The ‘Dodgy’ Estate Agency Video That Made Me Money

A past post pinged up on my Facebook feed recently reminding me of something I did two years ago that still echoes loudly today.

It was a quick thing done without much thought or planning but proved to be the biggest and best piece of profile-raising I’ve done to date.

Annoyed by the relentless streams of agents talking in cars about not much of interest, I asked my friend James to record a video with me.

James has a background in the performing arts, so didn’t take much (any) persuasion.

The video is linked here and went onto get thousands of hits, trade media coverage AND aside from vanity metrics it won also won me a couple of clients and laid the foundations for my Agency Content Club.

It made people aware of me, my company and our ‘why so serious?’ approach.

It also paved the way for a series of similar sketches and reaffirmed my belief that humour opens many more doors than hassling can.

The video itself took around 15 minutes to film. It is just me and James mucking about and running through a very loose script that covered agents’ egos, market share, daytime dogging, and dodgy deals.

I’d like to think I wasn’t a boring date back in my bachelor days so this post ain’t about me (well it is a bit) – it’s about you, and how your agency could and should use humour to break through the noise.

My favourite agency property market update video came from a client in Wembley. Recently, she filmed and released herself warming up ahead of shooting the ‘real’ thing. She danced a bit, mucked about, and showed her personality. It worked as the reaction to it highlighted. I loved it as did others.

An easy way to show the lighter side of your agency is to release the bloopers and outtakes from your video updates. The stuff that didn’t make the cut but will probably get the biggest reaction.

The best agents I know take their work seriously, but not themselves.

Are you using humour in your marketing mix? If not, you should give it some serious thought.

I’ll leave you with this – If people buy really do ‘buy’ people isn’t it time your agency showed some personality?

Thanks for your time and attention.