Property Videos Can Be Expensive At Any Price When No One Watches

Gary:  Thank you for the kind words. We are working to provide the best information available about how to use video and how not to use video for marketing of properties using as much hard data as we can.

Kathy: We get thousands of views on our property videos and generate a fair number of leads from our videos. You are correct that video is increasing in popularity but the value proposition isnt in the video itself - it's in the marketing.

Tony

Fred:

"For example, I upload ALL my videos to WellcomeMat, however with only a few exceptions, those videos are not embedded or placed anywhere except WellcomeMat. "

To some extent, thats why we expanded our research outside of any single videographer so that the activities would be across a number of usage patterns. Expanding beyond the provider that you mentioned above into a more general discussion, shouldn't the infrastructure provider add value to any given video and to the videographer network that it supports? I can understand that general video upload sites don't provide such value but what about video providers and their supporting infrastructure that are focused on helping agents?

The great logical leap that we are asking customers to make with the above argument is that videographers and infrastructure providers have no responsibility for helping one market their properties even when some cost is being attached to it even if the cost is at the expense of one's brand in terms of ads. 255 property videos is a fairly decent sampling - enough to ask, "what am I paying for if not views?".

More importantly, I'd argue that this doesn't match the customers' expectations of audience after they have $N invested in a video and "paid" in fees or advertising for marketing support.

"I host my videos on my server in different formats, and those are the videos which are distributed and viewed through the local MLS, on the agent's websites and through Realtor.com."

Fred, you certainly provide consistent quality and results in your product. But if we think about video as an industry, is the multiple format/multiple upload site approach representative of what the typical videographer or agent will do?  Is it really representative of what we want them to do?

If the value of real estate video actually only represents the costs of uploading to a bunch of sites, where is the value in any given infrastructure provider and what is the value of that platform over alternative marketing methods that we compete against as an industry?

Property videos are really just small advertisements for a product. Any advertising in any medium is expensive if it isn't being viewed or being viewed by the wrong audience.  Video may work for individual providers but REALTORS across the board won't start using it to replace other marketing methods until a clear value proposition is formed...in their eyes, not ours.

Tony