Bring Your Property to Life With Cinematic Drone Videography

Jul 19, 2017 | Expert Advice

Vacation rentals have come a long way from the classified ads and word-of-mouth marketing of years past. The rental industry—already worth a staggering $100 billion globally—will further soar to $170 billion by 2019, according to a recent report by Research and Markets.

If you list a property on TripAdvisor, you may be benefitting from travelers’ increased desire for alternative accommodations. But in today’s red-hot vacation rental market, owners and managers are constantly searching for a way to make their listings stand apart from all the rest. Whether it’s an oceanfront view, lavish decorations, or over-the-top service, your place needs that singular “it” factor that will bring in a steady stream of visitors—and positive reviews. (Read here why reviews are the holy grail for more bookings.)

Today’s Standard: Professional Photography

How you show off your “it” factor can make or break whether someone decides to stay at your property. When you’re up against other owners and property managers in your area, your fuzzy, blurry cell phone pictures aren’t going to cut it! Your potential guests want to see the best face of your property so that they can easily imagine themselves there. You’re selling an experience, not just a place to stay. This means that professional photography has become a must for anyone seriously thinking about jumping into the vacation rental space.

But as more and more owners and property managers put up gorgeous, glossy photos of their listings, you lose the uniqueness that separated you from the crowd in the first place. Selling your vacation rental is all about differentiating yourself and rising above your rivals, so you’ll have to stay one step ahead in order to prosper.

The Next Step: Drones

Enter the hottest trend in vacation rental marketing: the drone video. Using cameras mounted on a flying device, real estate videographers can film cinema-quality shots of both home interiors and the landscapes that surround them, creating a “video tour” that surpasses even the most high-quality photos.

Today, relying only on photos to market your vacation rental is like using a poster to market a movie instead of a trailer. Watching a video is a visceral, emotional experience that you simply can’t get with photos, no matter how well-shot they are. You don’t want to get caught only using print in a digital world.

Instead of scrolling through a series of static photos, utilizing drone videography allows your future guests to be pulled into the listing, and to get a feel for the property and picture themselves staying there. Marketing is all about telling a story, and video gives you the power to tell the right story like no other medium. Video makes your property more compelling and more memorable—both before and after your guests’ visit.

There are as many possibilities for vacation rental drone videos as there are vacation rentals. A video of a beachfront property in Miami, for example, might showcase the soft sand and sparkling ocean, as well as a few shots of the neighborhood and nightlife. A video of a secluded retreat in the Midwest may display a peaceful home amidst sprawling fields, as showcased in this video from drone video service Airilo.

Having a drone video will ultimately accomplish one goal: get more people looking at and booking your property. Commercial drones are making it easier than ever for vacation rental owners and managers to take to the skies.

How To Get Started With Drone Video

Companies like Airilo are on the forefront of making this new wave of drone marketing easy for anyone who wants to increase their bookings. Ready to get started? Contact Airilo for more information about how you can get ahead of the game with vacation rental marketing.

 This is a guest post from Airilo. Airilo is a drone videography business that serves the vacation rental market. They produce high quality, enticing video to help attract customers to listings.

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