SUMMARY
Episode 33
This week on Video Marketing Unscripted, John in Durham writes: I do real estate photos and videos and the agents will pay a fair price for photos but not the video. They tend to think video is so easy to create. What are some strategies for talking to potential clients about the cost of marketing videos and how much should I be charging for them?
Ben explains that with real estate video, your clients are likely to be real estate agents, and that you’ll have to prove to them that video is worth using in addition to photos. Ben provides examples of how you can showcase a property through video.
Do you agree with Ben? What have your experiences been when trying to do real estate videos? Do you have any tips of your own that you’d like us to hear? Leave them in the comments!
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TRANSCRIPT
00:00 Ben: Look what I can’t do.
[music]
00:10 Ben: Hi, I’m Ben, welcome to Video Marketing Unscripted, where I answer your video marketing questions completely unprompted. Yeah, but this is my shooting hand. Anthony, what’s our question today?
00:19 Anthony: Well, Ben, today’s question is from John in Durham, and John writes, “I do real estate photos and videos, and the agents will pay a fair price for photos, but not the video. They tend to think video is so easy to create. What are some strategies for talking to potential clients about the cost of marketing videos, and how much should I be charging for them?”
00:39 Ben: That’s a really interesting question. I actually got my start in video in real estate video. I think I might’ve been a little bit too far ahead of the game. I don’t think anybody really knew what video could bring. And I think that’s really how you have to position video to your potential clients. Your potential clients are likely just gonna be real estate agents, right? Whoever’s listing the home or whoever’s selling the home, they’re used to working with photos. They’re used to even creating videos out of slide shows of just photos. You’ve gotta give them a reason to use video above and beyond photos. They’re not gonna stop using photos so it’s not an “instead of” kind of thing, but what can you get across with real estate videos that you can’t with just photos. So, it’s really experiencing that space. It’s walking through the space. It’s understanding the layout. If it’s a really nice house on a big lot, it’s seeing the expanse of the acreage or whatever it is that you can’t necessarily get in photos.
01:43 Ben: So I think you need to be careful to not position real estate video as photos plus, but really, “Here’s what we’re gonna do with this video.” You could even explore some storylines, potentially. I know when I was doing it, there was a company out of Australia that was doing these amazing real estate videos, where they would create these lavish storylines. Now, that also helps when the homes that are being sold are kind of high-market, really expensive homes and showcase pieces, because the budget that’s necessary for those kinds of things is usually more than an agent’s gonna wanna spend. I mean, god, I feel like I’m gonna set myself up for a mental math issue here, but when it comes to pricing, I’m a big proponent in value-based pricing, too. So, it’s not so much about what it may cost you as a photographer, videographer, to produce the thing, to make a little money; it’s really more about, what can the agent do with the video that they can’t do without it?
02:45 Ben: So, is it going to get it to close faster? Is it going to get more people to see it? Is it going to sell for more money? I wouldn’t necessarily rely on the “more money” part, though, because if you kinda do the math, it’s a little tough. For every $10,000 of additional sales price, the agent, at a 3% commission rate, only ends up with like $300. And I assume you’re gonna wanna be charging more than $300 for a video, so, you really gotta get them to focus in on what they can do with a video of their property, which may lead you to the decision that it’s really those marquee properties that really only need video. So again, as a strategy for talking to your potential clients, get them to think about all of the things that video can allow them to do, increase sale time, get more feet through the door, whatever it is, and get ’em really excited about that. And I think that’s the way to approach it, as opposed to just kinda being a commoditized thing. And you’ll probably find yourself ending up with just a couple agents that use you regularly as opposed to just kinda going after everybody out there.
03:54 Ben: So, John, I hope that answers your question. If you’ve got any follow-ups, I’d love to hear them. And if you’ve got a video marketing question that you’d like me to answer, put it in the comments below, or fill out the form on our site. You’re welcome.