The four cornerstones of an effective real estate marketing strategy are:
- Your ideal clients
- Your value proposition
- Your real estate listing strategy
- Your real estate listing imagery
In this article, we will discuss the importance of visual content in your digital marketing efforts.
A picture is worth a thousand words — especially in real estate
Visuals help viewers make sense of things. In real estate marketing, visuals are exceptionally critical because they help your audience make sense of the space i.e. your listings during the online research phase.
More importantly, the visual content you use online affects the way potential buyers feel about your listings. As humans, we instinctively reach out to things that we find attractive.
5 visual elements in order of importance to improve your real estate listings
#1. Still images
Photos inform potential buyers of essential elements of the house and help them form a rough idea of the space. However, ensuring the quality of your real estate photos is of utmost importance.
The quality of the photos you use online can severely impact your listing. Let’s take a look at the images below:
If this was an actual listing, chances are, you would be more inclined to find out more about the space on the right.
Now, let’s take a look at another example:
If you were a potential buyer browsing for your future home online, would you rather check out the listing on the right or left?
Our guess: Right
A majority of your potential buyers are also likely to opt for the listing on the right because:
- House hunting is a stressful process. The less energy required to process information, the better.
- Clutter and mess create stress — even in still images.
- Once again, it’s human instinct to reach out to the things we find attractive.
Practise these tips to achieve a high-quality photoshoot of your listings. Better yet, hire a professional real estate photographer to get the job done.
#2. Floor plans
Including floor plans alongside your real estate listings has been proven to reduce time on the market by up to 50%.
While most buyers use 3D virtual tours to help them get a sense of the property, many still don’t complete the tours. It’s because their minds are still working hard to piece together information about the home layout. It’s exhausting.
But here’s the good news: You can ease their pain — with a 2D floor plan.
2D floor plans provide an overall understanding of the home layout in a single glance. Here’s an example:
Having a floor plan helps your potential buyers get an immediate reference point for things such as room layout, remodeling, or interior design.
In fact, 93% of home buyers say they are more likely to spend time looking at a property with a floor plan. It’s no wonder at all. Floor plans are simple, easy, and provide all the information they need to decide about their future home.
Now, here’s a piece of even better news: Say goodbye to manually sketching floor plans.
Floor plans rarely made it to the real estate marketing ideas list because it was a tedious process to create them. The keyword here, WAS. Once upon a time, real estate professionals used to have to crouch through spaces and take measurements by hand before spending hours sketching the area of the property.
Nowadays, we have the technology to do that job. All you need is a trusted floor plan app and you’re good to go! For example👇:
#3. 360° images
This type of image is gaining popularity because they allow potential buyers to inspect an area with a click of the mouse or a movement of the finger. Many real estate professionals have begun to use 360-degree images to promote their listings on social media platforms that allow such formatting. For example, Facebook.
360-degree images require slightly more technical skills but are not difficult to obtain. All you need is the right equipment such as:
#4. Virtual house tours
3D virtual tours have been proven to help real estate professionals sell faster. In 2020, approximately 63% of real estate clients made an offer without visiting a property.
Having 3D virtual tours allows you to reach more buyers outside of your area. It also gives potential buyers the opportunity to visualize and make a future home plan for themselves.
Most buyers may want to visit the property multiple times before making a final decision. Adding virtual tours to your listings allows them to revisit the listing as many times as they want to before making an appointment with you — a win-win for both.
But here’s the downer: while virtual tours are a time saver, they also cost more to produce.
#5. Videos
Videos are no longer limited to entertainment purposes. If you don’t have the resources to create virtual tours, then have videos as your next go-to choice.
As of 2021, approximately 86% of marketing professionals use videos as a tool to promote their business. Uploading videos of your real estate listings allows potential buyers to digitally visit the property before booking an appointment with you.
Moreover, videos are highly engageable and easily shareable on multiple social media platforms. As per the images, make sure your videos are well-lit, clean, and well captured.
Bonus tip:
Combine different visual elements on your listings for the best visual marketing results. For example:
- Use still images with floor plans
- Use virtual tours with floor plans
- Use still images, video, and floor plans
- Etc.
To help you decide which combination works best for your clients, ask yourself: How can I help ease the decision-making process online for my clients?
In a nutshell:
Visuals play a major role in real estate marketing. Your listing imagery should be a cornerstone of your marketing strategy. You can use the following visual elements to help ease the decision-making process for your potential buyers:
- Still images
- Floor plans
- 360° images
- Virtual tours
- Videos
Remember, humans instinctively reach out to things that we find attractive. Always ensure your real estate imagery is of high quality and done professionally.
Real estate marketing tips for real estate professionals
How to Get Clients in Real Estate: A Guide to Marketing
Why a simple floor plan remains necessary even in a virtual era?
Using different apps for floor plans
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