Here’s an excerpt of Coldwell Bankers recent results from an article on Inman http://tr.im/pFIL

‘One month after launching a branded YouTube channel, Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC says the site now offers 1,700 videos and has attracted more than 200,000 visitors.

Coldwell Banker’s YouTube channel, “On Location,” has been among the top 10 most-viewed branded channels on YouTube since its launch, the company said, thanks in part to the more than 1,300 original videos uploaded by its brokers and agents”

Also, with regard to video on mobile devices, there appears to be quite a lot of agencies that have embraced bulk SMS campaigns. Do you feel that agents are better sending a text based SMS message that links across to the video embedded on a web page or are they better to send out the video directly as an MMS video? (taking into consideration the costs).

I’d prefer text based SMS linked to a web page, only because I’d prefer that the client visit my website. I haven’t done any testing on sending video out as just a bulk MMS, I’d be interested to hear if agents have tried sending MMS videos & what sort of response they get.

Sean, I think that you only have to look at how inexpensive & flexible the internet is compared to TV to see that if Century 21 allocate their money correctly into clever opt-in marketing campaigns they could build an absolutely massive database of customers & build their brand with consumers that want to hear their message rather than using the interruption marketing approach that the TV advertising relies on.

Dollar for dollar, my monies on Century 21 coming out on top, especially if they can create some great database building strategies.

TV marketers are realising that it’s becoming a lot harder to get a TV viewer up off their couch & get them to run to their computer to register their email details. The offers have to be almost unbelievable to get somebody to act nowadays. Also, people don’t turn on the TV to search for property. The internet is where they go to search.

I believe for RE/MAX to come out in front they will need to leverage the internet by re-purposing these videos across the web & use lots of other effective online marketing strategies to stand a chance of coming out in front.

One of the real myths around real estate video is that it is expensive.

Compared with other mediums, the relative price and flexibility of the medium make it very cost effective. For example, the starting point for an agent video profile is around $700 which gives you a good quality video up to 90 seconds in length. It obviously goes up from there. Property videos are cheaper again.

In relation to Robert’s point we have found that generally franchise groups at a corporate marketing level move a little too slow for the demands of their key operators so you will often find a disparity in the short / mid term marketing goals leaving key operators to innovate on their own.

When a corporate office acts decisively, the results work very well. McGrath in SYD (video), Hodges in MEL (video) and the Ray White Group (in-room video auctions) are a few examples. It is not necessarily easy but from a brand perspective, the consistency it provides is valuable.

David

In theory a great concept for the respective Head Offices although I maintain that none understand online which is most evident by the standards of their respective websites.

For quite sometime I have maintained a stand alone perspective and I can’t see that changing anytime soon. For mine the agents that simply relied on Head Office online direction are the ones that have gone backwards too.

I doubt that respective Head Offices would not even know what SEO and SEM stand for – it is simply just not their go.

If you promoted the video & the rest of your group promoted the video there can be a lot more power put behind a networks marketing message.

Dave, I

I totally agree with you on using online videos as part of real estate promotion. If agents don’t start to embrace Web 2.0 as part of their marketing the competition that does is going to be so far ahead.

Not only is it online video agents need to be using it’s all of the social web. With Australia being in the GFC (Great Financial Crisis) agents need to be reaching more customers cheaper, and what better place then using social media.

Awesome stuff Greg!

Matt

Real Estate Franchises have used the power of leverage in offline media campaigns extremely well for years. Their company brands appear on agency shop-fronts, signboards, newspapers, stationery (business cards, brochures, etc, etc). Most of the front line branding of a Real Estate Franchise is paid for by the business owner or their clients. That’s an effective use of leverage.

Yet online the franchises appear to be placing most of their emphasis around their branding appearing on the major portals & their company website. Yet, as an example, if they looked at the power of some of the marketing that agents like you do for the R& W brand Robert, I believe that R&W should be providing you with top quality video content that you could promote out to your network & these videos could be re-used across the franchises entire network time and time again.

The fact that RE/MAX