Posted: June 11, 2021
Video content creation may be about half of what we do here at Four Tens Digital, property marketing videos for commercial real estate listings is our main bread and butter. We dedicate a lot of time and effort to making our client’s videos exactly what they are looking for while standing out amongst a sea of CRE videos online.
Which begs the question: how exactly does a video stand out as property videos continue to grow in use and popularity? Is the market becoming too saturated with property marketing videos to get attention with them anymore?
Is the market saturated?
While drone use for photography and videography has been in use for a good number of years now, it did take the commercial real estate world extra time to catch up and begin using it on a wide-scale basis. Initially, cost was prohibitive to drone footage being cost-effective for anything other than the highest caliber of projects (with the highest rate of return for marketing costs). However, that is not the case any longer, as drone technology is now widely available and cost-efficient.
We would also argue that while property videos are finally being adopted frequently in 2021, they have not yet saturated the market. Plenty of listings go without a property marketing video for a variety of reasons.
There is also a wide range in quality amongst the property marketing videos you may see linked in property marketing emails, property listing sites, or even linked in. Some “videos” are merely photo slideshows disguised as video content. Others are a cumulation of raw video content stitched together.
How do I make my videos stand out?
While flashy effects, 3d animated renderings, and glossy video footage will certainly make a property video stand out from the crowd, there are other ways to make a property marketing video memorable:
- Tell a story: Why would a tenant want to lease your space? What would make an investor consider your investment listing? Consider your property from your ideal client’s point of view. What info do they want to know? What may not be as relevant at the beginning of a property search? Use these answers to guide the storyboard for your video.
- Keep info concise: Using the answers to the above questions, you should have a long list of data points and information to share with interested parties. But is all that information necessary? What would be better suited to see in the brochure or OM? Is there some information that you only want to be shared if a lead contacts you directly?
- Short videos are better: The other limiting factor is the duration of the video. A 1:30-2:00 length is great for property videos because it requires you to only use the most important information. You can’t get off track when you have a tight timeline for a video. That’s why we suggest a minimalist approach.
What do you mean, a “minimalist approach”?
It is incredibly tempting to hand a video editor your listing’s OM and say, “Turn this into a video.”
Please, don’t actually do this.
While a listing brochure or OM should absolutely be jam-packed with any and all relevant information regarding the property listing, the same is absolutely not the case for a property marketing video. A property marketing video should be like a teaser convincing interested parties to download an OM or contact a broker to learn more. The video doesn’t need to, nor should it contain all the information in a property brochure or OM.
Think about every image, every drone footage clip, every logo on a map, and every title or sentence in a voiceover script needing to count. Editors for text-based projects do this all the time. Is this sentence necessary? Is this word choice correct? That same level of scrutiny should be applied to the content in a property marketing video.
Keep only what you need and leave out all the rest. This is the clearest path to an effective, memorable property marketing video through a minimalist approach.
No idea how to convert a property brochure or OM into a minimalist yet effective property marketing video? Leave it to the video editors at Four Tens Digital! We’ll work with your team to find the right story to tell for your property listing so that the most important and relevant information is included.