#376 – Mail-Right Show:Tips & Advice on Producing Great Real Estate Focus Videos In 2023

Subscribe: RSS

Tips & Advice on Producing Great Real Estate Focus Video In 2023

With Special Guest Devon Higgins of Photoup

Devon owns a real estate marketing business and is also a Realtor himself. He lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and has been in the real estate space for over 10 years. His main business involves working with real estate marketing professionals (specifically photographers) and empowering them to provide more value to their agent clients through photo editing, property websites, virtual tours, and virtual assistants. Outside of work, you can find Devon spending time with his wife and 2 daughters, enjoying the outdoors, and socializing with friends & colleagues.

Episode Full Interview Notes

[00:00:11.020] – Robert Newman

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Episode Number 376. Host, We’re super excited to have Devin Higgins today with us. He is the CMO for FOTO Up. I’m also with my amazing co Jonathan, and I’m going to give both of these superlative humans a chance to introduce themselves. So we’re going to start with our guest today, Devin. For those that don’t know you, why don’t you introduce yourself to the Mail-Right audience? Yeah.

[00:00:38.640] – Devon Higgins

Hey, everyone. My name is Devon Higgins. As Robert said, I am the CMO over here at Photoup. I am also a realtor based out of the Grand Rapids, Michigan area. But Photoup, my main business, deals with real estate marketing and digital marketing for both real estate agents and media professionals who are in the real estate industry. So we’ve been around since 2012 and excited to talk to you guys today. Beautiful.

[00:01:11.690] – Robert Newman

And for those who don’t know, the British accent coming to you through the airwaves, and I’m using very old language here because it’s probably through fiber these days, but I’m going to say airwaves anyway, and say that that gentleman is the founder of the show, founder of his own company, and my co-host on the show, his name is Jonathan. But, Jon, why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself?

[00:01:37.490] – Jonathan Denwood

Thanks, Rob. I’m the joint founder of Mail-Right.com. We build beautiful websites and WordPress for real estate agents, semi-custom, and full-custom. Plus, we got a host of digital products and services that help you get yourself noticed online and get some quality leads. Back over to you, Robert.

[00:01:59.340] – Robert Newman

My name is Robert Newman. I’m the founder of Inbound rem. We’re an inbound marketing and SEO company that focuses on real estate. All right, so here we go. Today, because we’re talking to arguably a photograph expert, we’re going to talk a little bit about that, as all of you who are listening to the show can probably guess. But before we get into it, Devin, did I understand correctly by reading your bio and talking to you pre-show that you also maintain a real estate license as well as being a tech founder? Is that correct?

[00:02:30.520] – Devon Higgins

Yeah, that is correct. My journey into the real estate industry started back in 2014. I joined up with a couple of guys that were starting a social enterprise real estate photography business. I did not know much about either at the time but knew that I liked the guys and liked the mission of the company and I was curious about a social enterprise. So joined them at that point, at that point in time, we had a very small number of clients being real estate photographers sprinkled all throughout the US and only about five editors over in the Philippines, which is where our operations headquarters were located. So I came on at about early stages of the company, again, pretty small, and helped them with their sales and marketing of growing the team of editors along with our client base, where we now today still do photo editing. It’s still our bread and butter of the business. But we now have over 200 editors and thousands of clients all over the US and the world. We’ve grown as well from not just doing photo editing, but also doing things like video editing and virtual staging. We also have property websites and a virtual tour product and are trying to really be the end-to-end solution for the real estate media professional or real estate agent.

[00:04:04.340] – Devon Higgins

And then along that line as well, about two years ago now, we had just been in the industry for so long. I had known so much about the media aspect but just didn’t really know enough about the agent side of things, so got my own license here in Grand Rapids. So I started trying to understand that as well. And from there, we’re now trying to create our own separate brand that’s not specifically for media professionals like photographers, but actually going directly to agents themselves to help them get some of their media up to par. So yeah, that’s short and skinny for me.

[00:04:41.980] – Robert Newman

Awesome. Well, that’s very impressive. 200 photo editors is… That is a lot of people to be running… Never mind. The company I founded, it does the same thing. We’re only 20 people, but it is already a lot of work scaling those people in that other place to do the job. So I’m just thinking, okay, what if I was 10 times bigger? I’m like, that would be a lot.

[00:05:12.600] – Devon Higgins

It’s not an easy task, but it’s a fulfilling one. Again, the social enterprise piece that I mentioned earlier is really we’re there to help folks over in the Philippines stay within their country, provide better opportunities for them to provide for their families, not have to go into foreign overseas worker programs. And there just aren’t a lot of young creative jobs in some of these developing markets. So by us being able to provide that, it’s a win win. Low cost, high quality editing service for our clients and high paying, great jobs for young creative individuals over in the Philippines. So yeah, excited about what we’re doing and we’re always trying to continue growing just like everybody else.

[00:05:56.940] – Robert Newman

I love that. And I like the way that you’re thinking about working with the Philippines. As a call center services guy, I’ve been working in the Philippines for decades. So never really thought of it like that. But then again, looking back on it, I’m realizing that the proliferation of US businesses and how we’re is changing the culture and in some ways for the better. I’m extremely ecstatic to hear somebody give me a couple of social enterprise lines that I have never heard before. John, you sound like you look like you’ve got a question.

[00:06:34.700] – Jonathan Denwood

No, I didn’t. You don’t mind me asking me intrigued, where did the idea of utilizing resources in the Philippines come from? You said you got involved, was it the original founders? Did they have ties to the Philippines or was it evolution? Was it like a lot of things, it was initially a, I wouldn’t say, mistake, but something happened. And then you built on building resources in the Philippines. I just wondered what led to that.

[00:07:14.620] – Devon Higgins

Now it’s a great question. It actually was a trifecta of serendipity, I would call it. The two founders, actually, three founders that initially started it, one of them was a real estate photographer up in Anchorage, Alaska. The other was a realtor up in Anchorage, Alaska. And the third was a guy down in Colorado getting his MBA in social enterprise, the real estate photographer and real estate agent up in Alaska. The agent had run a small website building company and had a connection to a guy over in the Philippines. And the photographer said, Hey, do you think you could connect me with anybody over there that might be able to do this stuff for me? And they said, Yeah, let’s work together. Let’s see if we can build you a small team of editors because he knew that there were highly talented people over there for relatively minimal cost. And then the guy down in Colorado was starting up a social enterprise doing wedding editing. But a similar type of deal and also over in the Philippines working with scholarship students. So those guys all somehow had a mutual friend that was the connection point that connected them all together, said, You guys should talk.

[00:08:27.810] – Devon Higgins

And photo up was born, bringing the business side of real estate and photo editing from Alaska over to the social enterprise side in the Philippines connection with scholarship students from the original founder who was down in Colorado. And the rest is history. I came on shortly after they had all met and got the juices flowing and they needed sales and marketing help. And I was the guy to be able to help them take everything to the next level.

[00:08:58.100] – Jonathan Denwood

I have it to you, Rob.

[00:09:02.240] – Robert Newman

So do you have sales and marketing? Great. My stream yard tends to slow down on me for reasons that I haven’t quite figured out. So hold on a second here. Let me… No one is. Oh, well, listen, can everybody still hear me? Yes. Okay. All right. Well, at least we got that going for us. All right. So let’s move on a little bit. I’m curious and I’m going to throw your curve ball, something I didn’t cover in the pre show notes because I’m an SEO guy. I love talking to clients about leveraging photos to actually get traffic back to their website, which is not common inside the industry I work in, the real estate marketing industry. It’s not a lot of people saying that. But I’m curious, when you talk to people about use cases for better photography or edited photography, what are some of the top things that you mention to them in that conversation?

[00:10:02.400] – Devon Higgins

Yeah. Photography in general is the launching point or sometimes the landing point for real estate marketing. There’s so many different tools out there for real estate marketing now, some of which I mentioned, video, virtual tours, virtual staging, all this stuff. But still, the photos are the key point of getting anybody interested in a listing. There are obviously many ways to take photos. You could take photos from your iPhone. You could take them on a point and shoot camera. You could hire a professional to shoot with their DSLR at a certain level. You can also hire more of an architectural photographer to come in and set up a bunch of different lighting techniques and spend a day or two at a property or space shooting very high end, beautiful photos. There’s a varying level and degree in terms of the quality that you might be looking for based on any space that you’re trying to shoot. I would say the typical client that we work with is a real estate photographer who’s doing this day in and day out and trying to shoot anywhere from two to maybe 10 homes a day, depending on the market that they’re in.

[00:11:16.520] – Devon Higgins

We then again work with very high end photographers who maybe only shoot one or two jobs a week and really spend multiple days out there prepping the site, getting lighting correct, waiting till the perfect moment to get that most beautiful shot. We then work with a lot of folks who are just jumping into the industry, who are starting out going off on their own and trying to create their own business as a real estate photographer and don’t know much about it at all. So we vary the gamut in terms of levels of photographer and folks that we work with. But at the end of the day, the photography itself is going to be the gateway into any real estate listing that a realtor might have.

[00:11:59.940] – Robert Newman

And for those photo ignorance out there, which oddly, I am one of them, I’m curious to know, can you give me a couple of very easy low hanging fruit… So somebody sends you a photo to edit. I have been always the one to take a photo on my phone and just post it, submit it, do whatever, never edit it, never look at it twice. Can you give me a couple of common things that people would want edited out of… When you say editing, what are you actually talking about? Because I legitimately don’t know.

[00:12:36.580] – Devon Higgins

Standard editing that we do are things like white balance, correcting the verticals in a room. We also do things for free in any of our images, things like adding a TV image to a blank TV screen that might be in a room. We also remove any cords, messy cords that might be ight be under a desk or around an entertainment center. We remove those. We also do things like adding a fire into a fireplace that’s in a room. If the fire wasn’t on to begin with, we have editors that can throw a nice looking fire into that, whether it’s a fireplace inside the house or a fire pit outside. Then we do things exterior side by doing things like greening the grass. If it is shot the beginning of spring, the grass is mushy or mucky and brown, we make it look nice and bright and green. We also do things like sky replacements. So if the home was shot on a day where it was overcast or you maybe even had some rain outside, we can take that gray sky and put a nice bright blue one in with nice puffy white clouds for you.

[00:13:46.300] – Devon Higgins

So all that stuff comes included in the standard editing that we do at photo up. And then you get into the premiere photo editing, too. You can do things like converting a daytime shot into a dusk or a twilight shot that looks really nice and looks like it was taken at that twilight hour. We do things like doing object removals. You wouldn’t believe it. Maybe you would. But a lot of the times we have to remove cars from driveways because the homeowner just decided to leave their car parked in the driveway and the home looks a little bit nicer when it’s photographed if that big truck is not planted right in the middle of the driveway. So removing realtor signs is another big one that we remove. Removing just garbage cans even from the sides of homes. So we do a lot of removals on that side. And then like I said, too, we also do things. If a home was shot and the home is empty, we do things like adding virtual staging. So virtually placing furniture into a room to make it look as if it was staged physically, but have it just all be done digitally, which is going to save you time and money in the long run.

[00:14:56.340] – Robert Newman

Well, that was a very long list of things that I hadn’t thought about and a couple that I didn’t realize were possible. So I’m actually really glad I asked the question.

[00:15:10.140] – Devon Higgins

I’m glad you did, too.

[00:15:12.310] – Robert Newman

We’re going to go to break here, ladies and gentlemen. And in Murphy’s Law, for anybody that watches the YouTube channel, I was thinking, Oh, I’m going to fix my camera during the break. And no sooner than the break mark popped up, then my camera just automatically fixed itself. Anyway, technology. All right. So, ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to be right back. Wherever you are, wherever you’re watching the show, do us a favor, like it, share it with those photographer friends that you have, and let everybody know that John and I are incredible humans. No, I’m just kidding. Anyway, we’ll see you in a second.

[00:15:54.180] – Devon Higgins

Do.

[00:15:54.400] – Robert Newman

You want quality.

[00:15:55.120] – Devon Higgins

Leads from.

[00:15:56.040] – Robert Newman

Homeowners and buyers right in your own neighborhood? Then you.

[00:15:58.610] – Devon Higgins

Need mail right. It is a powerful but easy to use.

[00:16:01.920] – Robert Newman

Online marketing system that uses Facebook to generate real estate leads.

[00:16:05.640] – Devon Higgins

At a fraction of the cost you’d pay from our competition. We stand behind our work with a no question.

[00:16:10.480] – Robert Newman

Asked.

[00:16:11.070] – Devon Higgins

30 day.

[00:16:11.860] – Robert Newman

Money back guarantee.

[00:16:13.400] – Devon Higgins

So don’t delay, get started today.

[00:16:15.500] – Robert Newman

Go to mail. R ight. Com. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the Mail Right Show. I honestly have already forgotten what episode it is, maybe 379. We’re here with Devin Higgins, who is a social enterprise entrepreneur, a real estate agent, and many, many, many things, also incredibly knowledgeable about the editing of photographs among probably, I’m sure, a whole quadre of services that his company offers. However, the service that we were talking about for the first part of the show was definitely photos and photo editing, which is more along the lines of my curiosity about what you would pictures how you would edit them because I was legitimately confused and I was given a very long list for so that was very cool. Before we go any further, though, I do want to add something in because I’m going to throw a little bit of a footnote in from my expertise. When you’re on a website and you’re using photos, you can use photos to tell stories. Now, most of the time, my stories, Devon, are informational. What I have my clients go out and do is take pictures of stuff that go well beyond the house because you can see so many pictures of so many houses because that’s what everybody has been putting up digitally for the last decade or so.

[00:17:41.620] – Devon Higgins

So.

[00:17:43.090] – Robert Newman

Oftentimes, there’s little things you can take pictures of and sort them through, let’s say, a photo carousel on a website. That would be local amenities or if you’re working in communities, which is really easy, pictures of the gate, pictures of the code box, things that people don’t think of that effect the living or the lifestyle elements of the area that you’re specifically talking about. Taking pictures tells a story. I’m a big storyteller, and my belief in inbound marketing is that it’s best done when you’re being very informative and relatively interesting. And you can do that with videos. You can do that with pictures. You can do that with a written word. It’s all possible. I think that with what Darren just shared with us, telling a story might be changing whether the picture was taken during the day or the night. If you feel like the home is going to have a better story told at a particular day, an example that would be a home with a magnificent view. You obviously want to take those photos and display them during the day. Tell the story about the home, about the lifestyle connected to the home.

[00:18:56.330] – Robert Newman

Certain other types of lighting, though, might… Let’s say it has cabanas or chairs. And I know you’re not going to get that a lot in Michigan, but we would get that here in California. So let’s just say part of the lifestyle is actually like a sunset life. In California, yes, you sometimes hang out at the pool during the day, but by the time all that’s done, your margarita is out and the barbecue is going, that’s a sunset activity. So you take the photo at sunset, and you can use these photo editing services, apparently, to change the time of day that these pictures appear to have been taken at. So what I heard when you told me the list of services for photo editing is I heard a whole list of ways that people could tell a better story with a picture. That’s what I heard. Absolutely. So those of you listening to the show, this might be an interesting way for you to change the way that you’re thinking about your pictures. I’m always a believer that you want to tell the best story possible, whether it’s an individual listing, what you’re doing on a website.

[00:19:57.060] – Robert Newman

You also want to be informative and useful. And for that, you’re going to have to do a little bit of research, listen to John and I, stay tuned into the show because you need ideas to keep that what is informative. Everybody thinks real estate is a very one trick pony, and I’m here to tell you it’s not. John, I’ll be out here.

[00:20:17.460] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, sure. All right, sure. So, Debra, you’re dealing with a lot of professional photographers and people taking video. Are there any trends that you have noticed in the past 18 months around how photography is being utilized or video? Because I’m sure in the industry photographers are looking at other photographers, and I would presume that there’s like in web design, there’s certain trends that develop. And I would imagine in video, that’s the same. So A, am I correct? And B, if that is, what are some of the trends that you have noticed in your team?

[00:21:02.840] – Devon Higgins

Yeah, totally. Great question. I think even probably the biggest change that we’ve seen, and it’s not even in real estate, it’s just globally, was before 18 months and it was COVID. It upended everybody’s lives and changed the way that marketing, specifically in real estate, was done. Our primary service was and still is for the most part real estate photo editing. But we saw a huge push into video, into virtual tours, into virtual staging because people just weren’t physically able to go into homes during those COVID times. So what we’ve seen after that and getting through COVID and now as we’re all getting back to normal is starting to see those trends still continue. People actually really enjoy going and looking at a listing from the comfort of their own home and computer or phone and getting a lot more information other than just pictures. But you can get a lot more information through a video, through a virtual tour by seeing a couple of different rooms that are virtually staged with different types of furniture. So you can really get a feel for whether or not you want to spend the time and effort to go walk through a home instead of then probably what you were doing before COVID was going through, if you were a buyer, going through 5, 10, 15, 20 different homes until you made that final decision to put in an offer.

[00:22:33.300] – Devon Higgins

And obviously, going through COVID now, you’re probably putting in multiple offers on listings. But just saving your time and effort of physically going through a space by getting more digital content that gives you a much better understanding of what the home looks like and feels like. So the digital media, I think, was the biggest change that we’ve seen in the past, really, two to three years that is a continuing trend even today.

[00:23:00.980] – Jonathan Denwood

I totally can see that. And that’s why you’re going to try and provide more services directly to real estate agents, and also your professional photography clientele as well. I totally understand that. Are you also looking to provide any services? And I don’t know, you might have decided not to. Are you going to provide any services around editing, around agents, YouTube, or TikTok, or Instagram video needs, or have you looked at that, or have you got any plans in that area?

[00:23:42.600] – Devon Higgins

We definitely have looked into it. The problem is it can be very hit or miss, and it’s not as broad as maybe things like video editing, photo editing, some of these bigger services that are more well known. What we have done, though, is we’ve created a virtual assistant program where you can literally hire a member of our video editing or photo editing teams and have them work for you as essentially a full time employee. So have them edit your photos, have them edit your videos, have them do things like social media marketing, have them help you with your TikTok videos and edits. Have them do even things like lead generation, email marketing. So really trying to become the back end support for either an agent or a media professional to help them run their business by having the cost savings and availability of somebody who speaks great English and has a great skill set over in the Philippines.

[00:24:42.000] – Jonathan Denwood

So do you spend a lot of time on training? Because I would imagine this is crucial, finding the right people, but also turning people that have potential into a real way player for your company.

[00:25:00.090] – Devon Higgins

Absolutely. When we started out, man, we were looking for anybody and everybody with photo editing experience and trying to get the people with experience in the door. We need experience. What we found out over the years is it’s much better if you have a great personality fit with at least photo up than what we do. If you’re eager to learn, if you’re excited to do something creative and you want to learn additional skills, you’re going to be a great asset to photo up and to another company down the road. If we can teach you, which we obviously can, the photo editing, the video editing skills, and we give you the training materials to learn some of these other skill sets that are valuable for a real estate agent or a photographer, we basically give you a launchpad to become a back end service professional, media assistant, virtual assistant, whatever you want to call it, for some of these other people who are looking to hire somebody to add to their team.

[00:25:56.720] – Jonathan Denwood

That’s great. Over to.

[00:26:00.070] – Robert Newman

You, Rob. We’re going to switch over here a little bit because we’ve been talking about photos. That’s your primary business. We deeply appreciate all the information that you’ve given us. It’s been a great ride so far. A lot of things that you’ve talked about that are actually making me take a beat and think about not only as a guest on the show but also as an entrepreneur because I also work out of the Philippines. I have 13 employees there. So you’ve given me a lot to scratch my chin about and think on. But having said that, the thing that John and I are hammering away at because video has been is the future of real estate marketing. It just is. We can talk about photos and they are an incredibly viable medium. But I look at website analytics all day long. And if you look at what drives traffic, what drives engagement on a website, not like a listing site, like a listing service, but a website, it’s almost always video when you can find it. Eighty % of the media that was consumed last year was video on sites that have video, especially ones that are doing full walkthroughs from an age.

[00:27:18.840] – Robert Newman

And oftentimes you have hundreds of thousands of views and maybe 20 or 30 views on each individual picture. Video is just a more kinesthetic way to transfer information. And as people get used to it, they’re really starting to favor the medium. So having said all that, I’d love to hear your thoughts on where do you agree with that in general? Do you think that video is as big of a deal as I just suggested it was? Has that not been your experience? And if it has been your experience, how are you going to… What little ways are you dipping your toes into the video pool?

[00:27:59.530] – Devon Higgins

Yeah. So you talk earlier, Rob, about telling a story, right? And there’s only so much story you can tell from even just photos and video is that next level of storytelling, right? Can I get a feel for how the house flows? Can I see myself sitting on that couch? Can I watch the water running out of the faucet? Can I see the fire going? There’s just a lot more story that can be told via video, and we’re seeing that as well. I have some stats that I brought with me here. Seventy % of homeowners now say that they’re more likely to list with an agent that does video for their listing, right? Four hundred and three % more inquiries are driven from listings with videos that’s coming directly from NAR. So these trends are not going away. They’re increasing. I think from an agent perspective, video can be daunting. It feels like a very big task. Oh, my gosh, how do I get into video? How much am I going to spend? How hard is it? And this is where the clientele that we work with right now can help you out. They’re photographers, they’re the professionals, they know how to do it.

[00:29:11.500] – Devon Higgins

But if you are trying to keep it under a budget, you have a ton of power with that thing in your pocket that you carry with you all day, every day. And we’re able to utilize a lot of the video that you can shoot right from your iPhone or Android, sending that content over to our team of video editors and putting it together in a nice-looking walkthrough. I mean, really just taking a room step by step, trying to keep that camera as stable as possible if you don’t have, let’s say, a tripod or a Gimbal or a stabilizer, which are all great tools to have, but you can get a lot of value out of literally just walking through your home with the phone that you have in your pocket and then getting that video edited by a professional team. That’s where I’d say I want to encourage Realtors to be able to go out there and empower them to be some of the media professionals, but also work with the professionals as well. There are a lot of folks out there, professional photographers who are great, who are going to be able to provide you with a high-quality level of service.

[00:30:18.160] – Devon Higgins

But then I know that every listing doesn’t demand that. If you’re in Michigan like me here, a $200,000 listing might not require all the bells and whistles. In California, you guys are probably saying the half-a-million-dollar listing doesn’t require all the bells and whistles. It’s just a different level. So I think being able to, though, provide good quality marketing for your clients, that’s what you need to do for every listing, regardless of the price point. Be able to provide an extra level of media that is going to catch people’s attention and get people to come and walk through that house.

[00:30:54.300] – Robert Newman

Copy that. I love everything you said there. Remind me, I’m going to put something in the chat here. I have a non on-air question for you. So you agree with what we said about video? And so, John, we’re easing up into bonus time right now. So do you want to break the segment up or do you just want to…

[00:31:28.900] – Jonathan Denwood

I think we might just keep on going.

[00:31:31.660] – Robert Newman

Got you. And we’re going to spend the last few minutes, for those of you who are watching and listening, I’m going to spend the last few minutes diving a little bit deeper into the video. So I would imagine because you just indicated so that photo up is moving in the direction of also staffing up on the video editing side. Was that a correct assumption based on something I heard you say?

[00:31:52.130] – Devon Higgins

Absolutely. Yeah, we’re seeing an increase in that. So we are adding video editors left and right now to help keep up with demand.

[00:31:59.890] – Robert Newman

I got you. So you’re starting to see the same window of opportunity for your own particular business as you did all that time ago with the photos or you and your team, the other founders, everybody collectively saw that opportunity. And now you’re seeing it again today in the video space. Is that what I’m hearing you say?

[00:32:22.960] – Devon Higgins

Yeah, 100 %.

[00:32:26.080] – Robert Newman

Okay. And if you’re going to give me the same rundown that you did before because I am actually moving into thinking about doing video editing for some of my higher end customers. And I’m curious to know what would be some common video editing questions questions, comment, what do you do with video editing? Because once again, I don’t know the answer to this.

[00:32:50.360] – Devon Higgins

Right. How we look at video editing is threefold. We have a standard video edit that is very I mean, clean. Has a nice title of the address, the amenities in the home, nice clean cuts, start to finish, has an intro and an outro of a realtor logo. Pretty standard. We then have a premiere or premium video edit that is going to do things like motion graphics, really engaging the viewer to draw them into the listing, having a lot smoother and nicer transitions, have better range of music in the background, having maybe a realtor give an intro and an outro of the property, physically being on camera, talking about the listing. Then we have that third tier where if you really want to get into video editing at that next level and you’re doing a ton of video. You’re wanting to do not only video for every listing, but you’re wanting to do an agent video, a brokerage video, videos of all the other things and services that you as an agent provide. We have the ability to hire a video editing virtual assistant that works for you full time, can do all sorts of other video editing for you that you might want above and beyond just your average listing.

[00:34:09.100] – Devon Higgins

So those are the three different levels, at least, that we have and we see right now.

[00:34:13.400] – Robert Newman

So if you’re going to hire somebody, literally take advantage of one of these virtual assistant roles, can you give me a range of what that would cost?

[00:34:20.860] – Devon Higgins

Yeah. So how we set everything up is on a monthly fee, and our monthly fees range anywhere from $1,295 to 1695. And that’s going to depend on the contract term. So how long do you want to work with that person and their skill set? What skills do they have? Are they just doing photo editing? Are they doing video editing, photo editing, or virtual staging? Or are they doing more VA administrative tasks for you? Social media marketing, lead generation, email marketing, that thing. So that’s the range that we have and we’ve seen a lot of adoption in that space.

[00:35:00.720] – Robert Newman

Got you. I would think so. That’s a very reasonable cost.

[00:35:05.680] – Jonathan Denwood

If you.

[00:35:07.220] – Robert Newman

Know the.

[00:35:09.260] – Jonathan Denwood

Cost, the early cost of a good video editor.

[00:35:14.700] – Devon Higgins

In terms of just quickly, in terms of an hourly rate, and these people, they’d be working for you eight hours a day, five days a week, you’re looking at roughly anywhere from $7 to maybe $10 an hour. Very tough to find somebody that does quality work over here, for better or worse, at those rates.

[00:35:40.420] – Robert Newman

My mind is going, but not in the way it should be. It’s going in an entrepreneurial way because that raises some other questions. But go ahead, guys.

[00:35:50.700] – Jonathan Denwood

Keep going. Yeah, sure. Because I think your service is fabulous, actually, because I think you’re filling a vacuum because I think what I observed, and I’d be interested to see if you agree and also Rob agrees, there seem to be two points, but nothing in the middle. And what I mean by that, there was the age and that he utilized his phone. He does a quick walkthrough. He puts the phone in front of him. He talks into the phone. And then you had this high-quality drone luxury property, full production videos. But it didn’t seem a lot in the middle because of cost, the inability, because the agent would probably want to do that themselves. But then I know the amount of time editing takes in audio or in the video. And the amount, if you’re a busy agent, the last thing you’re going to want to do is edit videos. And that’s why I think it’s a major reason why that middle area is… And to hire somebody domestically that knows what they’re doing. You’re looking at 30, 40, 50, up to 100 plus dollars an hour. And for a lot of agents, depending on the type of property they’re promoting, it just isn’t viable, is it?

[00:37:15.960] – Devon Higgins

Totally. And I think you bring up a great point, Jonathan. Really, what it comes down to is opportunity cost. Where is my time best spent? Is it editing photos? Is it editing videos? Is it taking all of these photos and videos, or is it hiring and working with somebody who is a professional in that space? Whether it is the photographer themselves or whether it is a VA or whether it’s partnering with a team that can take all that stuff off of your plate. I think my goal and our goal as a company is to be able to provide professional-level marketing on every listing. When I started back in 2014, I think the stat was around 15 % to 20 % of all listings in the US were shot with professional real estate photos and professional marketing. That rate has now increased. We’re up to maybe 40 %, sometimes 50 or higher in certain areas. But across the board, that average is about every other home that is shopped professionally or marketed professionally with a professional editing or professional marketing service. If we can continue to raise that water level and reduce the barrier to get really high-quality marketing, I think that’s our goal as an industry in general.

[00:38:32.800] – Devon Higgins

If we can provide a higher level of value to our clients, that they’re saying, Wow, they really pulled out all the stops for me in my listing instead of just, Oh, I saw him walk in with his iPhone and then immediately throw those photos up on the listing, that is going to dictate a different level of service than the guy who brings out the professional media crew. But again, coming back to the fact that that thing in your hand, the device in your pocket is so powerful now that you can do almost anything in terms of marketing and in terms of media from your phone. And that’s only going to continue to increase as we move along here.

[00:39:11.260] – Robert Newman

Agreed. Well, guys, we’ve done a good show. We’re ending. We’re closing on the last minute or so. So I want to use this last minute once again, directing people to whatever your pet interests are, where you want them to go, and where you think you can be useful. Devin, why don’t you go ahead? If somebody wanted to reach out to you if somebody wanted to learn more about some particular part of your company that you’re focused on yourself right now, where would that be?

[00:39:36.510] – Devon Higgins

Yeah. So to find me, you can go to photo up. Photoup or. Com. It’ll both get you to the same spot. And then check out our website. We have a lot of information on there in terms of our services. We have a lot of great blogs with a lot of the content that I talked about today. We also have a little chat feature that you can ask for me personally, if you’d like to, or talk to one of our supporter sales team members. We have a phone line that goes directly to our sales staff, including myself. So if you want to give us a call, feel free. We also give anybody who signs up for an account 10 credits to be able to use any of our services. We’re currently, right now, running a special little promotion that any agent that signs up for an account will get one free, virtually staged image, too. So if you’re interested in any of that stuff and you’re thinking you want to give it a try, come on over, sign up for an account, give it a go and let me know what you think.

[00:40:34.220] – Robert Newman

Cool. Jon?

[00:40:36.420] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, sure. I just want to point out to the listeners and viewers that we’re looking for some local evangelist real estate professionals to join the Mel Wright family. Basically, get your website hosted and also custom designed the homepage, and the About Us page. And all we ask is that you utilize the service and you then promote it in your local area and become a joint partner with Mel Wright. If that’s interesting, go over to Mail-Right and book a demo. It’d be me or my co-founder, Adam, and we’ll show you and we’ll see if we have a good fit. Back over to you, Robert.

[00:41:17.240] – Robert Newman

Beautiful. My name is Robert Newman. I am the founder of Inbound R AM. You can just go to Inbound RAM. You can look in the… For those of you who are doing the video, you can just look over there. Just go to InboundREM, and you’ll learn all sorts of stuff about real estate marketing, inbound marketing, and about me if you really want to. I will say this, John’s beta offer is rare in the world of technology. If you are looking to get in on the ground floor someplace, this would be a great time. And I think that no matter what our audience has done, Devon, you probably want yourself a customer in the form of me. So when we get off the show, the airwaves here, I just want to ask you to stay on for just one more second. All right, everybody, thank you for joining us today at the MailWright Show. We have loved talking to you. I’ve been having consistent technology issues for which I am sorry. But we’ll catch you the next time and we appreciate you guys.