The Story of How Video Marketing Grew My Business

Welcome Home Rentals had humble beginnings—like many startups, I couldn’t afford anything that wouldn’t fit on a shoestring budget. My lounge was my office and I was clear what I wanted to do. I wanted to take property management, dissect what had been done for decades, figure out how to do it far better and package that up into what clients needed and wanted. 

Video was something I wanted to engage with quite quickly. I had seen (and admired) some colleagues’ videos, and after watching a few do it really well, I recognised it was the quickest and most effective way to introduce myself to potential clients, especially as I had no shop front. I could literally get inside their home without ever being introduced in person. 

What started out as a branding story, quickly became addictive. I always knew that if you want to sell your services to another person, you need to be able to give them something valuable. So being able to provide education on tenancy-related matters not only actually helped others (whether they were my clients or not) but it also positioned my business as being the industry expert. Show me a billboard and I’ll show you money down the drain. Show me a great video and I’ll show you a list of a repeat and raving client fanbase. 

I don’t think I had any preconceptions about video marketing. With social media really starting to ramp up as my own business did, videos were becoming more and more familiar and I liked being able to hear business owners speak, it made me feel like I knew them before I used their services. 

Using video as a strategy was totally new for me. I had to really put myself in the shoes of my potential clients, switch places with them really, and think, “If I was you, what would I want to know?” 

I got really interested about which content worked better than others. It made me realise I could still learn so much about what an investor really wants. Being able to engage with clients on a regular basis and use this as feedback for our business structure was really helpful to keep growing as a business in our structure and processes. 

Our video library is quite extensive and a complete mix. 

I have two branding stories. The first was when I was the home-based new kid on the block. The second was when our business moved to a shop front, had grown to five staff members and by that stage was recognised as the place to go for property management. 

The brand stories led to Tradie Talk where I brought our tradespeople in for an interview. That was a beautiful cross-branding between the people who we rely on to fix things—our plumber, gas fitter, handyman, electrician and bond cleaner—while being engaging for our clients as well. It showed our clients how these businesses are essentially a part of ours. 

From there, we used video for tenant and owner induction. This alone saved me thousands in wages and ensured we delivered consistent messaging to clients and tenants alike.

Our largest project was a series of Property Investor Videos which were all short, but highly informative, on all different topics from bond disputes, to why long-term tenants can be dangerous. (The latter of which turned out to be our most watched YouTube.) 

Because of the consistency of the release of our videos, if a potential (or current) client missed one, they were continually seeing us pop up over their socials. Oftentimes, viewing one video would drive people to our YouTube channel and they would view more. Nobody else was doing anything like it so our brand awareness grew exponentially and quite quickly. 

Because we were giving people something, information they often didn’t know before, we became hot topic for anybody looking for a property management agency. Everybody who was a client was dying to tell their friends who just bought a property, “You have to see Kylie, she looks after ours and is fantastic.” Through that recognition, we were able to capitalise on our return on investment by becoming more selective—choosing clients who were aligned with our value systems and core beliefs and also those with respectable homes rather than those you might see on A Current Affair! 

An unexpected and really humbling sign of the success and value of our video material was to discover that not only were our videos being viewed around the world, they were also being utilised by recognised property management training organisations. Our videos were played in seminars and business coaches often referred to our content as examples of how to reach audiences and create engagement. 

When I closed the chapter for Welcome Home Rentals and merged with Ray White, I made a beautiful transitional video. I have taken my passion for all things video into Ray White, and we have, to date, recreated a handful of our favourites. 

Video, without a doubt, is hands down the best money I ever spent on my business. I truly believe that we wouldn’t have grown to the size we did without it, it allowed us to keep working out of hours in that clients continued to see us even outside of normal business hours. We also attracted the clients we wanted with our content and, without needing to decline the business, we repelled those who didn’t align with our values. 

Our brand story and property investor series made us money, our induction videos saved us money. Rather than sitting down face to face with a tenant and explaining the terms of a lease, our tenants were required to watch our induction video and we discovered a program where we could track whether it had been viewed. The keys couldn’t be released until it was, so if our tenant arrived but hadn’t viewed the video, they had to sit through it in the office before they could go. 

Through this, we found we had a lot less problems and issues—another money/time saver. We made ourselves clear on what was going to happen, rights, obligations, how to report maintenance, what our rent arrears procedure was. Everything was completely understood which eliminated (or at the very least highly minimised) the “I didn’t know that” disagreements. 

Clients are typically hard-working people. They don’t have time to pop into the office and meet in person to go through the paperwork and there’s page after page of things they don’t understand. Although their video was optional, it gave clients the opportunity to have everything that they were signing explained in a way that made sense. 

Video marketing took the new kid on the block to the business everybody wanted to manage their property. Even tradies and staff members wanted to work for us. We set high expectations of ourselves and we genuinely wanted to deliver more, and be more. And that all showed in every video. 

I tell anybody and everybody that if they want to build a successful business, they absolutely must prioritise video marketing. In fact, my cousin recently kicked off his own business and I insisted he do a brand story. 

Every week he calls me with an update and almost every time he mentions how powerful that video is. 

What I would say to anybody on the fence, or thinking they can’t afford video marketing is this: if you think it’s expensive, try building a business without it. It’s too expensive not to.

– Kylie Best
Welcome Home Rentals