Roomvu Launches in the U.S. in Partnership with LeadingRE, Realty One, and More
Roomvu has announced its expansion into the U.S. in partnership with Leading Real Estate Companies of the World (LeadingRE), Realty One, and a growing network of enterprise and corporate partners. As an award-winning company recognized among the CIX Top 20 most innovative real estate technology companies in Canada and venture capital-backed by NAR REACH, Roomvu stands at the forefront of a growing trend in video marketing in the real estate industry. With a mission to transform property and personal marketing for real estate professionals, Roomvu leverages the support of NAR REACH, the investment arm of the National Association of REALTORS®. This strategic partnership fuels Roomvu's U.S. launch, aiming to deliver unparalleled marketing support to real estate agents and brokerages with its advanced technology and services. Jeff Kennedy, Vice President of Sales and Partnerships at LeadingRE, praises Roomvu for revolutionizing the marketing landscape with its innovative approach. "Roomvu sets itself apart with its advanced marketing strategy, offering a comprehensive suite of tools designed to elevate your marketing efforts. Roomvu's video customization capabilities empower you to create compelling visual content tailored to your specific needs, enabling you to captivate and resonate with your audience like never before. With Roomvu, you can rest assured that your marketing needs are fully met, allowing you to focus on what you do best – serving your clients and growing your business," says Kennedy. Roomvu's AI marketing assistant platform offers automated, hyperlocal content creation, empowering real estate agents with a consistent and engaging online presence. This service is especially valuable for brokerages aiming to enhance their brand and agents striving to differentiate themselves in a competitive market. "Our expansion into the U.S. is not just a milestone for Roomvu but a significant opportunity for real estate professionals across the country," said Sam Mehrbod, CEO of Roomvu. "Our partnerships with LeadingRE and RealtyOne are just the beginning. We are committed to providing our innovative video marketing solutions to help agents and brokerages enhance their brand visibility, engage more effectively with clients, and ultimately drive business growth in today's competitive and challenging market." The U.S. launch comes after Roomvu's successful track record in Canada, where the company has made significant strides in transforming real estate marketing through technology. Roomvu's solutions are designed to meet the unique needs of the real estate industry, making marketing more accessible, effective, and efficient for agents and brokerages alike. "The residential real estate industry is ripe for innovation, and Roomvu's entry into the US marks a pivotal moment in this transformation," said Tyler Thompson, Managing Partner at Second Century Ventures and REACH. "By leveraging AI to produce customizable, hyper-local videos for REALTORS, Roomvu is setting a new standard for property marketing."

HomeJab Reveals Top Trends in Pro Real Estate Photos, Video, 3D Tours, Aerial and more
Do your agents use professional real estate photographers to shoot every listing? They should if they want to stay competitive, as today, 73% of all agents use professional photography to promote every property they list. Professional photos, video, virtual staging immersive 3D tours, aerial photography, and the use of twilight photos by agents are all covered in a brand-new survey from HomeJab. If you use professional photographers and other visual assets to promote your property listings and don't know HomeJab, you should. Go to HomeJab.com and see for yourself how they connect you with top local photographers and deliver a lightning-fast 24-hour turnaround. Founded in 2013 by real estate industry veteran and real estate photo and video expert Joe Jesuele, HomeJab has emerged as America's most popular and reliable on-demand professional real estate photography and video service for real estate pros. HomeJab is also one of the hottest startups in its category. The new HomeJab study uncovered some fascinating recent tech trends, including: Video tops 3D tours: While immersive 3D interactive tours continue to soar in popularity, real estate agents pick video over 3D. Thirty-six percent said they preferred video tours versus 21% for 3D tours. Additionally, 30% said they use both video and 3D tours, depending on the seller. Virtual staging narrowly beats traditional staging: HomeJab found that 30% of agents now prefer virtual staging, slightly more popular today than traditional staging at 29%. Only 7% of agents shoot their own listing photos: Despite the advancements in smartphone camera technology, professional photography still beats DYI – by a wide margin. Agents know that pro photos positively showcase their personal brand, HomeJab notes. Aerial photography is hot and getting hotter: Sixty-seven percent of real estate agents said they had used aerial photography with their listings. Fifty-five percent of agents said their use depends on the property. Twelve percent said they use aerial photography with every property listing. The newest trend is the growing popularity of virtual twilight photos: Seventy-six percent of agents have used them to promote their property listings or are interested in using them. Forty percent of agents said they use twilight photos. Thirty-five percent say they love them, and 5% say they use them but don't love them. This new data from HomeJab showcases how high-quality and innovative imaging assets have become the cornerstone in property listings marketing. More importantly, it's great to see new data points on this hot topic, as much of the existing research is mostly dated. Here is their full news release on the recent HomeJab survey. To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

Drone Mapping in the Real Estate Industry
Year to year, the evolution of computer technology can be staggering. In most cases, the advancements cause disruption--and opportunity--in every industry. In real estate, one such disruption is caused by drones, which have become an extremely effective tool for mapping and marketing property. Drone mapping is replacing manned aerial flyovers, like Google Earth, a technology the industry has relied on for decades. More than taking pictures, videos, and plotting property boundaries on a map, drone mapping provides buyers and sellers with low-cost, high-resolution, and frequently updated imagery.

Going Beyond Standard Integration, Inside Real Estate Builds a BombBomb Based Product Inside kvCORE
Normally, announcements of integrations between companies are not very noteworthy, but this one is different. Using APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and single sign-on has been the normal process of integrating software solutions; they look like a link or an icon that allows you to share data and launch a program from one company in the software of another company. The CoreLogic Clareity Dashboard, or smart links in most MLS systems, are prime examples of this. There are similar integrated add-on solutions included in the kvCORE Marketplace. What is different in this announcement from Inside Real Estate about their new product CORE Video, powered by BombBomb, is that adding a video message to a client inside the kvCORE system is completely seamless (what developers call native integration). It's even beyond the typical notion of a native integration; it's actually a full feature set built within kvCORE. Moreover, it is now included in all kvCORE accounts. I have always seen BombBomb video as a nice feature rather than a required feature for CRM. I often refer to some products in real estate as vitamins rather than painkillers, and in the past BombBomb has been in my vitamin category—but my perspective is changing. The research on using video as a communication tool to increase effectiveness all say that it is a hit. 81% more replies and responses than any other medium 87% more clicks and engagement than text alone #1 preferred content type by consumers 85% of buyers and sellers want to work with an agent who uses video 95% of a message is retained via video vs. only 10% via text Now all kvCORE users will have access to a basic version of CORE Video powered by BombBomb at no cost. If they want more advanced capabilities, they can upgrade to a premium CORE Video account that unlocks a full set of additional, impressive features, including unlimited video messaging via both email and text, mass sends, use of video in campaigns, video libraries, complete mobile app integration and the powerful Google Chrome extension that lets you record and send messages from anywhere. Inside Real Estate is the first and only real estate platform to provide a basic (lite) version of BombBomb in its new CORE Video product, included with kvCORE, at no cost. Top that off with it being the first truly native+ integration, offering the most seamless experience of BombBomb video features within a real estate platform, and you've got a real winner here. To check out the new CORE Video, powered by BombBomb, catch one of their demos here.

Save Time by Recycling Old Content
Creating great content for buyers and sellers can be a time-consuming endeavor. However, once you've put in the initial effort, you can rework and repurpose your content in a lot of different ways to get more mileage from it. Try turning several related blog articles into an eBook, or your eBook content into an infographic. The key is to identify, optimize, and upcycle your best content to create new lead generation opportunities without falling behind on tasks for your current clients.

Tech Helpline Video Earns National Nomination
Recently, PR Daily announced its 2018 Video and Visual Awards finalists. Among the five finalists in its Animated Video category was "Tech Helpline 2018 Animated Video, Florida Realtors." Other finalists in the category include videos from pharmaceutical giant Merck, agricultural fertilizer behemoth CF Industries and Bell Helicopters. Pretty impressive company! It's always great when an organization's creative efforts earn public recognition. Often, member communications work in the trade association world goes largely unheralded. But that does not mean the amount of effort that goes into many projects Realtor associations undertake each year is any less spectacular than those that grab an occasional accolade. So, when a real estate trade association does get public recognition for its communications efforts, it's kind of a big deal. It's even more impressive when recognition is from an organization that recognizes accomplishments from every business segment – not just real estate. PR Daily is published by Lawrence Ragan Communications, which for more than five decades, has been the leading publisher of corporate communications, public relations, and leadership development newsletters. To make its honor roll by being listed as a finalist for its annual video awards program is a high honor because of the broad range of business entries that this program attracts. About the video The new Tech Helpline animated video debuted in October 2018. It is available on Tech Helpline's YouTube Channel here. In just a little over two-and-a half minutes, all of the key features and benefits of Tech Helpline are presented to our target audience – real estate agents – in a fun, easy-to-view format. The video uses modern animation, music and two narrators – both male and female voice talent – to tell our Tech Helpline story. It explains how easy it is to reach Tech Helpline – call, chat or email – and all the things agents might not realize they can reach out for assistance. With 300 combined years of experience among Tech Helpline analysts, there's a lot of ways they help agents every day. Today, some 600,000 real estate brokers and agents in the U.S. and Canada have access to Tech Helpline as a member benefit from their MLS, association or a service provided by their brokerage. If you don't have Tech Helpline support, then ask your state or local REALTOR® association for it! For more information about Tech Helpline, visit our mobile responsive website at www.techhelpline.com. Tricia Stamper is Director of Technology at Florida Realtors®, which owns and operates Tech Helpline and Form Simplicity.

New RPR Videos Help Agents Learn at Their Own Pace
REALTORS want to get more listings and be more successful, it's as simple as that. Your brokerage can show them how to achieve these goals by utilizing RPR, the nation's largest property database, built for REALTORS. We've made it easier than ever to educate and empower your agents with a new series of video tutorials and supporting materials.

Tips for Selecting Your First Video Project
Overwhelmed by the thought of your first real estate video marketing project? We've got you covered with a host of ideas, helping you build a solid foundation to ensure a maximum return-on-investment with your upcoming video marketing campaign. What Real Estate Video Marketing Projects Should Be at the Top of Your To-Do List?

Want Your Video to Go Viral? Here's How.
One of the best ways to make an emotional connection with clients, despite the fact there's no actual one-on-one contact, real estate video marketing is a great way to romance buyers and sellers. Since poor video marketing can backfire like a bad blind date, it's important to keep in mind the key to attracting customers is in presentation. How can you up your popularity factor by 'going viral'?

How to Distribute and Promote Your Videos
So you have some awesome video content--but how do you distribute it? How you choose to promote your videos depends a lot on the type of content that you've created--whether it's an explainer video, a short segment on the market, or evergreen content about buying and selling homes.

5 Essentials You Need Before Stepping Behind the Camera
Eventually, every real estate professional is going to have to step up and start recording video. Video content can seem overwhelming, but producing competent videos doesn't have to be a challenge. As long as you take it step-by-step, prepare in advance, and get the essentials, you should be well on your way to connecting with your audience like never before.

How to Boost Engagement for Interactive Content Using Video
Building a brand requires a lot of work--and a lot of engagement. In a competitive industry like real estate, engagement is incredibly important, as well as challenging. One tried-and-true method is to produce interactive content — content that users will interact with. But how can you make interactive content even more engaging? With the inclusion of video, of course.

3 Ways to Show Off Your Neighborhood Using Video
When creating a marketing video, which amenities should you focus on? What features should you highlight — and what marketing and demographic information should you include? It all comes down to what clients really want to hear. Though there are some things, such as golf courses, that appeal to just a few people, there are other amenities that are fairly universal.

How to Keep Clients Up to Date with the Local Market Using Videos
One of the major reasons clients follow brokerages is to keep current with market information. They may be waiting for the right time to purchase a home or the right time to sell. Either way, compiling this information is an excellent way to add value to your relationship. But how can you research, organize, and present this data in a way that isn't time-consuming? Read on to find out.

3 Ways to Master Short-Lived Video Content in Real Estate
Many agents and brokerages focus primarily on building up their "evergreen" video content--content that's going to be viewed for a long time to come. But short-lived video content is also incredibly valuable. Short-lived video content involves jumping on a live stream, taking a quick Twitter video, or posting something to Snapchat or Instagram Stories. These are just fast bites of info that go out to prospective buyers and sellers to keep them interested and engaged.

Top Brokerage Video Strategies
There are few industries that rely so heavily on visual perception than real estate. While pictures provide some mechanism for satisfying the quest to know more about a property, nothing beats videos for providing potential clients with the next best thing to being there. Here's why brokerage video strategies make it easier to market a property:

Marketing Tip: Brand Your Company with Videos About the Sales Process
You have a lot of knowledge about the real estate industry. But your clients don't. Your clients want an overview of the real estate process — and for that, you have videos. Videos can explain the process of a home sale or a home purchase, giving your clients easy insights into everything they need to know.

Common Video Marketing Assumptions and How They're Costing You
Everybody and their grandma knows video is the wave of the future on the Internet. If you're pretending it's not because you're afraid it's too time consuming or too expensive, you're making assumptions – and they're going to cost you. Here's What You Really Need to Know about Video Real Estate Marketing:

How to Shoot Awesome Community Videos from Your Phone
You want to create some great community video, but you aren't able to invest a lot in new equipment. You can still shoot some fantastic community videos from your home, from pre-edited community overviews to live streams of the community amenities. You just need to follow a few important tips.

4 Videos Every Real Estate Marketing Toolbox Needs
A comprehensive real estate marketing strategy requires a variety of video content. Different types of video resonate with different audiences, and these videos will be able to extend brand identity and improve upon customer engagement.

How to Integrate Video into the Real Estate Buying Process
From start to finish, video marketing is uniquely capable of supporting buyers across their journey. Understanding and supporting the buyer journey is how you can convert leads to clients—by understanding their needs at each stage and meeting them.

4 Ways You Can Distribute Video Content for Maximum Impact
Once you've created your video content, you still need to distribute it. And that can be the challenge. With so much content floating around today, you need to be able to reach out to your customers on a personal level for maximum impact. Here are four ways that you can distribute your video content effectively.

3 Great Tools for Easy Video Editing
You've just finished shooting some awesome content. Great! But now it's time to edit that footage into a video you can share with your audience. Video editing usually means you'll have to learn complex video editing software—or hire an editor. Not to worry. There are also easy video editing software options available that make putting the polishing touches on your content a piece of cake. Here are just a few of the best tools out there.

How to Use Videos and Live Chat to Increase Prospect Engagement
Many real estate professionals today use chat such as LiveChat to engage customers — but if it's outside of business hours, customers may not be able to get a live person. This doesn't have to be a lost lead. Chatbots such as Facebook Messenger or MeOkay combined with video can make it easier to secure a lead even when a human isn't available. Using Chatbots to Engage Prospects After Hours Chatbots can be used to parse and answer simple questions that visitors might have about a business. For the most part, many people ask very similar questions. Getting an answer to these questions could be exactly what the customer needs to progress along their buyer journey.

What Videos Should Your Brokerage Have?
In order to effectively market your services, a real estate brokerage needs a variety of videos. The following are just a few types that can help your real estate agency set itself apart from its competition:

Industry Distribution: Video Consumption in the U.S.
Video consumption in the United States continues to rise with no sign of abatement in the future. What does this mean for real estate professionals? The best way to explain the importance of video and what its consumption in the US means for real estate is to share some eye-opening statistics on the matter.

Real Estate Video Distribution 101
Once you've created the perfect marketing videos, where will they be distributed? Distributing your videos properly is as important as producing them properly — and it isn't always easy. You'll need a full marketing strategy integrated with your video campaign if you're going to reach potential clients. Here's everything you need to know about video distribution.

How Video Influences Online Real Estate Shopping
More and more individuals are now purchasing real estate online — and that has changed the way that real estate marketing is completed. Often, purchasing real estate now doesn't involve walking into a brokerage, but rather conducting a web search for properties in one's area, or even just how to buy a home. Customers need to be attracted at all levels of the sales funnel for effective real estate marketing.

How Big Data Is Transforming Video in Real Estate
Leaders in real estate are relying more and more on video to impart vast amounts of complex information in a way that is fast, easy to understand, and easy to review. It's all about understanding Big Data—and video is the optimal venue for imparting the necessary information in a timely fashion.

How Are My Videos? How to Tell If Your Videos Are Good or Bad
After you've worked for hours, days, or even weeks on a project, how can you truly tell whether or not it's good? There have been professional directors who have released movies that have flopped — it isn't always easy. But there are some objective hints that you can use to judge the watchability and quality of your content.

How to Create Better Community Videos
Community videos are an excellent way to appeal to home buyers, investors, and even other real estate professionals. Not only is a video format appealing and engaging, but it's also supremely shareable — which means that it can have some substantial reach. The best community videos are professionally produced, concise, and entertaining. What Makes a Top Community Video?

1 in 3 Real Estate Buyers Now Make a Purchase Decision from Only Photo and Video
Buyers are increasingly relying on video usage in real estate marketing, making 1 in 3 purchases sight-unseen, according to the latest Redfin statistics – up from 1 in 5 just a year ago. Are you missing out on speedier sales by failing to take advantage of this increasingly popular marketing medium?

7 Innovative Ideas for New Brokerages
1. Become a Zero-Waste Brokerage At first glance, becoming a zero-waste brokerage is a tall task. But there are many options to get you started. Use grey water for your toilets, set up shop in a central location (to reduce mileage), get to know your local recycling standards and recycle as much as possible, go paperless with transaction and document management, have your building LEED certified and more. Becoming zero-waste is more than achieving environmental sustainability. It hits your bottom line. You set your business apart from your competitors. You demonstrate commitment to local and global communities. You create a platform for innovation as you challenge the status quo.

How to Grow a YouTube Audience for Your Business FAST
Whether you're a marketing expert or simply looking to enjoy some interesting content online, you already know YouTube is the place to find great video content. So it probably won't come as a surprise that YouTube is also an excellent place to share video content of your own, build a devoted audience, and grow your real estate brand in the process! To build your YouTube audience fast, we've got some proven tips to help you do just that. Simple Steps to Build Your YouTube Audience from Scratch

Top 5 Excuses Brokers Give for Not Using Video
Real estate brokers have a huge responsibility. They are trying to keep the agency's customers happy and help their agents thrive in today's ever-changing real estate marketplace. Sometimes, it is easy for a broker to ignore advances in technology as they strive to keep the office running smoothly. But is it worth the cost to not keep up? This year, 74 percent of internet traffic will be video based, so you better believe that top real estate professionals will connect with new clients using video. However, many brokers still haven't embraced this technology, citing a variety of reasons for falling behind on adopting video strategies. When we talk to Realtors and brokers, here are the top five excuses commonly given for NOT using video marketing and why you should reconsider:

How to Optimize Tags as Keywords to Boost Search Rankings
Seeing lackluster results from video usage in real estate marketing? It may be tag optimization issues. Does that sound Greek to you? No worries. We'll cover it here. What are Tags? The term 'tag' can be confusing, because it refers to two types:

Funniest Real Estate Videos Ever: Could Yours Be Next?
Real estate videos don’t have to be cookie cutter and boring. In fact, you’ll find funny or viral real estate videos are surprisingly popular on YouTube! Gain inspiration from these hilariously funny options that stand out from the crowd: Hand Out the 4-1-1 Funny but informative, this big budget informational video by Realtor.com features actress Elizabeth Banks addressing common questions that first-time buyers and long-term renters typically have about the home buying process – and determining when you’re ready. It’s actually part of a series: “The Home Buying Process in Plain English with Elizabeth Banks.”

6 Tips on Optimizing Your Real Estate Video for Local Searches
Video usage in real estate marketing can sometimes seem tricky – especially when it comes to optimizing your latest creation to gain viable, local leads. S-E-Uh-Oh Search engine optimization, or SEO for short, is key to those top Google rankings everyone covets. You use it every day – keying in your search du jour to magically populate information. But there's a method to this informational insanity... Rising to the Top To get your video in front of the right eyes, you'll need the right recipe for success: 1. A relationship with YouTube. The no. 2 search engine after (and owned by) Google, YouTube offers reliable – and highly visible – video hosting. Listing videos here weights in page rankings, which are seamlessly integrated into Google search results and can integrate with your G+ account. 2. A killer title. Your chosen title should be relevant, stand out, and entice with strong adjectives, catchy phrases or interesting questions. 'Breathtaking Farmland' or 'A Little Slice of Heaven' with the property address. Not that creative? A traditional listing name will get the job done: '123 Any Street, Roy's Real Estate, Detroit.'

6 Videos that Can Help You Win More Leads
Video use in real estate marketing is a great way to stand out and gain new leads. But as video marketing gains momentum, standing out in the crowd is essential. Luckily, video offers an array of avenues for creativity and added exposure. Are You Taking Advantage of These Less-Common, Unique Video Types? You've tried property videos, agent promos, and testimonials, but these new video types can help you break the mold: 1. Brand Promos A bit longer than others, at about 4-5 minutes, promos should relay positive company attributes, things that make your firm special, boasting performance, and community service. Use these versatile videos in listing presentations, conferences, and autoplay on YouTube. 2. Explainer Videos Take those "About Me" videos to the next level, showing clients there are humans behind your brokerage. Look to your website for ideas, such as your "About Us" page, "Certifications," and "Awards," leaving no major details of your brand unspoken.

Top Marketing Videos to Do for Every Listing
Video usage in real estate marketing is exploding, and surprisingly enough to many real estate professionals, it involves more than listing videos. Are you missing out on the benefits that these essential real estate marketing videos can deliver? Look Beyond Listing Videos to these Prime Video Marketing Solutions: Informational Videos Provide value to buyers and sellers alike with short, educational videos on common real estate topics and questions (and lighten your to-do load). Agent/Office Promotional VideosWhat makes you/your office stand out? From awards to finding foreclosures for flipping, tout it in a short promo. Interview VideosGenerate new leads by interviewing past clients on their first-person experience working with you. Interviews with respected figures in the community, as well as colleagues in the industry (lenders, inspectors, attorneys), will boost your video marketing currency. Profile VideosHelp potential sellers and buyers better understand what you have to offer with a brief "About me" video, highlighting your family, hobbies, successes, and even funny stories or anecdotes.

How a Black Sheep Transformed His Personal Brand into a Successful Brokerage
When Peter Lorimer first entered the real estate industry, didn't fit into the stuffy corporate formality of his brokerage. That doesn't mean he didn't try--at first. "I hated it," he says in the video interview above. The former record producer and DJ eventually told his wife that he wanted to quit working at his current firm to start his own. "The moment I did that, everything took off massively." Lorimer's Los Angeles based brokerage, PLG Estates, features the rebellious and creative vibe that he himself embodies--informal, but hip, and always in the know. In this video, Realtor Sam DeBianchi talks to Lorimer about how he used his personal brand to transform his firm into a successful company, and the tools and techniques he used along the way. Part of that success came with, again, breaking with tradition. Lorimer says that shiny brochures don't sell houses. "What sells houses is exposure," he says, "and there's no better exposure than social media." He estimates that 70 percent of his company's clients are aware of what they're doing on social media. Giving away informative content is another trick Lorimer uses. He creates videos on everything from market trends to information on escrow and contingencies. This not only draws in customers, but it attracts agents that fit his brokerage's vibe to the firm. For more on how Lorimer built his company with his personal brand, watch the video above.

Build Your Brand by Leveraging Market Analytics and Online Videos
Video marketing, when done right, is 53 percent more likely to generate a first-page Google ranking than traditional SEO tactics. It's no wonder, then, that recent research shows that video marketing is now a firmly established strategy and the fastest growing advertising format. But some brokers and agents shy away from employing video in their client outreach plan because it seems too overwhelming to create and track the return-on-investment. That's why the Market Analytics section of our online Technology Guide features best-in-class solutions for nurturing leads and customers with informative, branded videos that drive traffic to your website. Professionally created real estate videos tend to rank higher on online searches than traditional content online. Google and other search engines are striving meet consumer demands by providing a mix of content types in their search results, including articles, images, videos, and even maps. But since there's a dearth of video content available, and, even more, only a fraction is properly submitted to the search indexes, search engines have to give a higher ranking to videos in order to balance their content delivery. This makes video content a marketing gold mine for Realtors! In order to harness the power of video for your marketing arsenal, however, videos need to be posted online correctly. Unfortunately, many Realtors make the mistake of posting video content on YouTube, which is built specifically to direct traffic to their site—not yours. One company, Terradatum, solves this problem by empowering brokers and agents to attract original and regionalized video content straight to their own website. The video can then be shared on multiple portals, including broker or agent blogs, eNewsletters, social media channels, and, yes, even YouTube.

4 Ways Video Is Changing the Email Marketing Landscape
For those of us of a certain "vintage," it can be easy to forget that email is not considered at all cutting edge. It's the less glamorous cousin of texting; the loner to Twitter's social butterfly. Although its cool rating may have fallen, email continues to be one of our most powerful marketing tools. Now the trend toward incorporating videos into email is making this channel more fun again. Here's how: #1. Engaging users The practice of linking to a short video within the body of an email has taken off in recent years. It's a fresh way to break up the monotony of text and engage your customers. And it's effective: in a study by GetResponse of nearly one billion emails, those containing video had a 96 percent higher click-through rate than those without. Just including the word "video" in your subject line can increase click-throughs by as much as 65 percent!

5 Video Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
The track to producing a successful video can be loaded with hurdles, but take heart! They can be avoided if you know what to steer away from. Here are five roadblocks to avoid on the way to creating effective videos. 1. Boredom We've all done it. Someone shares a video with us that they think is the BEE'S KNEES and we watch 13.8 seconds of it and click away. Why? Because it didn't capture your attention fast enough! We snooze, they lose. If you create a video, it doesn't mean viewers HAVE to watch it—unless of course, it is appealing enough. Hook them early and keep them hanging on! Action Step: Be interesting. Be original. Be funny. If you can, talk to a creative production company and listen to their ideas. After all, they make their living doing just that. 2. "YouTube ONLY" strategy In a world where SEO is so widely discussed, why would you ONLY post your video to YouTube? It has its benefits, but why not diversify your video embedding/posting strategy? Video only helps SEO when it is site-mapped and indexed properly. Otherwise, you are helping YouTube's SEO (which needs no help at all). Do you really want your viewer going to ONLY a third party site to see your awesome video—which, by the way, shares the same screen with your competitors' videos? How about spending the time and driving that traffic (or potential lead) to your website to keep them in an environment that is ONLY your content? Otherwise, if they have a brain like mine, they will get lost in viral videos and competitor ads. It's too risky to ONLY rely on YouTube. Action Step: Consider other avenues: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram (15 seconds only and place link in profile), or embed on the most visited page of your site.

3 New Video Technologies that Can Transform Your Real Estate Listings
Video is always evolving. It's an exciting time in the industry, though I'm sure the daily barrage of camera updates is just added noise in the real estate soundscape. There have, however, been a few notable advancements in video technology that you should pay attention to. These are advancements that can yield immediate and long-term results for the proactive, digitally-inclined brokerage. Let's take a look at three of these advancements and see how they can help transform your listings. VR What it is: Virtual reality—always on the horizon, never within reach. Who else remembers this VR from the 90s? Well, VR is actually a real thing now and some brokerages are already taking it up. So what is VR in its current form? Here's a simple description from PC World: Current virtual reality (VR) technology is more like strapping a screen to your face. The image is then rendered in stereoscopic 3D and viewed through fancy lenses, tricking you into believing you're looking at a real environment and not a screen mere inches from your eyes. How it can be used: Imagine giving an immersive tour of a high-end listing in San Francisco to someone in Philadelphia. With VR, you could conceivably skirt all the time and travel costs it takes to get the lead in the listing. Just press play. Instant gratification. That kind of mobility is a game-changer for you and your clients. Prospects: Something to keep an eye on. Though VR is in its infancy, the brokerage that adopts it now will be ahead of the curve when the technology matures. Also of note: Facebook recently bought Oculus VR, a leading VR tech company. This investment will surely pay off down the line.

How to Promote Your Listings Using Video
Whether you're new to the real estate business or a seasoned veteran, if you're not utilizing video to promote your listings, you could be missing out on a potential goldmine. Producing and posting video of your listings might seem a difficult and time-consuming task, but once you've mastered the process, it's a pretty quick and easy way with great potential to grow your business quickly. Before you hit the record button, take some time to figure out who your audience is. The easiest way to do this is to target the clients you've already worked with, and the communities you've worked in. If you want to start small as you hone your video marketing plan, send some videos out to your existing client list. If they're not interested in any of your current listings, they may share them with friends and family who may be interested. A good place to market your listings is on YouTube. Chances are you'll gain exposure there. After all, it's only one of the world's largest search engines, with over one billion unique visitors each month watching six billion hours of video. More than half of prospective homebuyers head to YouTube to research homes and communities.

4 Ways to Improve Video Marketing ROI
By now, we in the real estate industry are aware, or should be, how important video marketing is to our arsenal. It is no surprise that companies are popping up everywhere that do what we do in terms of scalable video content that is easy to integrate. It is an exciting time to be working in video, but even more so to be working in real estate. So, naturally, combining the two can be even more fun. Most of us though get a little lost in the closings, the open houses, the contracts, the offers, managing clients, managing agents, managing assistants, and oh!, don't forget about video. If you have video on your site, chances are it can be improved and, if it can't, then maybe your strategy can. At VScreen, we spend most of our time strategizing and assisting and educating in best practices for implementation than we do in shooting the video or editing. Today, I wanted to give you four quick things that could help in seeing ROI with your next video. 1. Share-ability – We all have seen a video that someone has shared on social media and seen them take off and go viral. The level of exposure these can attain is mind boggling, but creating the right content, knowing your consumer and being original will all help in getting those coveted shares and re-tweets on social media—but at the end of the day, creating your videos just in the chance they will go viral shouldn't be your motive. Every share matters and every like or comment counts, so create the content with your following in mind.

Reaching Homebuyers with Advice Videos
As a successful real estate professional, you have a lot of knowledge, experience and wisdom about home buying and selling. Naturally, you want to share that wealth with your clients and prospective clients. Advice videos are a relatively easy way to reach your audience of homebuyers: they can (OK, should) be relatively short, and there's no need for a lot of fancy production. That makes it easy to produce timely advice videos. You may want to update potential buyers on an impending interest rate hike, or share updated market information, such as the inventory of homes available. A quick, two minute (or so) video starring you will help position you as an expert in your field. Other options include having a regular series of evergreen videos with content that is more or less timeless. One might feature strategies for saving for a home purchase.

Budgeting for Custom Video Production
In this day and age, when virtually everyone's armed with a video camera (and, in many cases, a pretty nice one), it might be tempting to succumb to that little, budget-minded voice in your head. You know—the one working hard to convince you that with today's technology, you can entrust your company's video messaging to any pubescent with at least one hand free. There may be occasions when that would be a good call, e.g. Instagram, but for the 99.9 percent of times when you want your video message to be watched (and engaged with, of course), you'll want to put it in the hands of a professional. Or, I should say, professionals. In order to produce a video that gives your company or organization the professional first impression you desire, you're going to have to work with more than one person. Think along the lines of the old "It takes a village" mantra. And this, my friends, is where custom video production comes in. Depending how involved your video production is, you may need to budget for several crew members. They're the ones responsible for making you look good by setting up proper lighting, sound, framing and so forth.This becomes more complex–aka costly–if you're shooting on location instead of in a studio, where the lighting, sound, etc. is already more or less set up. If you're hiring talent, that, of course, will add to your cost. Hey, actors need to eat too! And depending on experience and demand, some actors may work on a hamburger budget or command filet mignon-type pay. On top of that, there will be hair and makeup people to pay for keeping the talent looking their best.

One Simple Trick to Sell Your Listing Faster
Looking for an innovative way to market your listing? Tom Ferry, real estate coach, explains how live streaming your listing could make it reach a larger audience and get it sold faster! The 3:17 minute mark will change your life!