Effectively marketing your business means being able to talk to potential clients in a variety of situations from a short ride in the elevator, to a brief phone conversation, to a longer presentation for a group of real estate agents at their weekly marketing meeting. You need to have your “pitch” distilled down so you can quickly and effectively describe why the potential client you’re talking to can’t live without the service you are providing. Keep in mind the two primary problems that you as a real estate photographer can solve for listing agents are:
- Generating more showings for a listing.
- Attracting more home sellers that want them to list their home with them.
Great real estate photography does both. These marketing points are the key facts and data that you need to use in all of your marketing materials. The best facts and data are ones that come from industry studies that are published by authoritative publications. Even though many of these facts about real estate photography are obvious to most people in the real estate industry, they just carry more weight if they come from an article in a source that agents consider authoritative.
The following are marketing points that real estate photographers need to understand and be able to discuss with their potential clients:
1. Home selling starts on the Internet. Homebuyers first find homes they want to come to look at on the web. They have hundreds of choices in their price range and tend to eliminate the possibilities from the single exterior property thumbnail photo.
2. Very few real estate agents have the equipment or skills required to do quality real estate photography. It takes more than an inexpensive point-and-shoot camera to create effective property photos. It takes a practiced eye for composition, an ultra-wide-angle lens, photo editing software, and the skills to use them.
3. Paying for professional photography is inexpensive and has a big payback in the overall scheme of marketing a property.
4. It’s always been obvious that real estate photography is central to marketing homes, many independent studies have statistically confirmed that properties that have professional photography used in their marketing sell faster and for more money.
5. In a depressed housing market where home prices have fallen and the number of properties on the market has risen, the use of professional photography is even more important. Good photography draws attention to properties in a crowded market
6. When listing agents compete to list a seller’s home the home sellers frequently are choosing the listing agent based on how successful agents have been at selling other homes in that neighborhood. Good marketing photography is something that the neighbors will notice and it will bring them more listings in that neighborhood. This is because home sellers in general are quick to see the benefits of good marketing photography and want it used on their home.
