and aren’t touching any hyper local keywords, so we have a ton of opportunity here to become the go to agent in our farm.
Include captions
Adding captions to your videos is important for accessibility, as well as for viewers who may be watching without sound. Captions can also improve your SEO by providing more text for search engines to crawl.
Add value
Your videos should provide value to your viewers. Whether it’s educational or entertaining, your videos should leave your viewers feeling like they’ve learned something or been entertained. If there is no value, your videos won’t be watched and definitely won’t be shared. You need to create a reason for people to WANT to come back and watch more.
Conclusion
Video marketing is a powerful tool for real estate agents looking to supercharge their farming efforts. By creating engaging and informative videos, you can build trust with potential clients and extend your reach beyond your immediate sphere of influence and position you as the trusted source in your neighbourhood. Follow these best practices to create a winning video marketing strategy and watch as your real estate business takes off. You’ll be happy you did, and so will your audience!
FAQs
- Do I need professional equipment to create real estate videos?
While professional equipment can certainly help, you can create effective videos using just a smartphone and a tripod.
- How often should I create and share videos?
It’s important to be consistent with your video content, but the frequency will depend on your available resources and target audience. At a bare minimum, aim for at least one video per month.
- What kind of videos should I create?
Your videos should be informative and engaging. Consider creating videos about the home buying process, local market trends, or tips for staging a home for sale and more importantly, local community content that everyone can resonate with.
- How can I measure the success of my video marketing efforts?
You can track metrics such as views, engagement, and conversions to measure the success of your video marketing efforts.
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Happy Farming!
Ryan Smith – Founder/Creator
Launch Your Farm
Be sure to check back on our blog and show to get awesome information about geographic farming!
Blog – http://www.LaunchYourFarm.com/LYFBlog
Show – http://launchyourfarm.com/category/interviews
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