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Video Marketing – The Secret to More Effective Lead Generation 1 Video Marketing – The Secret to More Effective Lead Generation Marilyn Wilson Founding Partner May 6, 2014 www.wavgroup.com

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Video Marketing – The Secret to More Effective Lead Generation

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Video Marketing – The Secret to More Effective Lead Generation

Marilyn Wilson Founding Partner

May 6, 2014

www.wavgroup.com

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Table of Contents Video  Marketing  –  Becoming  Mainstream  ..............  3  Did  you  know?  .......................................................  4  Consumers  EAT  UP  Real  Estate  Videos  ....................  7  Why  does  Video  Help  you  Build  Traffic  to  your  Website?  ................................................................  9  Make  them  Easy  to  Find  .......................................  13  Improve  the  Value  of  your  eLeads  Program  ..........  14  EASY  to  Produce  Automatically  ............................  14  Case  Study  –  Century  21  Hometown  -­‐  Successful  Video  Marketing  in  Action  ....................................  15  What  to  look  for  when  choosing  a  Video  Marketing  Partner:  ................................................................  19  For  More  Information:  .........................................  20  About  WAV  Group  ...............................................  21  

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Video Marketing – Becoming Mainstream With all the tools at your disposable in marketing, what should you use to stand out from the competition? Staying ahead of the curve allows you to maximize your marketing ROI and attract new clients. We are all looking for the secret sauce – the way to differentiate our business from the pack and gain a strong leadership position that none of our competitors will ever be able to match. While we can dream, we can never realize this goal unless we continually look for ways to re-invent our business. To be a star in real estate, we always need to be evolving to stay ahead of the competition. If we simply rely on using the same tools and processes we always have used in the past, our chances of becoming a star are pretty limited. If you take nothing else away from this paper, learn from one of the greatest life coaches of all – Stephen Covey. He says, “Whatever you focus on you will get.” If we simply focus on the day-to-day issues and never step back and look for big leaps of innovation and breakthrough thinking, our business will never change. In fact, it will probably continue to weaken over time. So, if you want to grow your business and improve your position in the market in 2014 you should read on. This paper outlines a simple, but extremely important trend you must address in your business if you are going to be successful over the long run. You must tap into a very important consumer behavior that grows exponentially every year – watching videos. It’s so simple, yet so foreign to many in the real estate business. It's time to start engaging and captivating your audience with video - they are waiting for it. Here are a few important stats that demonstrate the importance of video and its role in your marketing plan.

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According to an article published on Digiday, the authority on digital media, marketing and advertising, video is becoming ubiquitous as a business-marketing tool.

Video is Ubiquitous More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month, spending more than 4 billion hours watching videos (YouTube). According to A.C. Nielsen, YouTube reaches more US adults ages 18-34 than any cable network.

Did you know? Today 89 million people in the United States are going to watch 1.2 billion online videos (ComScore). That’s nearly 1 in 3 people in the United States.

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Globally, online video users are expected to double to 1.5 billion in 2016. (Cisco)

Video is taking over the Internet Globally, online video traffic will be 55% of all consumer Internet traffic in 2016. (Cisco)

Still an Opportunity to Own it, but not for Long! Only about 24% of national brands are using online video to market to consumers (Kantar Media). Ironically, NAR stats suggest 1 in 4 listings includes a virtual tour or video today, yet real estate is one of the most visually appealing businesses. Consumers cannot get enough of a depth of photos and videos that highlight all of the beauty and key features of a property. 76% of marketers plan to add video to their sites, making it a higher priority than Facebook, Twitter and blog integration (Social Media Examiner). Online video production will account for more than 1/3 of all online advertising spending within the next 5 years. (Borrell Associates)

Video is Mobile Too 89% of new home shoppers use a mobile search engine at the onset and throughout their research. Online video now accounts for 50% of all mobile traffic and up to 69% of traffic on certain networks (Bytemobile Mobile Analytics Report).

Video has to Load Instantly or Else Consumers give up on an online video if it doesn’t load in 2 seconds (University of Massachusetts Amherst and Akamai Technologies).

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Video Gets Shared…. a LOT!

92% percent of mobile video viewers share videos with others (Invodo). Users sharing video on retail and brand sites chose Facebook 46% of the time, with email accounting for 40% and Twitter capturing 14% of shares. (Invodo)

Videos Drive Engagement 52% of consumers say watching product videos makes them more confident in online purchase decisions. (Invodo) Mobile and tablet shoppers are 3 times as likely to view a video as laptop or desktop users. (NPD) Mobile video ads that include social media buttons drive 36% higher engagement (Rhythm NewMedia). According to NAR, 73% of sellers say they would list with a real estate agent who incorporates video to market their listing.

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Consumers EAT UP Real Estate Videos Real estate consumers are hungry for rich information about properties they may be interested in. That’s why there are over 100 million visitors looking at properties every month. Consumers also use video to learn about neighborhoods, market performance and even staging tips. According to The Digital House Hunt study published jointly by Google and the National Association of REALTORS®, consumers use video to learn about communities, tour the inside of homes and review customer testimonials.

The same study shows brokerage websites and listing aggregator websites are strong places for consumers to view videos in addition to YouTube. From first sight until purchase, real estate is a visual experience for the consumer. Video is the tool that combines visuals and information. You can even ask consumers to generate their own videos and share them with you. You could ask them to share videos from their favorite festival, parade, or restaurant. Consumers can also contribute videos in their neighborhood, favorite hiking trail, beach or sunset.

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In the graph above you see the affect video has on the way consumers do research real estate. YouTube, brokerage websites and Google videos are used regularly now to learn more about real estate. Do all of these charts and stats help you understand why I believe video is important in real estate today? In a word, video makes every element of your online marketing mix more effective. If you have not been taking video marketing seriously in your business you cannot avoid it any longer. Video is not a fad and it’s time for it to have a larger role in your marketing strategy. The bottom line… Video is engaging. In fact, viewers spend 100% more time on pages with videos on them. (Source: MarketingSherpa) We live in a video-centric world today. That’s why companies like YouTube, Instagram and Vine are so successful.

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Why does Video Help you Build Traffic to your Website? In simple terms, video is great for getting and keeping traffic on your site. Not only does video engage users, but search engines see it as “rich” content! This means video will help your site get better exposure and more likely to be viewed by more potential clients. Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing, all have varying formulas to determine which sites show up at the top of search. They are looking to provide the best consumer experience possible with every search. Video can help increase this user experience. Video also helps increase the amount of time a consumer will spend on your site since they are viewing videos. There are additional steps you can take to ensure that any of your video efforts pay off fully. First, ranking in today’s search engine requires regular management and focus. It’s critical to find partners that will provide you with the systems that allow you to create attractive and engaging video content automatically. Second, it’s crucial you find programs that help you maximize your video investment to build traffic and engagement with your website, blog, mobile sites and social media. Third, finding ways to leverage the traffic generated to your listings from inside the MLS and to generate traffic to your website thus capturing the leads from your listings can also help make your video content investment be much more effective.

Own Your Own Content, Own your Own Destiny Today, your listings are likely available on tons of websites, many of which probably have better search engine rankings than your site

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created by a cleaner user interface and rich, engaging content around every listing. So how do you compete with that? There’s one answer: Offer potential clients content that they cannot find other places. Don’t you want your agents and your company to be perceived as the “go-to” company in your area? If so, then you need to take advantage of your local knowledge. What’s the best way to share your local expertise? Video, of course; the more local the better. Individual property listings can be great. Video coverage of local events can be great too. Here’s a great sample of local content offered via video as an example.

All Property Videos are Not Created Equal There are tons of companies that claim to build property videos. It isn’t just about the video, though. With plenty of options on the market for video producers, here is what we would recommend to look for when you’re choosing a video partner.

Calls to Action Let’s walk through the ways you can engage a potential new client from your listing. Say they find your listing online and it catches their eye for some reason. They might not quite be ready to buy or even look at the property. They might not want to connect with an agent to see the property, but they would like to learn more about it on their own. How can they learn more about the property? In most cases today a consumer would likely take the property address and type it into Google and probably find information on third party sites, NOT yours. Not to worry though, because you can have some control. You can offer videos with strong ways for consumers to continue to learn more about the property and become more interested in it.

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Video can be used to invite a potential client to learn more about a neighborhood, local market stats, local festivals, 5k races, or their favorite restaurant. Videos can also be simple testimonials from residents talking about why they like living in their neighborhood. This information, of course, can be married with agent contact information and profiles. While you’re at it, you can include testimonials and ratings from past clients providing potential new

clients with the performance transparency they are looking for too. Without inviting consumers to engage with you in a non-intimidating way, you will likely lose them to other sites that allow them to be anonymous and invite them to learn more about the area. One of the video producers we

researched told us they see 12% of consumers that viewed a video clicked on another link back to the broker site. Given that the average click-through rate on the Internet is about 2%, video proves to be a great tool to improve the traffic to your site, encouraging homebuyers to click-through to your site to learn more.

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Videos MUST be Mobile-Friendly According to Zillow’s 4th quarter, 2013 earnings report, they say that more than 2/3 of their traffic is viewing their site from a mobile device. Let’s face it – everybody has a smartphone, iPad or other tablet device today. It’s easy for potential buyers to bring their iPad with them while looking for properties in a neighborhood. Consumers can also look at properties while they’re watching TV or killing time at their child’s soccer practice. If brokers don’t recognize it’s important to make it FUN to look at properties from a mobile device, they are going to lose!

When looking for a video service, make sure their formats are completely responsive – meaning your videos are just as easy to view on a smartphone and iPad as they are on a laptop. Don't require the consumer to download an Application to see your listings easily.

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Make them Easy to Find There are lots of tricks and ways to be sure that if you spend the time and money to build videos they are going to be seen by the audience you intended them for. You don't need to be an online expert, but you do need to find a video partner that knows how to help you get the most out of your video investment.

Videos MUST be SEO-Friendly It’s important that your videos are built to be easily searchable to ensure that your video gets seen. First, make sure each video has a unique, searchable URL or web address. Ideally the URL will have the full address of the listing embedded in it along with other unique identifiers. Also make sure that the tool you choose allows the thumbnails of your videos to show in search engines. One of our customers told us when they implemented a program where the system automatically created a video for every one of their listings and they experienced a 20% increase in traffic in just a few weeks. They were thrilled. The platform they chose had many search-engine friendly components built in.

Easy to Publish on Social Media Social Media is a great place to leverage an investment in video too. Once a video is posted on social media it is much more likely to get shared exponentially increasing opportunities for broader exposure to potential new buyers. Find a program that makes it easy for you to push your videos to your social media sites automatically.

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Improve the Value of your eLeads Program Many brokers are now starting to launch eLeads programs designed to help generate warm leads for their agents. This is intended to help speed the time from inquiry to close and improve lead conversion rates. Video can help these programs as well. Every communication to your clients can include one or several property videos based on their area of interest and their stage in the sales process. What better way to help them get comfortable with a neighborhood than providing them “edutizing” information? Content designed to entertain and educate while gently promoting why your brokerage is the best choice to work with.

EASY to Produce Automatically Okay, all of what we’ve talked about might seem interesting to you. Then reality sets in…. Who will produce these videos? How do I motivate each of my agents to take the time to commit to making video work? Or you might be thinking, I know how to coach my agents on selling, but I have no idea how to execute an effective video program. If you’re like most brokers, it is these types of questions that will stop you dead in your tracks. Here’s one of the most important things to look for – A company that creates videos for each of your properties AUTOMATICALLY! Find one that takes property photos and makes them into professional, engaging videos that bring each your properties to life. Programs like this can be orchestrated at the brokerage level – no need to sell each agent about the value of the program. You can deploy it automatically. Let’s be honest, anything that depends on gaining universal acceptance and usage by all of your listing agents is destined to failure. Programs that recognize that it’s almost impossible to get full participation are much more likely to be worth your time. They will help you automate the process for your agents that are not proactive. The same system must also be easy to use for those agents that are vested in their own marketing efforts.

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Case Study – Century 21 Hometown - Successful Video Marketing in Action Century 21 Hometown Realty is based on the central coast of California with 21 offices across three counties, 8 MLSs, and 400 agents. It received prestigious honor for being one of the fastest growing Century 21 franchises in America in 2012 and 2013. Virtual Tours have long been part of the Century 21 Hometown Realty marketing program. In the beginning, it was manifested from the company’s long time commitment to great photography. Even before the company offered a virtual tour solution, photography services were provided by the company on every listing. This primarily served the marketing efforts in print media.

Transition Away From Print In the mid-2000s, Century 21 Hometown was spending around $1 million on print advertising. The company also published and distributed its own full format, full color real estate magazine each month. The economics of this marketing effort could not be sustained through the recession. Century 21 Hometown shifted all print marketing spend into online marketing and allocated the investment to a new broker IDX/VOW website, online marketing and listing enhancement on portals.

Virtual Tour 1.0 - DIY is not as easy as it looks The story with tours represented a painful lesson. The first effort involved the company building a media server to host its own tours. Although Hometown enjoyed the flexibility of a self-managed solution, it was dying the death of a thousand cuts with debugging the code (Flash), enhancing features, and security and server maintenance.

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Fortunately, the evolution of responsive design and video in virtual tours was the motivation the company needed to evolve. The company tours were built on Flash and that simply does not work on Apple’s iOS.

Virtual Tours 2.0 – Do not try this at home The first run at virtual tours did not go so well, although the strategy was sound. While the company found a contemporary solution which worked on all types of mobile devices, offered branded and unbranded tours, and provided high quality videos, the program failed for a couple of very important reasons. Using these requirements, the company issued a “request for proposal” to a number of qualified virtual tour vendors and selected the one with the lowest price and entered into a two-year agreement.

Why it Didn’t Work – MLS Integration is KEY The biggest failure in rolling out the program was the decision to power the tours off of MLS data. This would not have been an issue if the company operated in only one MLS region. However, multiple MLSs require multiple feeds, feeds that change and break. Moreover, because their markets are contiguous to one another, some listings were in more than one MLS, which caused duplication and confusion. What the company learned over the two-year agreement is that its vendor was great at many things, but managing MLS data was not one of them.

No Automatic Population of Agent Data There was one other fatal flaw. Although the video tour provider automated the listing data, it did not automatically populate agent information. Since the vendor failed to automate the agent branding many of the company’s listings appeared on tours with incomplete agent bios and contact information.

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Virtual Tours 3.0 – Third time’s a charm

Integration with Franchise Data Feeds When the Virtual Tour contract expired, Century 21 Hometown issued a new request for proposal to a number of qualified vendors with new requirements. This time around the vendor was required to integrate directly with REALOGY’s data rather than the MLS. By connecting to REALOGY, they eliminated the multiple sources of data that were causing the tours to break with the old vendor. That was a breakthrough. It solved all of the problems that the company was having with data.

Automatic Video Tour for EVERY listing There’s one very simple reason that Century 21 chose their video tour solution – Real Biz Media - their agents don’t have to do anything! The system they chose creates a high quality video for EVERY property they have for sale. This automated property marketing shores up the company’s commitment to every seller, every time, and removes agent and staff labor. No agent has to touch it.

Strong Recruiting and Retention Tool According to Century 21 Hometown, an effective video tour solution can also be used as an effective recruiting and retention tool. In recruiting, they can demonstrate a $50/month or more savings that the company provides to their agents because the company covers the cost of the tours. This program ensures that one of the broker’s listings is going to be promoted effectively while providing a valuable reason to join or stay with the company. The company regularly reminds the agents that they do the heavy lifting of online marketing so they can focus on customers and sales. Many of their top producers, especially those that are less tech savvy really appreciate the value of this program.

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Significantly Improves Search Engine Rankings Search engine rankings are another key reason why Century 21 believes video marketing is key to their success. The company is the market leader in its markets, gaining market share regularly from its competitors. The video marketing program they have in place helps the company secure high rankings for each of their listings on major search engines. This helps keep consumers coming to their site and steering them AWAY from third party sites.

Great Promotion of Listings on Mobile Devices Century 21 also recognizes the ever-growing interest in viewing properties on mobile devices. They chose their solution because it works seamlessly on all mobile devices. This is NOT the case with some of the other programs that were not optimized for tablets and smartphones.

Invites Consumers to Engage with Listings The video solution Century 21 Hometown chose gives every one of their listings a chance to be viewed by consumers to learn a lot more about the property than they could with just a few images. The company is leading their local market and is doing so by incorporating video as a major tool.

Seamless Integration with CRM and Listing Data Many brokerages have an eLeads program hosted either by their franchise or they create programs for each of their agents to help them generate and nurture online leads. In the case of Century 21, Hometown they were looking for a product that provided a seamless integration with LeadRouter™, Realogy’s lead management system. This allows their agents to go to one source to manage their leads from any online marketing effort. Leads generated from their video marketing program are automatically populated in the LeadRouter™ system, creating another meaningful source of consumer interest in their listings.

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Effective Training and Support for ALL types of agents Without really effective training and support, just about every technology rollout in the real estate industry fails. Century 21 Hometown was careful to find a company that offered training for all levels of comfort with technology. They have programs for agents that think of technology as a “necessary evil” as well as programs for those that just can’t get enough of effective online programs. Real Biz Media worked closely with Century 21’s sales trainer to help their agents understand how video marketing will help grow their business. This training partnership has helped create much stronger adoption than earlier virtual tour programs Century 21 Hometown embarked upon. The roll out went great. The company’s choice to require the vendor to offer beginner, intermediate, and advanced webinar classes to agents each week was probably the smartest decision made. That took the burden off of the company trainers, managers, and office staff. Training 400 real agents about anything is a huge task. The company’s mantra was to point the agents to the training schedule or invite them to call the support helpline.

What to look for when choosing a Video Marketing Partner: Here are the criteria that Century 21 Hometown Realty used to choose their video partner. WAV Group suggests that you look at your own needs and use their list as a basis for creating your own requirements document before choosing your video tour provider.

• Tours automatically created via a data feed from the MLS • Tours published to social media including Facebook, Twitter,

RSS • Branded and unbranded tours

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• Agent notification of tours going live and being updated • Engagement stats on visits and inquiries accessible by agent

and company • Served on the company domain (for example, vt.c21home.com)

so that the company receives credit for the traffic and engagement created by the video tours

• Tours converted to video and published on YouTube.com • Agent and Broker cobranding template • Community Information – schools, lifestyle, etc. • Ability to add and display unique video content • Responsive design (works on all browsers and mobile) (no

Flash) • Weekly webinar training for agents – beginning, intermediate

and advanced sessions • Telephone support – at least 12 hours a day in the time zone of

the brokerage • Online tutorials • Integration with eLeads solution (for example, REALOGY’s

LeadRouter™)

For More Information: There are several high quality video tour companies that automatically create videos that you might want to consider: Real Biz Media WellcomeMatt Animoto

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About WAV Group WAV Group is the leader in providing research and thought leadership to the MLS industry seeking to create a wave of positive change with every subject that it tackles. The firm is comprised of corporate executives with a depth of expertise in the real estate industry proven to catalyze new approaches leading to more customer-centricity and business success. For more information or to register to receive report releases and newsletters please contact Marilyn Wilson at 805-473-9119 or [email protected] WAV Group supports of many of the nations largest real estate Multiple Listing Services, REALTOR® Associations, technology vendors, brokerages and franchises, in the US, Canada and Europe. WAV Group has expertise in the areas of strategic planning, technology evaluation, product development, market research, recruiting, sales & marketing plan development, technology selection and implementation.