Using drones in real estate listings

Drone videos provide a number of significant advantages, including capturing more captivating listings. Below are a few additional advantages of using drones for your real estate listings:

Describe the big picture

It makes sense that buyers would concentrate on the property itself, but they are also relocating into a neighborhood. Prospective buyers can view the complete picture more easily because drone videos show the house and its lot.  Static images or video walkthroughs cannot accurately convey the size of the house overall, the size of the yard, or the appearance of the neighboring homes.

Generate leads

Drone videos act as marketing tools. According to data, ads with aerial shots sold 68% more quickly than those with regular photos. A drone video gives a home an advantage over the competition and offers sellers a much-needed competitive edge.

Show off your tech knowledge

Today’s agents must be digitally adept, whether they like it or not. Statistics from REALTOR® show that 43% of all homebuyers are millennials. And that’s without even including Gen Z, who are rapidly reaching adulthood and have already purchased homes. The fact that you can use a drone while listing a client’s property demonstrates to them that you are a tech-savvy realtor. These two generations are well-versed in all things digital, so this will earn you extra rapport with them.

It’s inexpensive

Despite being high-tech, drone videos are surprisingly inexpensive. An aerial videographer typically charges around $200 per hour for their services. Plus, drones can also record videos of a house’s interior. Drone videos are becoming increasingly popular primarily due to this two-for-one deal.

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1. Compelling Website Design 

The first thing on our list is design. First impressions matter on the internet as much as they do in real life. And if you can’t capture your audience’s attention in the ever-competitive environment of real estate, you may end up occupying the backseat in your customer’s mind.

2. Solid UI/UX Design

The next crucial piece to the puzzle is solid UI/UX design. The user interface is what potential customers and website visitors will interact with when they arrive on your site. It is always essential to have a well-linked, responsive set of pages, with all its navigational features intact. A lousy interface design will be burned into the minds of your site visitors forever, so it does pay to give this factor a little more love and attention.

3. Engaging Copy

As we mentioned a little earlier, capturing your audience’s attention is essential to any business in this day and age. Having effective and magnetic copy helps to inform your potential customers of your services in a way that keeps them interested. Your flair for words can go a long way in boosting conversions and sales.

4. SEO-Optimized

There’s also something called SEO that comes into play here. Google is one of the most prominent avenues through which users land on websites that satisfy what they’re searching for. And with search engines presenting so many options to choose from with every search result page, SEO helps you get your realty website to the top of the list, where all the eyeballs are.

5. Social Media Integration

Today, it’s difficult to imagine a successful website that doesn’t integrate social media in some way or another. Integrating social media feeds or buttons on your website increases your website’s visibility and makes it more accessible to potential customers.

6. Property Listing/IDX Integration

Customers visit real estate websites to look for properties, so it makes sense that your website has an up-to-date, well-organized, and easily accessible property listing page. Having an IDX feature on your site would give your customers access to MLS listings, letting them know that you are ready to help them once they find a property they like.

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I have a simple method for breaking down a client project. And it starts with answering these key questions.

The 7 key question for a design project

• Who are the key user types? ( Identify Them )
• What are the ” jobs to be done” for each user type? What do they want to do efficiently?
• What are the success metrics for the client? If we completed everything successfully? what would success look like ? Metrics / Outcomes
• What is the projected timeline for the project?
• What is the project worth?
• Who are the stakeholders involved and what are each of their goals?
• Who is on the project team?

Once you have this information you can synthesize everything together into a cohesive roadmap, strategy and execution plan with stakeholders and the project team.

All sounding terms. But essentially it’s gather all the above information, make sense of the above information into a clear set of goals, create a plan based on said and agreed goals. Put the plan into action with the team. Design, Prototype, Test, and Iterate across the lifecycle of the project. Once you make things put it in front of people. But not just anyone the people who will use the product/service you are designing.

I use an agile methodology. We test and learn along the way. More partnerships with everyone involved. Vs. Let’s make everything in a cave do a big reveal with the client. Then just launch everything into the world at the end in a step by step manner.

Project example

Let’s have a look at the above project in action for a real estate website.

1. Who are the key user types? (Identify them)

• Brokerage
• Realtors / Agent
• Sellers
• Buyers

2. What are the “jobs to be done” for each user type? What do they want to do efficiently?

• Broker – need to maintain the frim and support agents with sales, marketing and advertising.
• Realtors – need to find buyers and sellers
• Seller – want to learn more about brokers and realtors
• Buyers – want to get in touch with a specific agent / realtor about available listings
• Etc. Do for all user types

3. What are the success metrics for the client? If we completed everything successfully- what would success look like? Metrics/Outcome

• Increase inbound seller calls
• Be able to schedule buyers seamlessly for showings
• Have clear buyer and seller data that is accessible and easy to qualify
• Improve the current mobile experience

4. What is the projected timeline for the project?

• A vendor will be selected on 24 February. The project will commence on the 1st of March with a projected completion date of 14th June. (We will be advised further by the selected vendor)

5. What is the project worth?

• $295,000 budget for design and development

6. Who are the stakeholders involved and what are each of their goals? (Add goals to each of these stakeholders by interviewing them)

• Head of Marketing – Jade Mills
• CFO – Joe Radford
• Operations Manager – Carlin Wright
• Project Lead – Ginger Martin
• CEO – Rochelle Maize

7. Who is on the project team?

• Creative Director – Jay L. Heard
• Design Lead – Mako Tsereteli
• Copywriter – Minh Pham
• Developer – Varenka Schill
• Photographer – Ben Jelic

Once you have all this synthesize it together. Collaborate and divide and conquer together  

The post My breakdown of client projects appeared first on Jay L. Heard.

Landing a client involves various touch points and progressions, like running a long race. Prospective clients will either see your work somewhere or hear about your work from referrals/friends/colleagues. 

They will be keen in hiring you up to a certain percentage. 20% sold. 50% sold. Or 80% sold etc. 

Emails are the final percentages needed for prospective clients to decide whether or not they are going to hire you.

So if you’ve sold them 80% of the way with your work. And still fuck up with the final hurdle you need to up your email game. Likewise if you are a candidate that they are only 50% certain on. You can make up the other 50% with great email follow ups and communication – and maybe a zoom call.

Think of it as the finish line to a marathon. Your work, experience and reputation runs most of the marathon for you. But email is the final push you need to cross that finish line. And I find this is an area where most designers fall short and can improve drastically on. 

I’ve had prospective clients make initial deposits of $10k+ solely on email. They hadn’t heard my voice or even seen me up until that point. It’s was done out of trust and purely based on my work, reputation and our emails.

Emails communicate quickly to prospective clients if:

• You can communicate well
• If you are competent  
• If you can solve their needs
• If they can trust you
• How can you get better at it

Learn to communicate well. At the heart of great communication it’s all about understanding people. People will give you clues about who they are by the tone and language they use in their emails. What needs do they have and how can you solve their problem. Are you in their price range? Are you available? And can you hit their timelines?

Don’t think about yourself. Think about your prospective client and try to be in their shoes. If you are hiring a designer for X industry what attributes and capabilities would you yourself require. And try to reverse engineer the situation and meet those requirements. 

Here are some useful actionable steps that you can put into place right away

1. People like people who are relatable

Be genuine but learn to reciprocate with the same language that prospective clients use. If you get a casual email it’s about balancing it out and using a similar tone. If they are throwing in one of these bad boys  feel free to use one in your email responses too. If they are more serious it’s best to save the fuck yeahs!!!! For home. Most of the time people want to work with individuals who are on the same page as them. Someone they can relate to. It’s an instinctual thing, that’s why people with similar interests hang out together. Or people who go for the same sports teams have a bond for example, language can also do this. 

2. People like people who are helpful

Try to help out up front. What I don’t mean, is to do a mock design for free because prospective clients need it URGENTLY or need you to do a TEST. Instead think about where else can you help with that’s not days to weeks worth of free work? What advice can you quickly give that can provide up front value for the prospective client. Perhaps it’s a suggestion on their site that they should consider, which could drastically improve their bottom line. It doesn’t matter if they don’t hire you or take your idea. I’ve found that the more good will you give out, you will receive just as much in return eventually.

3. People like people who are experts

Prospective clients have reached out to you for a reason. They like your work or have been referred to by someone. Next is to know your stuff. Answer any queries they may have. And ask questions that are important to their project. Be confident and get what you need to know to deliver the best possible solution for them. And don’t end with ‘let me know what you think’. Create clear and actionable steps. Post this if we were to work together, my process involves “X” and “Y” as our next steps. Much more authoritative. 

4. Learn to scope out project requirements well and build relationships

Your next steps is to find out the project requirements. Price, Timeline, Value and Proposition. What price do you require, what’s the time involved, when can you complete it by, what value will you bring to the table and how do you propose to do all this? Think about what YOU require and then think about what the prospective client requires. The key is to match up both of your requirements. This is an art form in itself. Learn to price on value (which I will go into more detail in another post) and learn to say no when the requirements don’t match up. So learn to qualify prospective clients and see if they are the kinds of organisations and individuals that you would like to work with. 

Various prospective clients have various needs of assurance. Sometimes it’s 20 emails back and forth. Sometimes it’s 5. Sometimes enquiries will require on and off emails for a few months.

5. It’s all about building a relationship and trust 

Finally looking at the overall chain. This is what draws prospective clients to you. 

Your work – so make your work available and present it in the best light possible. Create proposals or credential documents that are custom to the project. After a while you’ll have a base one that you can tweak and adjust as needed for different prospective clients. 

Experience – if your clients industry is something you have done successful projects for in the past use them as testimonials. If you are doing an ecommerce project for example – show examples of successful clients you’ve worked with in that space. Put it into the above document. 

Reputation – where can they find you on the web and what does it say about you. Make sure some credentials can be found as it builds trust. Social validation is HUGE. People can see that I’m a real person via dribbble, behance, twitter and instagram. 

Finally be authentic and be a good person. For the select projects I take on I genuinely give a shit about the success of the project. I always put in my best effort and try to make the client happy. And prospective clients can sense that. So start building trust, one email at a time. 

Good luck and start landing awesome clients with great emails.

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