Main menu
Main content

News

Lights, Camera, Action: Why You Should Make Your Listings Interactive

Article particulars

18 February 2014

Lights, Camera, Action: Why You Should Make Your Listings Interactive

Main article content

A listing with standout photography and a compelling description is one that attracts maximum attention, prompting more people to take action by viewing the property.

But if you want to take your listings to another level, make them interactive. Last year we predicted that video would be big for real estate marketers in 2014. It’s time to jump on the bandwagon. 

Adding video, virtual tours and Google Street View to a listing leaves a highly professional impression and helps potential buyers get a better feel for the property. They’re also great ways of showcasing regional or rural properties that aren’t easy to get to, and appealing to interstate and overseas buyers. 

Here are a few tips for creating great interactive listings:

Keep it professional…

If you’ve never recorded a video before, brush up on some professional filmmaking techniques first – bad lighting, shaky camerawork and mumbled lines belong in student films, not professional property videos. Good cameras are increasingly inexpensive, so don’t record anything on your iPhone. And there are several easy-to-use editing programs out there; do a few takes and edit the raw material for a flawless finished product.

…Or actually go professional

If the vendor paid budget can accommodate an extra $200 to $400, hire a professional real estate videographer. They bring a wealth of experience and often have advanced post-production facilities to add that extra wow-factor to the presentation. Professional firms also have libraries filled with stock footage of local area attractions which can be edited into your own footage to showcase the area’s amenities and lifestyle. 

Keep it simple

It doesn’t need to be anything more complex than a two minute YouTube video – think quality, not quantity. Once it’s finished you can embed it in the listing, post it on your blog, and share it on your social media networks. A short, polished video shows that you’re on the cutting edge when it comes to marketing property, but a poorly done film reflects badly on both the property and your business. A good video is also a great word-of-mouth tool; happy buyers can share the video with friends and family after they’ve signed the contract, indirectly promoting your services. 

Choose a Subject

Keep the video short and focus on a simple message. Do one thing; a tour of the property, a guide to the neighbourhood, or an interview with the vendor about their memories of the home. Tell a story and create an emotional attachment between potential buyers and the property. Don’t feel that you have to cram everything into the video. As with the property photos, you don’t want to give everything away. Aim to arouse curiosity about the home.

SEO

Optimise your video’s SEO to push the listing higher in Google’s rankings. Combined with a well-written description and great photography, the listing will be in the best position to get maximum traction with buyers. Often, people prefer watching to reading, and they’ll likely click on the video before doing anything else – a listing with a video can get more clicks than one without. 

If you don’t have the time or resources to add a video to the listing, here are a some other interactive elements you can try:

  • Including a Google Street View link to the property lets potential buyers see the home’s exterior and gives them a taste of the neighbourhood.
  • Virtual tours allow people to inspect the property online. They work by blending multiple photos of the property together to create a 360 degree rotating tour of the rooms, allowing buyers to ‘walk through’ the home.
  • An empty property makes it challenging for buyers to imagine themselves living in the space. Help them out by adding virtual furniture into some of the photos to demonstrate how the rooms could be used. 
  • A simple slideshow of property photos set to music or a voice over can be quicker to create than a video. You can structure the slideshow in a logical way, to help viewers feel they are ‘walking through’ the house.

 Do you use video or other interactive elements in your listings? Share your experiences in the comments!

 

Tags: , ,