So you’ve sold your latest house and you’re riding high, feeling really proud that you were able to pull it off. Maybe the agent before you had no success, but you brought in all your favorite pros and got the deal closed. Now you’re cleaning up, filing your final paperwork, and getting ready to find your next big client. So what do you do with those awesome photos you had commissioned? We’ve got a few ideas. Unlike most everything else you do to sell a house, your professional photos and videos can actually add more value for your clients when used properly. Through all these suggestions, always be sure to utilize the HD images we include with every shoot! It’ll make a world of difference when you’re printing them out.
In a career as competitive as real estate, it’s important to find new ways to stand out. Here’s a few ideas we have to get you started. Have more? Let us know in the comments!
Build A Portfolio
When you’re on that next listing appointment and you’re looking for things to bring along, consider a portfolio of photos of your closed homes. A portfolio of your professionally photographed, closed listings is a fantastic way to add value for your clients. It shows them you care about selling their home and you’re ready to invest in their success. Your client can see the level of quality you expect from your vendors and it can help justify that commission rate.
Not all agents use professional photos, so wear it on your sleeve that you do and actually show them! You can bring along a collage made with a free application like Adobe Spark which shows off your favorite photos you’ve commissioned. If you’re really next level, bring a slideshow or video on your tablet. If you’ve had some films made with us, let us know and we’ll make you a free compilation film with the best shots so you can really shine! These little details provide a plethora of reasons for your clients to refer you as the value you provide is visible and tangible.
Spruce Up Your Social Media
Many agents post 1 or 2 photos form their shoot on their Facebook. Some will make a small collage and share that, but there’s more opportunity you’re missing! Try a #tbt post about a listing you sold 6 months ago. Post a few more photos across multiple Instagram posts. Drop a few on Facebook after the property has been on the market for a few weeks. Add an entire gallery to your social media pages. Use apps like Over to add fancy, professional-looking text to the images for a little more share-ability!
Show off your photos! The purpose isn’t just to find buyers, you’re also showing the world your dedication to finding buyers! Your buyers, and others, will notice and soon they’ll be asking you to sell their houses too!
Use Them On Post Cards
If you’re not already sending out mailers, you might be missing a perfect opportunity to farm a neighborhood. When your new listing goes live, use a service like Vistaprint to get cheap, easy, beautiful post cards and send them to the neighborhood. Vistaprint will even help you get the addresses and send them out for an additional fee! All you have to do is plug in your professional photos and put your relevant information on the card.
Once you’ve sold the property, keep using your photos! Send another post card out. A little later do it again. Use your professionally shot photos to show the neighborhood you’re the agent for them. You may be surprised how well these cards can open a dialogue with neighbors who may realize it’s the right time to sell for them as well!
Update Your Website
Many agents have an agent website, even if it’s a company-provided page, you should have some ability to customize it. There’s a million ways to incorporate your photos into your website: a slideshow, gallery, sprinkled throughout, in your blog, etc. I can’t hit on all of them, but I’ll list a few and why they’re so useful to get you going!
Be sure to use the MLS sized imaged we send out with each shoot for these, it will save bandwidth and load faster.
- Header Slideshow – A very popular web design these days (see our current homepage for an example) includes displaying a slider at the top of the homepage. Use photos of your closed listings in this slider to give a personal feel and showcase your accomplishments.
- Photo Gallery – Create a page or section on your website with a photo gallery of recently sold, professional photographed properties to showcase to potential clients. Creating a separate page will create a linkable landing page to share via email or social media which makes it easy for visitors to then click on your IDX or MLS feeds and search properties, all in your curated environment! And If you’re lucky, visitors will share it to their friends as well!
- Blog – Everyone knows the importance of blogging, but having great imagery on the blog is equally important. If you’ve hired a professional photographer, you should have unlimited resources to add quality photos to all your blog posts. If you’ve hired us, you can ask us to shoot your favorite details in the home and use them for even more material for targeted posts and content!
- Buttons and Actionable Links – If you want to make or have made a button with fancy text over top of it, sometimes having a background image is helpful. Oftentimes web designers will pull from a bank of stock images or they may ask you to pay for a stock image. Save the time and money while adding a personal flair by using one of your own closed listings in these areas.
- Mailing lists – If you’re making a mailing list, it needs to look great! By using a service like MailChimp you can format a beautiful email newsletter, but it still needs photos. You guessed it! Plug in past photos from your archive to add a personal, free way to make those newsletters more appealing. Maybe even add a byline to the image saying something simple like “A beautiful South Charlotte home we sold last spring”.
- Scattered Throughout – Every page on your website needs attractive imagery. While I don’t recommend making every image of a house, you definitely should display some houses. Use them on random pages or as anchors or headers to give a break from walls of text and give your website a professional look!
Finishing Your Professional Photography Portfolio
You’re using a professional photographer because you already realize the benefits of doing so. Now we want to help take you to the next level beyond hiring us to shoot for you. By writing these blogs and guides, we hope to teach our Local Pros some tips and tricks to get the most out of their professional photos. As always, if there’s anything else you can think of that would be helpful or useful, let us know! We’re always looking for new ideas to push real estate photography further!