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The key to effective video marketing is to build a library of keystone content that creates exposure, demonstrates your expertise, educates prospects and builds trust, Derek Carlson writes.

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Video content is a powerful marketing tool that most agents aren’t using, and most who are, aren’t using it as effectively as they could. That’s a huge missed opportunity.

The key is to build a library of keystone content that not only creates exposure but also demonstrates your expertise, educates prospects and builds trust. This helps you to attract the right prospects and produce more revenue.

But there are a few things you need to know before getting started. The first is that your videos likely won’t turn out as well as you’d like. That’s OK — you’ll get better over time. The second is that you need to be authentic or you’ll turn people off. So just be yourself.

5 posts to make and repurpose

Now let’s unpack the five videos every agent should make and repurpose.

What makes you unique

All clients want expertise in an agent, but before that, they need a reason to be drawn to you. Your story needs to resonate with them.

Some may want to work with a bubbly and outgoing personality, while others may resonate better with a more cold and calculating type.

They’ll certainly want someone with a specialization in the type of home they’re looking to buy or sell, but they’ll also likely want someone who has some kind of similarity with them. That might include shared religious beliefs, military service or a particular previous career, for example.

And most importantly, they’ll want to know why you got into real estate in the first place.

The truth is that with over 1.5 million agents in the market, we’re a commodity, so you need to stand out and differentiate yourself from your competitors. This is what will help you attract the right clients and repel the wrong ones.

X things every buyer/seller needs to know

Since we deal with real estate day in and day out, we often forget how complicated the process can be for everyone else. This doesn’t just apply to first-time buyers, either, because the average person only goes through a few real estate transactions in their life.

So a detailed video breaking down some of the most important things buyers and sellers need to know before going into a transaction will go a long way in educating prospects, easing their minds and demonstrating your expertise.

The key here is to avoid speaking only in industry jargon. By all means, use technical terms, but also be sure to break them down in a way that industry outsiders can understand exactly what you mean. Prospects need to clearly see your expertise, but they also need to feel like they can relate to you and that you can relate to them.

Since this topic will be pretty robust, you should film a long-form video that explains everything, and then clip that video into multiple short clips on each individual subtopic. This gives you the best of both worlds, with one comprehensive video that keeps viewers engaged for longer, as well as several short-form videos that drive tons of exposure and engagement on social media.

*Note: The “X” in the subhead for this section refers to a number you’ll use in the title for your video. You’ll want to use an odd number, between three and seven, as a numeral rather than a word. Odd numbers earn far more clickthroughs than even numbers.

Current market conditions

All real estate is local, so by publishing your own detailed analysis of current market conditions, you’re demonstrating your expertise and, more importantly, your understanding of the local market. This is a powerful way to build trust with prospects.

And as conditions change, you should make it a point to be the first agent in your market to publish an update. This shows that you have your finger on the pulse of your local market and that you care enough to keep people informed.

Problem-solving stories

Most transactions don’t go smoothly. Experienced agents know there will always be delays and things will always go wrong, but a lot of clients don’t know that.

By publishing videos about the problems you’ve solved in your real estate transactions, you’ll accomplish two things.

The first is that you’ll teach prospects to expect problems. When they understand that things will go wrong, they tend to react better when they do. And the second is that you’ll demonstrate your problem-solving abilities, which gives them confidence that you’ll be able to handle whatever comes up in their transaction.

A good approach here is to film one long video with three to five examples, and then clip that into several shorter videos as well. And as you continue to close transactions, you’ll have more scenarios you can use to create even more videos.

How to identify the right agent

We’ve all seen our share of good and bad agents and can differentiate between the two. But most prospects can’t, so this creates a tremendous opportunity to provide value by telling them what to look for. And in doing so, you’ll also highlight why they should work with you instead of your competitors.

One of the tactics I like to use in this type of video is to point out some of the red flags to look out for in a bad agent and then explain how a good agent would handle the same situation. For example, one red flag would be when an agent lets the buyer steer the price just to get the listing rather than pushing back based on market conditions.

Then, when you end up talking with a prospect, and you do exactly what you said in your video that a good agent would do, especially when it’s a situation that could cost you a listing, you’ll earn more credibility with them.

As with the problem-solving video, you should film one long-form video with three to five topics and then clip that into several short-form videos.

Derek Carlson runs Realty ONE Group in Naples, Florida.

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