Words: Ashley Rigg
Published: 17th April 2008
The first pay-per-lead property video portal
International property portal, The Move Channel today announced the trade launch of its pay-per-lead video service,
TheMoveChannel.tv. The site is currently in beta and will begin a big consumer marketing push this summer after reaching a “critical mass” of video content. The TV site follows the popular pay-per-lead business model of its sister .com site. All leads are charged at £10 with a 25-lead (£250) deposit for new customers. Existing .com clients can upload unlimited videos at no extra charge.
There are numerous property video sites on the internet like
Real Estate TV in the UK and
The Real Estate Channel and
Wellcomemat in the US but The Move Channel is the first international property portal to offer advertisers a cost-per-lead model.
Bringing video to the mass market
The Move Channel Director, Dan Johnson believes services like Real Estate TV are great for agencies and developers with larger budgets but their limitation is that clients often have to develop bespoke footage which costs money. Johnson admits his service has lower production values (for example this
video) but his aim is to make online video distribution cheap and accessible to the mass market of overseas estate agents and
property developers.
Integrated marketing
By the summer, videos will be distributed inside the main search results of the .com site sitting alongside static image listings which will give clients greater exposure particularly as the .tv domain will take some time to gain traction on Google. There is also a PR campaign planned and Johnson promises to distribute all client videos on YouTube and many other video networks. These networks like
Blip.TV and
Blinx.tv have significant traffic in the US and North America and “will provide cheap exposure to these geographical markets”, says Johnson.
The power of video
Video is a high impact medium. “Ten seconds of video footage creates an impression that you will never get using words and still images…It’s a particularly powerful tool for lifestyle purchases. People find it hard to identify with still images, but with video you can picture yourself playing golf or lying on a beach. It creates empathy and humanises the sell,” Johnson explains.
Video on the cheap
Property developers often have large video production budgets and can afford to produce James Bond-esque lifestyle videos like
this one for several thousand pounds. However, Johnson insists that agents selling resale can produce good quality videos for free with a simple video function on a digital camera and software program
Adobe Premier Elements, which costs $99 (£50) and provides easy editing and compressing of images into a YouTube-ready format. For those less technically minded, they offer editing services for around £200 per video.
Competitor response
Video has a natural fit with overseas property. Done right, it’s a better sales medium for selling a dream than a text description and static images. Expect other portals to follow suit. Johnson believes he has at least a nine-month window before the other big overseas portals launch their own services. Video might be the next battleground for the attention of international buyers. It could get interesting.