In our homebuilders media guide, we outlined the basics of real estate media and the essential digital media assets you need to cover your floor plans in 2023
In this article you’ll take a deep dive in how to leverage the most powerful digital asset, video, in creative ways to market your floor plans that will pull you ahead of your competition, and drive the curiosity and attention of the broker and consumer market. Not only this, but you will learn about the organic and paid channels to plug this media into to to ensure high ROI and discoverability
#1: The Broker’s Perspective
This is a method I don’t see many builders (at all) using, yet brokers use it everyday to market their often multi seven figures listings to drive attention, trust, and awareness.
If you watch real estate videos, you’ve probably seen a realtor breakdown one of their properties, they walk through the house, talk about its unique features, advantages, floor plan design and more
These vary in quality and effectiveness, as it’s important to keep it short, interesting, and impactful, but viewers love getting a deeper understanding of properties through the eyes of industry experts, and who better than top performing realtors?
On the flip side, brokers bring tons of leads and sales to home builders, and the consumer market trusts brokers voices for their unbiased opinions and industry knowledge
In fact, you probably have some brokers you know right now that love bringing clients to your door…
This is where you can leverage a win win marketing video that benefits you both
Have a broker come into one of your model homes (you can do your top performing models) and do a breakdown of why they love recommending this floor plan to their clients.
They will go through the highlights, features, customizations, floor plan, unique advantages and more
The best part is, it comes off as an unbiased perspective that consumers can watch, and, because you’re a homebuilder who uses this floor plan in perpetuity, this is now an evergreen marketing video that you can use for years to come in a variety of paid/organic channels!
The featured broker now gets free marketing wherever this video is featured, it’s truly a win win solution
#2: The Homebuilders Perspective
Now for the homebuilders perspective!
This is great because it is very personal and intimate to the builder, you can get an exec team member or lead designer and have them talk about the design process of the floor plan
They can talk about why it’s one of your best floor plans, why consumers love it, why you decided on certain design choices, who it’s for, the starting price points and more
Consumers love seeing the faces of an organization and it builds tons of trust within potential homebuyers
Remember: keep it short, impactful, cinematic, and show off shots of the actual floor plan while the member of your organization is talking about it.
If they are particularly charismatic, you can even have them placed in certain parts of the home much like the realtor video
Overall, this is a great strategy to show off top performing floor plans that builds tons of trust with homebuyers, and goes beyond a traditional real estate video
#3 The Homebuyers Perspective
As you probably already know
client testimonials are one of the most powerful tools to build trust, social proof, and conversions for your homebuilding company
While it’s great to have general testimonials talking about your process, client experience, why they chose you etc
We can take it a step further for your top selling floor plans and identify a client of yours that purchased that floor plan and have them speak specifically about the floor plan
Much like the broker video, this is great because it is an unbiased, extremely positive experience with your company that shows off your floor plan
You can ask them why they chose the floor plan, their favorite things about it, the customization options they chose, the building experience and more
This will not only show off your amazing floor plan, but also show off how amazing your organization and commitment to quality is
If you can, be sure to capture some lifestyle footage of the homeowner within the floor plan! Cooking, hanging out in common areas, enjoying a book in a reading corner, whatever you can think of!
If you’re having trouble convincing past clients to agree to a client testimonial, offer $250+ amazon gift cards in exchange for the video! This ensures past clients are happy to agree to sharing their experience
#4: The Lifestyle
Now, we have gone over a variety of ways to creatively show off your floor plans, and this strategy will allow you to “level up” any and all real estate videos you use for your company
If you have an amazing model home center, or a particularly popular floor plan your company offers
I highly recommend you shoot some high quality lifestyle video and imagery within this floor plan
It’s one thing to show shots of the staged floor plan (this is great) the layout, bedrooms, bathrooms etc
But it’s an entirely different experience seeing lifestyle shots of people living in the space, gathering around the island, having dinner together, or just experiencing life in your offerings
It’s what can drive an emotional reaction from buyers to say “that could be me” or “I could really see myself living there” and emotional reactions are what drive purchasing decisions
If you shoot lifestyle imagery, you can use this in all kinds of marketing material
Whenever we shoot lifestyle imagery for homebuilders, we often re use it for marketing and branded videos years down the line, as it’s so powerful and can be plugged into all kinds of videos
For example, the past 3 video examples we gave can stand on their own two feet with real estate shots, voiceovers, and the individual interviews; but adding in lifestyle footage elevates each and every one of those videos
So whenever possible, shoot the lifestyle!
#5 Paid/Organic Channels And Uses
When planning out videos, it is extremely vital that you plan out exactly where these will end up
You should be planning to use these in as many organic/paid channels as possible
For example: if you shoot the client testimonial real estate video for a specific floor plan you can:
Place it on your corresponding websites/landing pages
Use it in email marketing blasts
Post it on social media
Send it to your broker partners to show clients
Add it to your list of “Engagement Ads” on social media
Add it to your retargeting campaigns
Add it into email/sms chains (lead nurturing)
Create a blog post around it
The point being, we should always be looking how to maximize the utility of our video and video marketing, not just placing it on websites/landing pages and leaving it at that
Always be curious and creative of how to use these videos, because they are highly versatile and adaptable!
You should record all these videos horizontally in a 16:9 format to ensure it can be used in baseline channels like web and youtube, however while recording be sure to shoot in 4K and frame things a bit wider than you would think
This will allow you to cut all the videos and content into 9:16’s to use on instagram, tik tok, and other vertical social media platforms to maximize its utility
TLDR:
In 2023, you should try marketing your floor plans in new ways using these kinds of videos
The Broker's Perspective
The Homebuilder's Perspective
The Homebuyer's Perspective
Lifestyle Shoots
(Note) Be sure to use these in the proper organic + paid channels to actually get results
So, how are you going to market your flooplans going forward? In 2023 it’s time to embrace video marketing in real estate, that’s what we’ll be helping our clients with
If you want any more information, or looking to partner with us for your next marketing push, feel free to schedule a call with our team! We’re based in Charlotte, NC and exclusively work with home builders/developers!
Schedule A Discovery Call: https://calendly.com/development-launch/discoverycall
Comments