If you saw our recent Visually Attract Tenants infographic, then you already know that videos can significantly improve the quality of the leads you get. When potential applicants have access to a walk-through video of your vacancy, they are able to immediately get a sense of what your rental property is like. Rather than sending interested applicants vacancy videos via email alone, use your video content to attract tenants on social media as well. With your smartphone alone, you can get a boost in applicants and build your reputation within the local area.
Capture your Rental’s Best Features
Before you can launch your video marketing campaign, you need to have video content to post. To take your vacancy’s video tour, use your smartphone. Essentially, you’re going to want to utilize the same tactics you have when taking rental photos.
In addition to flipping the phone horizontally, utilizing natural lighting, and avoiding automatic filters, you’re going to have to try to have a steady and even hand. You don’t want your video to come out shaky or disorienting. Consider turning up the brightness by a few degrees as well. This will help light up dark areas on your property and make the rooms seem bigger, but don’t overdo it. Finally, you’re going to want to avoiding panning and zooming altogether. Keep an even frame.
If you have multiple vacancies or a long-term plan to renovate your property, you might want to consider investing in a cheap digital camera. That way as the value of your property increases, the video quality doesn’t diminish those improvements every time you make a new walk through video.
Editing is Easier than You Think
The best thing about taking videos on your phone is that you have tons of low-cost video editing apps at your disposal. If you decide against a free app, the most you’re going to spend is $2.99. A lot of these apps are integrated with your email provider, Facebook and Youtube, so posting is a piece of cake.
If you’re using your own DSLR or digital camera, Youtube has its own editor built in. While it won’t be able to handle intense editing, it’ll work well for a walk through video. If you decide to play music in the background of your video, keep in mind that Youtube is strict on music copyright laws. Select music from their free resource page just to be safe. While editing your video isn’t entirely necessary, the effort will ultimately make your transitions between room to room, smoother.
Attract Applicants and Build your Reputation
Now that you finally have video content, you should start promoting your vacancy through it. Post your walk-through video on your website, Craigslist, via email and within your email signature, and on social media platforms. Facebook in particular can help your property get a lot of reception as, according to TechCrunch, on Facebook alone the average amount of daily video views doubled from 4 billion per day to 8 billion per day between April 2015 and November 2015.
Encourage your property’s neighbors to share your vacancy’s video and your information. Since they’ll be living in close proximity to your new tenants, they should want it to be someone they relatively know (even if they’re just Facebook friends). This will increase the chance for people to view your property, attracting quality leads that are already interested in applying.
When it comes to posting anything online, you’re going to have to be aware of the comments section. While it’s doubtful you’re going to get a swarm of negative comments, it’s important that you consider how to act if someone does say something. When dealing with negative comments on your videos, you’re going to want to do the same as when you handle bad online reviews.
Depending on how you react to both negative and positive comments, you might be able to jump start your reputation within the local community, which in turn attracts more applicants.
Marketing through videos isn’t a ‘one and done’ path. If you want your vacancy to attract more applicants and your reputation to grow, you’re going to have to consistently market all your vacancies through video and redo your walk through as you make improvements to your property. Considering how many people use social media, it doesn’t hurt to take out your phone, record, and use a few editing apps for the sake of more applicants. You never know, they might be your perfect tenants.
Do you use video tours to market your property now? How has it impacted the amount of applicants you get? Let us know your experience with video marketing in the comments section below and be sure to subscribe!
