Time to Believe in Online Video Marketing
This isnt the first time I wrote this, nor will it be the last. Online video marketing should be in your arsenal, and everyday it gets clearer. Open your eyes, or your phone, and take a peak around. Youtube is a billion dollar business, Instagram and Vine have taken mobile video sharing to another level in the past few months, and everyone (well almost) has a smartphone that plays and takes HD video.
Takeaway #1: Video is Growing Up
What makes video so compelling? Well for one it is the opportunity for you to create the environment you want for your message, that freedom from the schedule of TV/Radio stations, the limits of print media, the formats and lengths they all impose is liberating and allows true creativity to emerge. When you create video for your business it is an authentic place without the filter and mis-reporting that going through another media funnel creates. It is your message, said in your way.
Takeaway #2: Online Video is your chance to Speak and Show the message you want.
There is undoubtedly a safety in the norm, of placing full page ads in the paper for your real estate company, because you always have. There is a definite break that needs to be made, starting to make or deciding to invest in online video is more work than telling the ad rep to run the same ad as last month because it is the last minute and you have no time to work on a new one. Maybe they graciously offer to create one for you that is cookie cutter and page filler perfection. I would argue that is more dis-service than service.
If you make the decisions, if you pay the bills, if you are ultimately responsible for the long term well being of your business you have this decision to make: either you continue to pour your resources into media with shrinking audiences and limited returns or you find the path that is right for your business in what is the defining medium of today. Online video, (Youtube – Instagram – Vine), is already huge, and getting bigger daily. Can you say that about where your ads are running right now?
The fight you will have to win is with the members of your organization that are beholden to the past, that feel you are doing the wrong thing by discontinuing the money dump into old media. They fear change, are more comfortable with gradually losing return on investment (YOUR INVESTMENT), and will disparage what is now the way of the land. They are the Crabby Purists, the same types of people who would rather have an abandoned building in ‘their’ neighborhood than have a new restaurant or condo building come in and change the dynamic. It isn’t a question if the change is happening, it is fact.
The only question is when you pull the trigger. Catch up to this sea change you will undoubtedly be determined to, start now to take the lead among your peers and let them do the catching up.
Want an example? Answer this, the next time you list your home are you going to sign over the privilege to list it to an agent who won’t go the extra mile and make a video for it? See Broker Matt McLennan, of Century 21 McLennan and what he does for his listings Here
Why would you not ask, no expect, that kind of marketing for your home? Is an MLS listing, a paragraph, ten pictures, and a 1″x1″ ad enough marketing for your most valuable possession? I say Hell No, and it shouldn’t be enough for your business no matter what you do.
Takeaway #3: Ignore the Crabby Purists and Get Going
Share a link to your latest online marketing video with me on Twitter (@spirocks), and I will retweet it to all my followers. Lets get the word out together.