By BTS Brands
In marketing your commercial real estate company, it’s natural to want to put your best foot forward. Each day you’re making decisions that will hopefully elevate your company to higher levels. Whether you instinctively carry extra business cards, take the time to ensure your personal presentation is perfect, or remember the little things like holding open the door for the person behind you, you understand that making the right first impression speaks volumes. Making good impressions defines who you are, and how you run your business and helps to establish you as a thought leader.
A question that commercial real estate marketing professionals sometimes forget to ask though is, “Am I applying this degree of scrutiny to all of our efforts?” If you have to think about it too long, you might want to up your marketing game a bit. Remember, even with mundane tasks like real estate email marketing, real estate newsletters, publishing blogs or preparing an offering memorandum, impressions count. A quick way to make better impressions is with professional images and real estate video production.
Images can be a benefit to the marketing materials you publish, but the right images, make a definitive difference. Your spouse is a great amateur photographer. They are the ones in charge of the family group photos and capturing the sunset every night on vacation. For your business, however, you you may want to put this task in the hands of a professional.
Every picture tells the story of your business and the product you are promoting. In a completely unrelated industry, Cox Automotive published a report on the Power of Pictures in influencing automobile purchases. The study showed that 40% of consumers are likely to make a decision based on images they initially encounter online. While there is little comparison between automobile marketing and that of commercial real estate, the impact that pictures can have is worth noting.
Similarly, shaping your blog with professional images and videos makes your publication stand out. Hubspot research finds that 43% of people admit to skimming blogs, then going back to invest their time on posts that they notice have incorporated images.
The same research finds that 46% of mobile device users scan their smartphones or tablets before getting out of bed. These groggy-eyed individuals most likely focus on pictures and videos before dialing in on the tedium of the words supporting the pictures. This is an opportunity where images can be most impactful to your business, at the start of the day.
According to Social Media Examiner, 71% of marketers report visual assets as a critical part of a successful marketing strategy. Coupling these stats with research by jeffbullas.com, which says that blog articles incorporating images get 94% more views over blogs without pictures is proof positive that adding professional photos and video is a successful path to follow for your commercial real estate marketing initiatives.
Your clients rely on your expertise when it comes to commercial real estate. By opting for professional photography, you get the same sort of expertise in the images that accompany your marketing materials that your clients get in selecting you over your competition.
Professional photographers can customize the final product to your specific needs. Pictures are the silent salesmen that speak volumes without uttering a sound. Understanding perspective, and shadowing while incorporating surroundings is an art form that many desire, but only a select few have mastered.
There are many ways professional photography increases leads and creates more value for your brand. One study suggests that you can expect your blog to generate 61% more views using professional images as well as develop sales at or above list price 44% of the time. This all leads to the impact professional photography can give your business, including a better fiscal outlook.
Professional photography and videography are tactics you can’t skip. A marketing team that’s familiar with the power of the image will work with you, for instance, to create blogs that place one picture every 70-100 words. This tells your story effectively in both words and pictures.
Whether you use pictures or video, professional quality images raise the level of your marketing. If you’re looking for a way to ensure first impressions, be sure to look at your marketing imagery, and then consider maximizing your potential with professional photography in all your marketing materials.
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