Storytelling is an ancient art; it captivates us, captures our imaginations, and, when used effectively, can make you stand out from the crowd. Storytelling creates understanding and insight into your business as a story for clients and consumers; it creates affinity and makes people feel as though they know you; and it provides you with the vehicle for unique, compelling content. Whether you are promoting your listings or taking it way beyond the virtual tour and creating videos for personal promotion, events, client testimonials, and more, the way you tell your story has the power to help you both attract new clients and stay in communication with the ones who already know and love you. So what’s the story you’ll share?
RESOURCES
- What Makes Storytelling Effective For Learning, Harvard Business Review
- The Science of Storytelling: Why Telling a Story is the Most Powerful Way To Activate Our Brains, Lifehacker
- Why You Need To Use Storytelling For Learning, The eLearning Coach
- Story-Based Learning: Which Storytelling Strategy To Choose?, eLearning Industry
As an FYI, below are the resources and examples that I give when I teach a version of this class to REALTORS®
TELL A STORY
Storytelling is an unbelievably successful form of marketing. When your marketing tells a story — the story of your business, the story of your team, the story of your care values, the story of your listing even — you awaken in people an emotional response that they may not get otherwise. And that response can lead to a connection with you, your team, and your listing.
One obvious way to incorporate storytelling is by taking the idea of a listing virtual tour to another level. Letting your listing video tell the story of the house and letting the house be one of the main characters in the storyline is a powerful strategy. Below are a couple of examples:
Evoke the wistful and whimsical feelings of childhood in your listing marketing, as Flagstaff, Arizona REALTOR® Paula Monthofer did with this listing video. The viewer is a fly-on-the-wall to a 5-year-old’s tea party and inadvertently tours the house as a result of the search for one very important missing guest:
Or you can romanticize everyday life, as I did in this listing video for my real estate team, the Buy Sell Live Atlanta team in Atlanta, Georgia. The house is the main character, and the viewer experiences the tour as its inhabitants go about their everyday activities in an idealized day in the life:
And in one last example, two sweet adoptable pups take the viewer on a tour of a New Orleans home listed by REALTOR® Leslie Heindel. Partnering with a local animal shelter resulted in this adorable listing tour, awareness for the animal rescue…and in the ultimate adoption of these darling doggies.
SET YOURSELF APART
Attracting clients and viewers by communicating your office culture and how you creatively do business is also a great way to set yourself apart from the crowd. Here are two fantastic and fun videos by Philip Becker of Becker Properties in San Antonio, Texas.
SOME MORE OF OUR VIDEOS (just in case you want to see them!)
A Few of the Story Examples I Love:
My Favorite Storytelling TED Talks:
NOTE: There are so many great TED Talks on Stories and Storytelling — these are just a few of my favorites, and I hope you enjoy them…and then find more to be your new favorites and inspiration!