Drone Use in Construction Marketing
The use of drones in construction is growing rapidly, with companies in this industry using drones for various tasks throughout the construction process. We count several construction companies as our clients, and here we are breaking down the uses of drones and other tools for construction services marketing.
The most common use of drones in construction is for marketing, because aerial photography and video showcase project site progress, action on the site, and the finished project better from the bird's eye view than from the ground. You can see more from the aerial view and show off the scale of the project, and the best way to get this type of content is to have ongoing construction progress documentation using drones.
How do construction companies use drone photography and video for construction marketing?
Social Media Content
Construction aerial photography and video generate great content to showcase the progress on the construction site to stakeholders and the public. They can also be used as early-stage marketing for the brokers if the building needs to be leased by tenants. Below are some examples: before/during photo and video clip that was posted on social media by our clients.
Before/During drone photo of a construction site on West 25th Street in Cleveland
2. Project Portfolio Showcase on Construction Company Website or YouTube Channel
Every construction company should have a section on their website to showcase the projects that they have been involved in. What better way to showcase them than with photos or videos of finished projects, maybe even an impressive hyper-lapse or timelapse video of the building going up during the construction?
3. Customer Proposals, Presentations, Business Development
While not all scopes of work require to have visual updates of the construction site, having this type of deliverable throughout the construction process may enhance your proposal, and even take it over the top all things being equal among the other bidders. Especially if the construction client is not local, which is often the case.
We have a construction client whose building owner is overseas, and having consistent visual updates is very valuable to them. It gives transparency and increases their confidence and trust in the builder.
4. Video Web Banners on Construction Company's Homepage
Have you heard that the website homepage, which is most often the landing page, is the most important page to optimize the content on because it gets the most traffic, and that's where the visitors decide if they want to browse further? A video banner of prominent projects that the construction company has built will impress many viewers and increase their confidence and motivation to take the next step: browse more or contact the builder. Here is an example.
Video is becoming a very important part of marketing strategy for many industries, including construction marketing strategy. If you'd like to know more about the reasons why read our blog post Why Is Video Important For Your Marketing?
What is the Return on Investment (ROI) of construction site progress monitoring and documentation?
Many construction companies leverage drones and other visual technology tools for more than just marketing, such as for enhancing customer communications, internal project updates, construction site security, and re-creating the built environments in BIM (Building Information Modeling) and creating digital twins.
In addition to drones, these tools are time-lapse cameras and 360 virtual tours. The visual output of these tools over the lifecycle of the project can be used and reused for various purposes, which can make the acquisition cost of construction site imagery very efficient, and its Return on Investment (ROI) increases with every use.
These tools are within the digitization trend in construction, facilities management, and other industries. This imagery can be used to re-create the built environment in 3D in BIM (used for construction and design) or as digital twins (usually used for facility maintenance and operations) to give companies a complete 3D visual model of the build. It is a digital documentation record that can be accessed at any time to send information about the building, reflect changes with its physical counterpart, and allow for materials ordering and scheduling (in the design/construction stage or for maintenance and expansions if the building is operational). These types of digital models can replace final building drawings and operations manuals.
We outline more drone uses on construction site on our blog post Top 4 Drone Uses in Construction Site Management.
If you'd like a quote for construction progress monitoring job or consultation on what equipment is best to use on your construction site for a specific purpose or a variety of uses, contact us!
Event Documentation For Marketing
Whether your business is event management, your company is staging or participating in an event to promote itself and engage existing and prospective customers, or you are in the sports and entertainment industry where events are an everyday business, documenting your event should be a part of your marketing strategy and can help you accomplish several goals:
1. Create event longevity
Once you have documented your event (with video, photos, or even a Livestream feed that you recorded) and published it on your website and social media (including YouTube channels), it will live on the internet forever! That allows showing off the work your company has performed and helps past, current, and prospective clients evaluate your products and services for future consideration.
2. Enhance your credibility
Seeing is believing, and visual content (especially video) engages more people! Showcasing participation and booth space at annual industry events and exhibiting your products/services in the event space, along with seeing the customer interactions will impress beyond any words and enhance your businesses' credibility. If your business is event management, documenting your work is a must to give you credibility and entice prospective clients!
3. Maximize your content production value for marketing
Content marketing is king nowadays, and documenting an event is a perfect opportunity to make more content without thinking hard about what type of content to produce! If you are not familiar with content marketing, Google it! And if you don't know how to approach content creation, here is an article and a PowerPoint deck by Gary Vaynerchuk How To Make 64 Pieces of Content In A Day (with step-by-step instructions).
4. Increase your marketing reach
If you read Gary Vee's article, you know that posting content on multiple platforms (websites, social media, etc.) makes your marketing reach go further. Every media channel and social platform has its niche, and your business is active only on a few that matter to you. If you document your event with visuals (photos, videos), this will cover your basics for multiple media platforms, and you can add and change the copy as needed for various digital asset creation (photos, short-form, and long-form videos).
5. Showcase your work
This is self-explanatory: if you stage events, impress prospective clients with the past events you've put on! If you participate in an event (or are even a talent that is hired to entertain), bring your products, services, or event you are participating in into the spotlight!
6. Promotional content
If your company participates in the event or stages it, chances are you don't do this just once. Documenting your event is a great way to promote your services (especially if you are in the event management industry) or advertise your past and upcoming participation in the relevant industry events, for external (clients, financial markets) and internal (employee) communications!
7. Publicity tool
And finally, documenting events is great for publicity! Generate publicity using this content with available tools in your marketing mix, or piggyback on the existing publicity of the event to get more media mentions and exposure.
V1DroneMedia is an aerial (drone) services company that delivers full traditional and aerial event documentation and video production, including aerial livestreaming. Our work ranges from covering small business events such as Sunnyside Chevrolet Annual Classic Car Show, Chamber of Commerce Golf Outing, Cleveland Haunt Club Halloween in July, to documentation of college graduations, charity events and sports events, including aerial livestreaming of US Sailing Championship on Lake Erie, and aerial coverage for 2016 Cavaliers Parade for local Cleveland news, among others. Contact us today for a quote!
How to get started with Digital Marketing for any Business
If you are a small to medium business owner or marketing manager (oftentimes it is the same person), your marketing resources (budget and employees) are limited. Your challenge is to have that marketing budget work for you as hard as possible. You most likely already know that the best way to spend your budget to reach more people is through digital marketing (the exception to this rule exists, of course, if your target audience is not digitally savvy, which is increasingly hard to find nowadays).
Why Digital Media over Traditional Media?
It simply costs a lot less than traditional (Print, TV, Radio) media, it can be better targeted, and there is a lot of 'free' media exposure to be gained through search engines and social media, through what is called "earned media" in the communications world.
When I was in corporate marketing managing million-dollar budgets, the mantra always was to spend your budget most efficiently, and in many ways that meant reaching the most people possible for the cost of the media buy. Usually, this is measured in CPM (or Cost per Thousand) of individual visual impressions. So, even if you have large budgets nowadays, a large portion of it should go to digital marketing, since it helps you reach more people at a lower CPM.
Relevant Digital Content Increases Your Reach
Digital media revolutionized marketing in many ways. One of them is the ability of any business to be discoverable on the internet through the use of relevant content on the website that helps with Search Engine Optimization (or SEO), the other is putting out consistent content on a website and social media that is shareable and helps to build and keep your brand top of mind. The type, quality, and relevancy of this content will play a role in its distribution, sharing, and ranking in the Search Engine results.
A website with SEO-Optimized Content– Step # 1
If you don't have a website yet and have never heard of the term SEO (Search Engine Optimization) before, then you should stop reading this immediately and set up a website, and get educated on SEO as soon as possible! Because SEO is the #1 free marketing tool that is available to you. Through continuous SEO-optimized website copy, you can make your business more discoverable through Search Engines (such as Google, Bing, etc.), bringing your website up in the search results when a prospective customer is searching with a term specific to your business. This should always be the starting point to establish your digital presence: building a website that has SEO-optimized copy and content that will help your website to be discovered.
How to get started with SEO? Since you or your employees are most likely subject matter experts in the service or product you provide, and you have access to clients who you serve and who share their needs (pain points) with you, you are perfectly capable of developing some basic content (copy, photos) for your website. You should also have a plan to keep current on relevant keywords of how customers/consumers look for the services/products you offer, perform a routine (quarterly) audit of yours and competitive website keyword ranking, and update the copy and content accordingly.
There is a wealth of online information and tools on SEO and of course plenty of SEO professionals who can help you to manage this if you are not inclined to do so yourself.
Establish Social Media Presence – Step #2
If you have a website, you need to have a social media presence as well to help you get exposure to prospective clients via content you put out. You can also join and participate in relevant to your business groups on those social platforms, commenting and posting your content there.
The choice of which social media platform you should join depends on your target audience, and where it will be most receptive to your message. If you are a consumer-centric business (Business to Consumer, or B2C - think e-commerce or local services and products), you will most likely get more exposure on Facebook and Instagram. If you are a Business to Business (B2B) provider, then you should probably look into LinkedIn and Facebook more closely. There are other social media platforms (YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok, etc.) that could be useful, but, of course, their usefulness to you will be dictated by the type of product or service you offer, and the type of customers you are targeting.
Whatever social media platform you choose, you should have a consistent posting strategy (a few times a week on certain days, for example), and experiment with the type of posts to learn how you can engage prospective clients (and only your imagination is the limit of what you can try out). This is also something you can outsource if you have the budget to do so.
Video as Digital Marketing Content – Step #3
If you have a good grasp of SEO and have established your social media presence, you should seriously consider developing video content as the next step in making your website content easier to digest and more engaging.
It is not easy to keep your website visitors linger on the website and contact you for business, and video is one of those things that can help you to get there! Good video content on your social media channels will also help to break through the feed and 'earn' free media exposure through catching prospective customers' eye that may cause them to engage with it on a social network, making the reach of your content go further. Video is becoming one of the most effective ways to break through the social feed clutter, and you can read more about the reasons behind it in our Why Video for Your Marketing Content blog post.
But whatever industry your business is in, and whether you have an established marketing strategy or not, get started with a few powerful videos that help a prospective client understand what you do, how you do it, and whether you are trustworthy. You will need this type of basic information for your website anyway, and if you publish it in the video format, it will help to increase time spent with your content on your website (this helps with improving search engine ranking, as mentioned above), and you can reuse the footage you got by posting it on social media platforms to get that coveted 'word of mouth' through social sharing.
Video Production Investment
Video production requires an investment of considerable resources. Over the years the cost of video production has come down significantly with the democratization of video production when skilled video-makers with affordable high-quality gear are establishing video production companies, but it remains an expense, nonetheless. In the marketing communications field this is what's referred to as "non-working dollars', and what this means is it is dollars spent on creating content, i.e. creative development, video production, and agency fees. 'Working dollars" is the budget spent on actually 'showing' the content to prospective customers (i.e. dollars you spend on buying media in form of TV, Radio, Print, Billboard and Social Media).
The rule of thumb in the organizations that spend millions out of their budgets on marketing communications is that the 'non-working dollars' to 'working dollars' ratio should be no higher than 20/80. However, this isn't always realistic and depends on what type of content you are developing. If this content will be reused a lot (also sometimes called 'evergreen' content), and that will permanently on your website and other digital channels (i.e. one that will work for you longer than for 1 year, such as About US video, Product or Service showcase video, project documentation, customer testimonials, as examples), it is certainly worth investing more into producing professionally. If you don't spend any budget on advertising, then you should only think about developing 'evergreen' video professionally for the time being.
What kind of budget should you plan on for video production?
The cost of video production depends on the # and types of videos you want to make, and the number of resources needed to produce them (read # of the crew, equipment, days of shooting, and editing time). If you want to educate yourself more on what it takes to produce a video and learn about the stages of video production, refer to our Video Production 101 blog post.
If you are working with a small agile video production company, you can establish starting budget for your project at $2500 for a simple production with minimal editing and crew, and the budget will go up from there if you require specialized equipment, additional crew, and extensive editing in post-production. If you need creative support from a video production company, such as scriptwriting and ideation in the pre-production stage, then you should plan extra funds for that as well.
If your video requires hired talent (actors), extensive scriptwriting, built sets - this will require a much bigger budget and can run into tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars easily for a couple of days shoot.
Are there ways to reduce the cost of video production?
Yes, there are several ways to control the cost, and many of these levers are within your control. You can limit the cost with careful planning in the pre-production stage, which should dictate exactly the amount of resources (crew members, equipment, production, and editing time) you need to produce the video and give you an idea of what you want to do is within your budget. It will be most helpful to establish the expectations of the production process details between you (the client) and the video production company you hire and formalize them through a written contract.
So, if you are a small to medium-sized business with limited marketing resources, there is enough information here for you to jump-start your digital marketing efforts. If you are ready to get started with video marketing (and our specialty, aerial video), check out our video portfolio and contact us to evaluate and quote your video project.
What Are Virtual Tours
Virtual Tours
Since the COVID-19 Pandemic Virtual Tours have been getting a lot of attention because prospective customers and guests are either unable or are unwilling to tour spaces they would traditionally check out in person.
Several industries felt an increased need for such tours during the pandemic, especially residential and commercial real estate, assisted living, hospitality, event venues, and construction sites. Even after the initial lockdown is over, customers are still reluctant to visit these sites in person, which is where the virtual tours come into the picture (or computer screen near you).
The pandemic also accelerated the adoption of virtual tours for the travel industry, museums, parks, other public spaces that were shut down for quarantine but still wanted to provide services and content to their existing audiences and find new ones, as digital viewership increased unprecedently during this time, allowing to attract new customers.
Well, the good news is, now that the pandemic has accelerated everyone's level of adoption of and comfort with using digital technology, virtual tours are within reach for small and big companies alike. And the technology has come a long way since using panorama photo settings on your smartphone.
Benefits of Virtual Tours
Why should your business or real estate listing consider having a virtual tour? There are several distinct benefits:
· They help showcase facility/property to customers that are unable or unwilling to come tour in person (especially during the COVID-19 pandemic reality)
· They increase confidence in your business, especially for out of town customers, event planners, picky and technologically savvy customers that would only consider an option after watching a video or taking a virtual tour
· They increase customer traffic and engagement by helping to move the customer down the sales funnel into the consideration phase, increasing sales conversion rates for businesses
· They improve presence on Search: website visitors taking a virtual tour spend more time on your website, increasing their retention. What's more, having a 360 Google Street View that is included in a Google My Business listing makes it even more discoverable
Types of Virtual Tours
A virtual tour is a digital visualization and simulation of an existing space composed of photos or videos. It can include traditional ground and 360 aerial photos and video, floor plans, music, voiceover and guided narration, or subtitled text. Here are the popular types:
· 360 Photo/Panoramic Tours
· Virtual Video Tours
· 360 Virtual Video Tour
Virtual 360 Photo Tour
Virtual Tours are most commonly associated with 360 Photo (or Panoramic) Tours, which are created with still cameras enabled to capture 360 images of each space, all of which are then linked together into 1 file that enables moving around those spaces via some wayfinding indicators (most likely arrows or circles), which can be labeled on the computer screen and clicked on to move forward in the tour using a computer mouse.
This type of tour has been a popular option for the real estate and hospitality industries. One of the useful applications of this type of tour is the ability of any business to include their virtual tour into their Google My Business listing, which helps customers to discover and tour the business through the company Google Search listing.
There are many choices of virtual tour software tools out there that vary in features (pictures and links to floor plans, etc.) and pricing along with them. Check out a virtual tour experience in this 360 virtual photo tour of a construction site in Avon, Ohio.
Virtual Video Tour
A Virtual Video Tour is a traditional 2D video walkthrough of a space, which can be combined with music, text overlay, narrated by voiceover talent, or guided by an expert through the space (realtor, museum guide, event planner, etc.).
This type of tour requires low effort on behalf of the viewer, as no additional clicking on a screen using wayfinding features is necessary. It can also offer up useful information at the right moment (through narration or text), such as key details about the property/venue that viewers normally wouldn't even know to ask. This type of tour has been popular for marketing facilities with the real estate industry, assisted living homes, museums, parks, and event/hospitality venues.
Just recently V1DroneMedia worked with Emerald Village Senior Living facility in North Olmsted, Ohio, to put together a Virtual Video Walkthrough of their facility, that enables their prospective clients and relatives to tour the property without visiting it in person.
Virtual 360 Video and Photo Tour
360 Video and Photo Tour is a very immersive visual content that creates a virtual reality-type experience without additional hardware other than a screen. The best use of such technology is to showcase an ‘experience’ vs. just an informative tour. It allows moving around the video by clicking and dragging the mouse around. And since videos rule the marketing world now, as highlighted in our Why Use Video in Real Estate Photography and Videography blog post, adding an immersive 360 virtual video tour would certainly add surprise and delight to any prospective client.
Experiences such as city and museum tours, other types of venue/event spaces that want to showcase its atmosphere (coffee shops and restaurants, sports, public and private events, and venues, etc.) would get the most benefit out of this type of tour.
What's more, drone technology made aerial 360 views now accessible to include in such a tour, giving another exciting perspective for the viewer. Check out V1DroneMedia Cleveland 360 aerial drone photos to get a feel for this experience.
Aerial 360 video tours have become especially popular in the travel industry, as they can showcase large locations with a guided narration easily, while still giving viewers an interactive experience.
Virtual Tours is also a tool that enables team collaboration and customer transparency in the Construction industry, allowing to walk the site remotely to see the progress of work and speed up decision making. Check out our construction site 360 videos and photo tour here, which incorporates both aerial and grounds views.
Are you ready to take your marketing to the next level with interactive and immersive virtual tour experiences?
V1DroneMedia can deliver all types of virtual tours and has provided these services to the delight of many customers, as evidenced by our excellent Google reviews. If you are not sure what type of tour suits your needs or want a consultation and a quote, Contact Us today, and we will be sure to get back to you quickly!
Drone Use For Real Estate Marketing
Traditional real estate photography can be limited in its ability to capture the information a prospective tenant or buyer needs before leasing or purchasing a property. With the accessibility and increasing affordability of drone technology in the last 5 years, it is easier than ever to showcase almost any property from an aerial view, providing much more information about a property to prospective buyers.
How does aerial video fit into your real estate video marketing strategy?
This marketing tactic is extremely important nowadays, as most prospective buyers browse listings online before requesting to see a property, and the more visual you can make that listing, the higher the odds that you will have more showings. Video reigns in the marketing world now. According to Wyzowl's State of Video Marketing Survey, 66% of consumers in 2020 prefer watching a video to reading about a product, as well as spend more time interacting with the websites/product listings that are showcased with video. And, of course, video is much better shareable content for real estate agent social media pages. You can read more about the importance of video marketing in our blog post Why Video For Your Marketing Content.
Aerial photos and video are not just pretty pictures
We can see more from a bird's eye view, so aerial views provide information that prospective buyers want to have about the location. For residential real estate, seeing property size and back yard layout in one quick shot (lake, pool, outdoor recreation area, privacy) can help inform buyers, appeal to their emotions, and make them visualize themselves there. Here is an example of a real estate aerial video shot by V1DroneMedia of a lakeside residential property – it can be more appreciated from a bird's eye view with that stunning back yard. Of course, higher-end listings use drones more often. Those properties have more to showcase, and high-end homeowners want to hire an agent who will make sure that their property is represented with its maximum potential to attract more demand from buyers.
It goes without saying that forgoing professional real estate photography is a big mistake, as highlighted in this Most Common Selling Mistakes article, but pretty soon forgoing drone photography/videography will become just as big of a mistake for advertising a home, as aerial visuals will become an industry standard, especially for higher-end homes.
According to A Study Of Drones in Real Estate
· 83% of home sellers prefer an agent who uses drones
· High volume agents use aerials 3.5x more often than low volume agents
· Large properties and high dollar homes use aerials more often
For commercial real estate, drone visuals can answer numerous questions. Who is the anchor tenant? Is there parking nearby? How accessible is the property to the main roadways? What other valuable infrastructure is nearby to attract prospective employees? Here is a video of a commercial property produced by V1DroneMedia that does just that.
Aerial views provided by drones can showcase many of these insights quickly and help rent or sell commercial property faster. It is even more impactful to promote a property with aerial video when the property is very big and has many buildings/facilities. If the facilities inside are expansive as well, a drone can help showcase that space the same way. Here is an aerial video of an Olympic training facility, Spire Institute, in Geneva, Ohio, combining outside and inside aerial footage highlighting the amenities and size of the indoor and outdoor training facilities, ultimately helping the owners to sell the property to an out of town investor.
Ways to showcase a property virtually, whether through an aerial video or a virtual tour (as close as it comes to seeing the property in person), has become even more important nowadays, when the world is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, and prospective clients are unwilling or unable to come tour the properties. We cover this in more detail in our Virtual Tours Explained blog post.
Can real estate agents fly drones to take aerial pictures and video?
Can real estate agents and brokers do it themselves? It is possible, if willing to learn a new skill and invest time and financial resources. And in the case of flying a drone for commercial purposes, one must also get a Remote Pilot Certificate (Part 107) that makes them compliant with FAA regulations. This means studying to pass an initial aeronautical knowledge test at one of the FAA-approved testing facilities and, as of now, taking a recurrent FAA test every two years thereafter.
Besides having the certification, one would need to buy a drone, learn to fly it proficiently, know how to take good pictures or video that showcase property from the best angles and with the best lighting, learn to edit them with various video and photo software applications, and it is highly recommended to also have liability insurance.
If you have decided to outsource this work and hire a drone pilot, you should make sure that they are qualified to perform the work. Here are the top 5 things to consider:
1. Is the pilot licensed?
2. Is the operator insured?
3. Are they knowledgeable about airspace, flight restrictions, and authorizations?
4. What is the pilot's experience level?
5. Do you like their previous work/portfolio?
We cover this subject in more depth in our blog post Hiring a Drone Pilot
How much do real estate aerial photography and video cost?
Drone photography rates can start at a couple hundred dollars for simple aerial photos, with a professionally produced aerial video ranging from $400-$1200 depending on the customer requirements, number of shooting locations, FAA authorizations, and level of post-production editing required. Any type of custom video that goes beyond the features and benefits of the property will most likely cost more.
Sometimes the decision to produce an aerial video comes down to a cost/benefit analysis of whether you can afford this type of marketing to help you sell or rent a property. If it is a higher-end home that has many outdoor features to showcase, of course spending $300-$1200 on a listing that can yield you $15K+ in commission makes sense. According to the Study of Drones in Real Estate, drone usage for marketing increases for listings at $600K and climbs up slowly from there. There are other considerations as well - if your colleagues in the market are using aerial video to convince customers to list properties with them, then you may have to do the same just to stay competitive even with lower-priced properties.
So, are you ready to get some real estate drone photography for your property? If you are in the Northeast Ohio area, contact V1DroneMedia for a quote and check out our Real Estate website page for more information, photos and videos. We offer menu and package pricing and also started offering 360 virtual tours, so the property can be showcased from both the inside and the outside. Start wowing your clients and happy selling!