Using iMovie to market your property

Marketing a property with iMovie

Recently I have been speaking with more and more agents who have asked me did our website support and allow agents to upload iMovie. As somebody who tries to keep ahead of the technology curve for property managers I was somewhat embarrassed to say “tell me more about iMovie” rather than say “whats iMovie”. And after finding out what iMovie was I scrambled to get the development team to implement iMovies into the websites we create for letting and estate agents. Now you can use iMovie to market your property with Rentview websites.

What is iMovie?

iMovie is an app available on the app store for iPhone and iPad at a cost of €4.99 and for those of you with a Mac its a little more costly at €14. The app allows you to easily create a professional looking movie (marketing video for property) from photos, video clip and audio clips through your device quickly and easily.

Using Video means

-you are 53 times more likely to appear on the 1st page of Google

-40% Higher click thorugh rate on search results

-Visitors stay three times longer on your website

-Expect to receive 5-7% of visitors coverting to leads

Dont believe me check this out

Here is a marketing iMovie I made on my first attempt

Why use video to market a property

I have covered this topic a number of times in previous blogs and here is a quick analysis;

Rental Property Marketing Strategy– by using video your tenant applicant enquiries are more qualified. This will decrease enquiries but increase the number of qualified viewers i.e they like location, price and property lay out.

Video Content Marketing – By using keywords within your video title and descriptive text you can increase your agencies presence online through tenants search. This is an excellent way to showcase your property on the first page of Google.

How to create a property marketing video using iMovie

I would recommend taking the pictures of the property prior to making your marketing iMovie. Once you do that the whole process for a beginner should take no longer then 30 minutes for your first marketing video. Once you become a little more comfortable with the app it can take only 15 minutes or less (and this is on an iPhone so I would imagine using the iPad is a lot quicker).

Creating an iMovie in 10 Steps

Step 1. Download the app from the app store

Step 2. Select a “New Project” and select “Movie”

Step 3. Select the Movie theme from the 8 themes and press create movie, I find modern and bright the best.

Step 4. Simply add your photos one by one as if you were walking through the property presenting it to a tenant.

Step 5. Once you add each photo from start to finish you can pinch the photo and decrease or increase its showing time within the clip. (it defaults at 6 seconds per image )

Step 6. Insert text within the images, you can do this on any number of the images and its a great way to give information to your audience i.e price, location , features, agency branding etc. The text can be centered at the bottom of the screen and you can even edit its presentation.

Step 7. You can include audio clips and or backing music from the pre installed music or as you become more familiar with iMovie you can add it from your own iTunes library.

Step 8. Review and tweak, watch and edit any changes which need to be altered to the video. Once complete you simply click the back button on the top left hand side.

Step 9. Edit the movie title and Upload it to your email or directly to YouTube, Facebook , Vimeo etc

Step 10. Optimise your video for SEO if you upload it too Youtube or Vimeo

Step 11. Insert the url of your marketing movie into your website page that lists the corresponding property. This is only for agents who can list YouTube clips into their website or portal. This is an excellent way to increase traffic and SEO for your website if you can insert the clip. If you cant insert a video clip into your website and would like to we can certainly help with our property management website design.

February 28, 2014

How to use social media for your letting agency

Letting agency social Media

As you can read in lots of my blog topics both here and on my how to set up a letting agency blog I talk about social media a lot. There are many forms of social media and if used correctly it can help your letting agency or property management company create awareness with a very small budget.

I looked through a number of my own contacts within my social media circles for a good example of a letting agency who did exactly that and I think an excellent example is Domino Letting in Glasgow.

Introduction to Domino Letting

Established in 2010 by James Callaghan they have quickly risen up the rankings to become a recognised name within the letting and property management industry in Glasgow.

Not being based in Glasgow I can only say this from my knowledge of agents online in Glasgow and lets be real about it online is where its at…isnt it?

Interview with James Callaghan

How long has Domino Lettings been in business?

– Formed in December 2010

How many units are you currently managing?

– Mid level sized agency

You have 7 tenant and landlord pledges which is definitely unique, it certainly personalises the site and makes your agency stand out. Is this something that your landlords and or tenants ever mention to you as the reason they choose to work with you or rent from you?

– Very much so. For landlords they’re not the sole reasons. Our reputation and 3 landlord guarantees lead that. For tenants though they provide a solid wall of assurance in an industry much maligned (sometimes fairly, sometimes not)

Your agency is one of the best agencies I have come across in the UK who uses social media well. Did you always plan on using social media?

– Certainly. I’m actually from a Technology background so very comfortable with new media and the power it holds. We’re also advocates of Inbound Marketing techniques and social media is an integral part of that. Didn’t we meet on such a medium ourselves?!?

What is your favourite social media you platform and why?

– Horses for courses. Twitter for pulse info, Pinterest for aesthetics, Facebook for consumers, G+ for the future. Of all though I would say LinkedIn is the medium that is most suited to my own role of company growth.

Your blogs and video blogs are very informative. Is your strategy in blogging to educate firstly and showcase your knowledge in the industry secondly?

– Exactly that. There’s a lot of mis-information in the Property world so Whiteboard Wednesdays helps scotch myths and empower landlords and tenants to make informed decisions. That this shows us as experts in our field is important, but secondary.

For you in terms of return on investment and that investment may be time as much as money what form of social media or marketing has been the best?

– I’m from a direct sales background so do prefer to see tangible and immediate results. For that reason, LinkedIn seems to yield the best return through my network and groups. However, we have signed business in the last few months with clients commenting that they first saw us on twitter, heard us on the radio, saw a To Let sign and then on an organic google search. All these contact points increased our brand awareness and brought the client to our door.

With regards to your blogging, after how long did you start seeing a return on investment?

– I find blogging to be more ambient rather than a direct lead generator. Clients seeing our blogs acts as one of the reasons they come with us as opposed to being the sole catalyst for an enquiry. It has definitely brought us indirect leads with the client being referred from someone who read a blog/saw a video.

What are your thoughts on Google apps and in particular Google Reviews?

– Controversial! Google reviews are excellent and powerful (in SEO terms) but unpoliced and wrongly weighted (a negative review gives positive SEO lift). We’re not a Google house so don’t use too many of their apps. Google+ may come to be something in the future but it’s hard to find the need for it at present.

Do you request reviews or do you allow landlords and tenants find this themselves?

– We soft request reviews on our email signatures but do ask clients to tell others if they’ve had a good experience with us. Word of mouth generated 74% of our business last year.

If there was one piece of advice that you would offer to another agency what would it be?

– Don’t do it. The market is oversaturated…;-) The advice would be to be the best at what you do and then educate your market with any information you have that would help them to make an informed decision on buying you.

-End of interview

A big thanks to James for his time in sharing his knowledge, experience and success with us. If you are about to frantically go off and set up a Google places account, YouTube or facebook account then you should get knowledge from my blog posts.

October 22, 2012

Letting Agency Marketing Tools

Today we are going to look at 3 free tools on the web available to letting agents throughout the world online to market their services on. The digital age is in full swing, and the way people communicate and digest information is completely different to those of the same age five years ago.

So my top 3 tools for Letting Agency Marketing are:

letting-agency-marketing

#1 Vimeo or YouTube Video blogs

Ever started reading something and then realised it’s so long that by the time you have gotten to the end you forgot what the hell it was about? Well in my opinion, long-winded product or service descriptions are becoming more and more outdated and people want to be shown or told visually rather than textually. So take the first step and start recording some videos to release to your landlords and tenants. We prefer to use the vimeo service due to the quality of the video.

You can also watch our video on how to set up a letting agency video channel.

#2 Pinterest Picture Sharing

As I mentioned before, the days of everything being described or sold in text are long gone. Images rule nowadays. Why not get creative with some original imagery to go along with your marketing messages? We do it a lot on our Facebook page and it is a nice break from the usual content people would expect. We are slowly building our Pinterest page with a wide range of photos from the team out on the field, business events, funny viral images and more. Check the page out here.

#3 Facebook and Twitter Pages

I am presuming that many letting agents and estate agents will have already got this far with their marketing, but many do it wrong or see now value in using social media Facebook and Twitter for business. Social media is important these days, whether you like it or not.

Have realistic expectations, though. I don’t follow an agency to find out every single listing they have available, likewise I don’t like a Facebook page to constantly hear what’s on offer from the agency. Use it as a customer development tool and start running some competitions or posting some interesting and funny relevant content to get a buzz going about your agency.

by Rentview

October 12, 2012

Lettings Management Industry- a PEST Analysis

Some of you will have read the article last week on business strategy for letting and estate agents in the Lettings Management Industry, which received a good response, so I am continuing in a similar theme this week. Obviously we discussed what strategies agencies can take to the market, but before you get anywhere close to deciding on your strategy towards achieving a competitive advantage, you have to first do some analysis. Analysing the situation you are in as an agency will involve:

internal analysis (factors unique to the agency like routines, capabilities, strengths and weaknesses) and
external analysis which is where I am going to start today.

lettings-management-industry-PEST-ANALYSIS

So external analysis involves factors outside of the agency’s control and common tools business analysts use are; PEST analysis (political, economic , social and technology factors), Driving forces, Key success factors, Industry Life Cycle and Industry forces. One of the most prominent and more important tool is the PEST analysis, which many of you will be already familiar with. So here we go:

Political: This is where business activity in the industry is restricted due to either laws or interest groups. The first thing that comes to mind is the new property services regulatory authority. In a previous blog, we learned that several Irish agencies had to re-apply for their licences after failing to have the correct information prepared for the body. There is also new regulation set to be brought in next year on the monitoring of monies in client accounts.

Economic: These factors are mainly to do with the purchasing power and spending patterns in the market. The question a company usually asks themselves here is are people willing to spend on the services provided in the industry. In Ireland this, in my opinion, is a ‘no’ to the vast majority of landlords, tenants, home-sellers and any other customers of letting or estate agents. This is down to one simple factor of people not having as much money to spend anymore. The one area I might say the consumer is willing to spend on is the sale of a home, as it may be urgent or important to get the highest price obviously.

lettings-management-industry

What every agency in the Lettings Management Industry wants, a bunch of happy tenants, landlords & homeowners.

Social : Social factors affecting the industry include the population trends, family size, diversity and education. So thanks to Indexmundi.com, I gathered some stats on some of the key trends I think are effecting the industry currently. Things are good and bad, our population is still rising and currently stands at 4.72 Million, up from 4.67 last year. Net Migration rate is down from 4.5 to 1.6 per thousand. This means there is less and less people coming to Ireland. And lastly the birth rate is 15.8/1000 which again is down from 16.5 in 2010. In my opinion, these stats are not good for the industry.

Technological : Technology is the final piece to this puzzle we have been trying to solve. Currently I would think technology is actually affecting areas of the property services industry such as management, sales and lettings, marketing and customer relations. As we become more and more fond of our devices and technologies, agencies must adapt to suit their market. This may involve having a digital strategy in marketing their services or a C.R.M system to manage their clients.

This analysis applies to the Lettings Management Industry specifically, but it can be applied to any business.

That’s it for this week’s business strategy blog. Thanks for reading!

by Rentview

December 15, 2011

Here is a short overview on how a letting agency can set up a Google ad campaign directing visitors to your website. The visitors we aim for here in the video are Landlords who are looking for letting or property management agents in the area the rented property is based.

Through Google ad words you can set up a direct marketing campaign with a limited budget. You can set an ad campaign up from as little as €2 per day. Each adword costs different, so for example an adword/term such as “Property manager Dublin” may cost as much as €2.50 to appear on the top listings of the search term. You can set a maximum spend on an adword/term where it will limit the cost per each one or all of your words/terms. If another company have a higher budget they will appear above your own ad. The lower your bid the lower your ad will appear, the ads will also appear on the right hand side of the search term.

You only pay for a click through, so for instance if your keyword / term appears 50 times in a day but only gets 1 visitor through to your site well then you only pay for 1 visitor. You can track all your keyword / term search results in your adword dashboard.

You can also set the landing page of the visitor to your site. So for example if you are aiming your ad at attracting new landlords to your site well then its best to land them on your services page. You can copy and paste the url from the page you would like your landlords to land on from the url bar and insert it in your ad when setting this up.

Its always best to track your costs and results of marketing and with Google adwords you can do that exactly. Think clever and spend clever 😉

I hope this video helps, but if you have any questions please feel free to connect with me.

Email; andreas@rentview.com

Twitter feed; @Andreas_Riha

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

November 24, 2011April 6, 2023

Setting up your Google places page for your agency.

So now that you have your Google Analytics set up, let’s focus on getting more visitors to your site.

Google places is a great way to build traffic to your site for FREE. Google places (map listings ) are now placed with the organic search results (non-paid results), with many Place pages located near the top of the results page. It will also increase your presence, giving you a boost in your organic search traffic. By setting up your Google places page you are ensuring your information is easily found and potential customers can find out more information on your businesses.

1 – Make or claim your Google Places Page

Your business may already have a Places page, even if you never set one up. Search for your brand name to see if one already exists. If there is a listing for your business, click to the place page and look for the “business owner?” link, then follow the instructions to claim it. If there is no places page for your business already, then start a new one at google.com/places.

2 – Verify Your Google Places Page

Next, verify your Google Places Page. You must verify that you are the business owner or else your listing will not be trusted by search engines. Unless it is verified, your listing might not appear in the search results, or how often it appears may be limited.

Verifying is simple, but it will take some time. When setting up your Places page, follow the instructions. Alternatively, click the ‘verify’ link when logged in to your places account. You will have to wait for a postcard to be delivered to your business address within 2-3 weeks (though you may get the option to receive a phone call instead).

Once your Places page is verified, you should optimise your page and make it easier for potential customers to find you.

Include keywords in the description of your Google Places page – Describe your business; keep it short and sweet. Include some keywords. Use Google Adwords keyword planner (this was Keyword tool) to help you to better understand what potential customers are typing in when they search for a service like yours. Don’t go for overkill though, just a few relevant keywords should do the trick!
Optimise your business title – In Google Places your business name should be your title. This could also include some information on your location. Google Adwords keyword planner should be useful again here.
Choose some appropriate categories – You can include up to five categories and this matters, however you should include only those categories which are relevant to your business.
Complete your Places page as much as possible – The more complete you can make your Google Places page the better. This gives you an edge over less complete pages in Google’s eyes. Some information you may want to include is; your opening hours, additional agency information, links to your properties advertised on pportal sites, and social media links. All this will make your pages more appealing to potential clients too.

4 –Rankings for Google places

Citations and mentions are more important than links to your website within Google Places, it is widely believed. Measuring the ‘buzz’ around certain local businesses or sites can be difficult for search engines so they try to take into account any mentions online. This is becoming more popular with the use of smart phones. You can look for chances to gain citations through –

Directories – Create a listing in any major directories; just be sure that your information is consistent across all listings you have online.
Review sites – Reviews give search engines a signal that your business is a real place that is known and liked (or disliked) by real people. Try to get reviews from your landlords on your services online.
Local Resources & Events Pages – Look for local directories, business listings, and event pages for opportunities to list your site. Check out competitors – visit their Google Places pages and see where their citations are coming from (you’ll see a list of links titled “more about this place” at the bottom of the page, which is a great place to start.)

5 – Optimize your website and be sure they can find you!

Good SEO for your website makes perfect sense as this willup your ranking in Google searches and attract visitors. This is also a good citation for your Google Places page. Include contact details in a prominent place on your website so that visitors can find them easily.