As a property manager one thing that is constantly on your mind is how to market your residential community to a wider audience. The one thing you don’t want is long term vacancies because that directly correlates to a loss of income. But what are effective ways to market your community? Likely you depend on word of mouth from your current residents as well as social media and maybe even promotional ads via radio or television. While these methods can be useful, the new and effective trend is video marketing. The past few years have seen an explosion in video marketing. In fact, a whopping 63% of businesses have started using video marketing within the past 2 years. You probably still have your doubts. Do you have the skills or resources to produce an effective video? Will you need to invest a significant amount of money into equipment? Rest assured, not only can you produce an effective video but you’d be surprised about the resources you likely already have. Keep in mind, marketing doesn’t always have to equate to a direct “sale”, or in your case – lease. Rather, look at video marketing as a way to let people know what you have to offer. In a competitive rental market, we encourage you to take full advantage of video marketing as a way to give consumers a visual motivator of your beautiful residential community. If you’re still on the fence, we have several good reasons to consider adding video marketing to your tool box.
Boost in Conversation and Sales
Humans are visual creatures – it’s one of our most dominant senses. Adding a video to your webpage or social media pages can increase the conversation about your community by up to 80%. What this mean for you? An increase in residents! Did you know that 74% of users who watch a video about a product ended up purchasing it? Now, we realize your “product” is an apartment but the principle is the same. Seeing the beautiful spaces your community offers might just be what a prospective resident needs to sign a lease.
Good ROI
When you take those first steps into the area of video marketing we know that it won’t be the easiest or cheapest thing to do. The good news is that your hard work does pay off, with 83% of businesses reporting a good return on investment due to their video content. So not only will your videos get better as you gain experience but you can rest assured that your effort will lead to a significant ROI. Also keep in mind that your videos do not have to be perfect. Users are less concerned with the quality of the video as they are the content. The biggest turn off to users is a video that doesn’t effectively talk about the product it’s advertising. In your case, make sure that whatever videos you post thoroughly show your property or explain the process that you advertise. Think of video marketing like chocolate – even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good!
Users Love Videos
The bottom line is that people love videos, especially people who spend a lot of time on their smart phones. Simply having a video on your website increases the amount of time visitors spend on your site. Did you know that you are 53 times more likely to show up first on a Google search if you have a video on your website? That’s a lot of additional web exposure for something as simple as having a video on your site. The other thing to keep in mind is that YouTube is the second largest search engine and guess who now owns YouTube? That’s right – Google! It really is that simple. Videos yield better search results which means more time spent on your website which leads to more residents. With 90% of consumers watching videos on their mobile devices, video marketing is the way to go in 2019.
Video Makes Life Easy for Consumers
We live in a busy world. Consumers don’t have time to call every rental property in the area, confirm availability, schedule tours, etc. But posting videos of your available properties lets a consumer see you “product” in action as well as saves a lot of time they don’t have to waste. Again, videos don’t have to be complicated. Something as simple as using the Live Video or 360 picture option on your Facebook profile are simple ways to visually engage your audience.
A Way to Outdo the Competition
Although video marketing has proven effective, the truth is that many companies – especially rental companies – haven’t embraced by the trend. You can stay ahead of the curve and get a leg up on the competition just by using the video features that several of your social media accounts already have. Additionally, video will give your current and prospective residents a more personal connection. By doing a quick live update about simple things – specials, rent due date reminders, or even weather conditions you are conveying a message in a more personal way than when you simply post text on a website. This personal touch alone will convey an empathic message to your residents and put you a step ahead of the competition.
Videos are surprisingly easy to create, watch and share. Just use your phone and use the share option to upload the video on to your social media sites and that’s it – you’re done. If that’s all you ever do, you’re still marketing your residential community in ways you haven’t before. If you find that your videos are generating a lot of website traffic and you enjoy making them then it might be a good idea to invest into a camera and to spend some time researching how to make a good quality video and then up your game. Here’s the bottom line – video marketing will absolutely become a necessity in the near future. Take a few simple steps and start incorporating video into your business plan and we guarantee you’ll be happy with the results.
