Heads In Beds Show - Photo & Video Assets: What Do You Need To Succeed?

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

In this episode of The Heads In Beds Show, Paul and Conrad give a TON of ideas on photo and video assets that you need to build your vacation rental brand.⭐️ Links & Show NotesPaul Manzey Conrad O'ConnellConrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental MarketingConrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101Short-Term Rental Photography Secrets with Andrew KellerISOneedphotos🔗 Connect With BuildUp BookingsWebsiteFacebook PageInstagram🚀 About BuildUp BookingsBuildUp Bookings is a team of creative, problem solvers made to drive you more traffic, direct bookings and results for your accommodations brand. Reach out to us for help on search, social and email marketing for your vacation rental brand.Video ideas: 📍 Property Showcase Videos (25 Ideas)Core Property Tours60-Second Property Highlight Reel – Wide-angle shots of living areas, bedrooms, kitchen, outdoor spaces ending with dramatic drone pullbackPOV Guest Arrival Experience – GoPro-style journey from parking to front door to best view in the houseFollow-Me Guided Tour – Host-led walkthrough highlighting unique features and amenitiesBefore & After Renovation Reveal – Split-screen transformation showcasing property improvementsRoom-by-Room Flash Tour – 3-second clips of each space with text overlays (Master Suite, Chef's Kitchen, Game Room)Amenity SpotlightsUnique Feature Deep Dive – 30-second focus on standout amenities (infinity pool, wine cellar, home theater)Chef's Kitchen in Action – Professional cooking demonstration showcasing high-end appliancesOutdoor Living Paradise – Pool, hot tub, fire pit, BBQ area montage with lifestyle shotsMaster Suite Experience – Morning coffee in bed with sunrise view through floor-to-ceiling windowsSmart Home Technology – Voice-controlled lighting, automated blinds, keyless entry demonstrationAdvanced Visual ContentAerial Property Overview – Drone 360° orbit at golden hour with distance markers to beaches/attractionsDay-to-Night Transformation – Time-lapse showing property from sunrise to illuminated eveningSeasonal Property Evolution – Same view across all four seasons (great for year-round bookings)Virtual Tour Teaser – 360° bedroom pan encouraging full Matterport tour viewingCinematic Property Film – Slow motion, professional lighting, and music telling the property's storyPractical DemonstrationsGuest Arrival Guide – Step-by-step check-in process from parking to settling inAmenity How-To Series – Hot tub operation, smart TV setup, grill instructionsProperty Navigation Map – Animated overlay showing routes to beach, downtown, parkingWi-Fi Speed Test – Real-time demonstration for remote workersStorage & Space Solutions – Closet space, luggage storage, family organization tipsMaintenance & UpdatesTurnover Time-Lapse – Professional cleaning team preparing property in fast-forwardRecent Upgrades Showcase – New furniture, technology, or amenity additionsQuality Assurance Check – Host's pre-arrival inspection ensuring everything is perfectSeasonal Maintenance – HVAC service, pool opening, landscape updatesAccessibility Features – Ramps, grab bars, accessible bathrooms for inclusive marketing🎯 Lifestyle & Guest Experience (15 Ideas)Daily ExperiencesPerfect Morning Routine – Coffee brewing, sunrise yoga on deck, fresh pastriesCozy Evening Ritual – Fireplace crackling, wine pour, city lights twinklingFamily Fun Montage – Game night laughter, pool splashing, movie night setupCouples Retreat Moments – Hot tub under stars, breakfast in bed, sunset dinnerRemote Work Paradise – Home office setup, video call with beach backdropEntertainment & RecreationGame Room Championships – Pool table trick shots, arcade game highlights, competition laughsOutdoor Adventure Prep – Packing beach bags, loading kayaks, hiking gear organizationSpa Day at Home – Bubble bath setup, face masks by the pool, massage table readyCelebration Central – Birthday party setup, anniversary dinner, graduation toastPet-Friendly Features – Dog bed setup, fenced yard, nearby dog park walkthroughCulinary ExperiencesGourmet Cooking Experience – Using high-end appliances to create restaurant-quality mealsLocal Grocery Haul – Shopping at nearby markets, unpacking fresh ingredientsBBQ Master Class – Grilling techniques, outdoor dining setup, sunset feastCoffee Connoisseur Corner – Espresso machine tutorial, morning coffee ritualWine & Dine Experience – Cellar selection, proper glassware, tasting notes🗺️ Local Area & Activities (10 Ideas)Attraction ShowcasesTop 5 Local Attractions Countdown – Quick-cut tour of must-visit spots with distancesHidden Gems Revealed – Secret beaches, local favorite restaurants, insider tipsSeasonal Activity Guide – Skiing in winter, beach days in summer, foliage tours in fallFoodie Adventure Map – Farmers markets, food trucks, fine dining recommendationsFamily-Friendly Itinerary – Zoo, adventure parks, kid-friendly restaurantsExperience DocumentationDay Trip Inspiration – POV drive to wine country, mountain hikes, city explorationLocal Event Calendar – Festivals, concerts, seasonal celebrations nearbyWeather-Proof Activities – Rainy day museums, indoor entertainment, covered marketsTransportation Options – Rental car pickup, public transit, ride-share availabilityShopping & Services – Grocery stores, pharmacies, urgent care locations⭐ Social Proof & Reviews (8 Ideas)<...

Welcome to the Head to Med Show presented by Buildup Bookings. We teach you how to get more vacation properties, earn more revenue per property, master marketing, and increase your occupancy. Take your vacation rental marketing game to the next level by listening in. I'm your co-host, Conrad. And I'm your co-host, Paul. All right, Paul, good morning. level by listening in. I'm your co host Conrad. I'm your co host Paul. All right, Paul, good morning. Some bad news for me, this will come out a little bit later on the basketball side of things.

We'll do a quick sports update because the Celtics we must put a headstone on their 2025 season and then we'll dive into the actual topic today. But you are happy because things are going well your way. Give me a quick early series prediction. How's it going to go? Wolves? We got the Thunder. The Wolves eat Thunder? I don't even know. I this is this is kind of what I've, it's hard to say you're looking, you're, you're, you want this matchup, you don't want the one. Hey, we went through the Lakers, we went through the Warriors. Well, there's a caveat there, but that's fine. Um, this is the OKC team is very similar to

the Timber Wolf last year, where we were very young, we hadn't done it before, we didn't have the battle scars of the playoff run. I think we got this. We're kind of right now just trying to look at the schedule and see if we can make it hopefully to Game one is Tuesday. So we're recording on Monday, May 19th for reference. So if you're seeing the series that is now a little bit further along, like just for reference. Yeah, exactly. It's I don't know, like right now I'm kind of sucked. We twins had a 13 game winning streak. Timberwolves are rolling right now. Target field, target centers a good spot to be if you're in Minnesota. So and the doors are just loaded with Timberwolves stuff right now. On the outside there they're doing it upright. So it's it feels like

the good a good time to be in Twin Cities. I'm thinking for two, I'm hoping for a four to see why we're here. I think it's, it's gonna be tough, like, but this is I think we're gonna take care of business at home game six, it's gonna happen. Feel it. So at this point, the Knicks have knocked out my lovely Celtics. And at this point, I just want anyone but the Knicks at this point, but their fans are so confident for a team that hasn't won since I was in diapers. I mean, it's absolutely wild. It's not quite that bad, I guess. But anyways, it's been a very long time.

If it's next Tim roles after the trade preseason. Right? That'll be spicy. That's what every ESPN every media personality right now is begging for a next Tim roles as opposed to an OKC Indiana. So we'll see how it goes. Yeah. Well, that would take TV ratings, I needless to say. It's just funny, Paul, you and I, we watch this video content, these NBA games on TV.

So too do guests watch video content on social media and various other platforms. So that is our pivot today in today's topic, which is talking all about really something that we touched on before briefly, but we've now done a dedicated episode to this idea, which is photography assets and video assets. These are really the cornerstone of your vacation rental marketing, you know, plans that you make. And we just want to do a deep dive into like all those things that

we talked about today. So this is going to be focused maybe a little bit more heavily on the video side, because we have done some stuff in photos in the past. And actually, maybe I can toss in the show notes a link to a podcast I just listened to with I think his name is Andrew Keller, if I've got the name right. And he just did a podcast in the AirDNA show. Yeah, it's episode 127. So I'll put that in the show notes.

I listened to this one with Andrew Keller, who's a specialized in short-term rental photography. So I think that'd be a good episode to hear from the pro on that side of things. But it was interesting. A lot of what he suggested, I think, was very logical, like shoot setup ideas, things like that.

We want to go maybe just one layer up before we talk about the, because neither you and I are photographers. Although I have a drop of photography knowledge, I'm not a photographer, don't pretend to be one. But I do understand a good photo versus a bad photo and understand how it helps marketing. And I think some of our clients that we work with lately

have been under-investing in this regard. I'm not sure what your approach is. They're both in the photo and video asset. Are you seeing the same with the people you're working with? First of all, are you saying that my 4H blue ribbons for photography do not qualify me to be a professional? I mean, this is, it's hurts a little bit. Agree to see that.

Yeah, this is something we talk about all the time. It feels like we talk about video and everything we talk about, we talk about photography and everything we talk about because it is such a fundamental part of the experience in trip planning. It is the visuals what captures people. We talk about how you need to have the rental, but if you're not putting that beautiful rental in the right light, you're squandering it.

And I do. I think we've seen examples of good photography, and we've certainly seen examples of poor photography. I always love those little screenshots from a bedroom where who knows what's going on, the cords are here and the cords are there and the cords are everywhere. Oh, that's my pet peeve right there, man. But this is one of those things that it's an investment that maybe doesn't always feel worth it because you don't see that immediate direct ROI coming back from it. But we talked about before and after transformation types of videos and pictures, but truly the before and after of how your website will perform if you do kind of an upgrade on the any video visual

content side of things, it's usually pretty noticeable here. So I think there's a reason why we're going to go down to the detail level that we're going to because these are all great ideas and ways to bring people into your experience, not just into your property, but really talking about what they can do, getting them a feel for how they're going to experience your business, your area, and all of those things relating. So, yeah, I think we're gonna talk about a lot of great things here that people can do and can do on their own,

or can find really great professionals who can help them out with these things. Well, yeah, maybe we can start on that really quickly before we dive into some of the ideas, because I do think that like, this is a learned skill. And I do think that the volume of content that needed to run like a successful, really successful social media page doesn't necessitate at least entertaining the idea of like, how much can I do myself versus how much can I hire out for? And to be clear, like these people that are, you know, very skilled and do this all day, did they deserve their fee? I think they do deserve their fee. I think they do a really

good job. But like someone like Andrew listening to that episode that he did with Jamie over to AirDNA, it was like he books out like months in advance and like, you know, he's traveling out from I think he's in Georgia maybe or something like that or somewhere in the Carolinas maybe. So if you're in California, it's like that's not really feasible to go hire, you know, someone based in Georgia. Like if you have a property that you make contact with an owner on Friday, and you're trying to list it by, you know, three weeks later, or something like that, right? Let's assume it's ready for rent. So I do think it's worthy of discussion of how talented is your bench, if you will, of like freelancers or contractors

that you can work with them. I think ideally, when I'm multiple, you know, we've had some situations recently with some global clients that we have where our favorite photographer that we work with is awesome. And he's so awesome that other people have noticed and we can't book him anymore really at a fee that our clients can really make happen in their budget and be timewise, you know, Hey, I'm traveling here. I got this, I got this, I got this. So I'm super happy for the dude, like all the respect in the world to someone who's mastered his craft and people want him to shoot everywhere. But it's made a bit of a disruption, you

know, for clients that we want to get a photo shoot done next two weeks, and that may not be possible. So that does make it a little bit trickier. So I think building your bench is a great idea. Maybe it's even one out of every seven properties you do, going to someone else and going and getting bids and going getting different portfolios. I think I've told the story in the podcast before, but I have a client who I work with to this day that still does this, sends two photographers out to every property every single time, no matter what.

And he gets different angles. They come at different times. They end up, and he says, every single time I end up using 10 or 15 from photo set one, and let's say 20 or 30 from photos that two or vice versa, you know, so he was like, I always just, they see it a little differently, they have slightly different styles. But the end product is I get a better look at it, versus you know, just having one person take the photos, which is something I will never see across any other market. And

again, this guy's marketing very luxury, high on properties, he can eat for $55,000 photography costs almost in the front end. And to him, it all works out the back end as far as the value of these homes. But it's like no one's even entertained that idea, which I think is a bit of a mistake. And it seems like we wanna take photos once,

never update them, never alter them other than extreme scenarios. And I think that's a bit of a mistake. So that brings me to what you brought up there, which is like, can you build some talent in your team to potentially chip in on some of the photography, videography stuff? I certainly hope so. And I think for our clients sake, I hope so, because like, without that, it's, it's almost like

we're starved for content a lot of the time, we're starved for new stuff that we can push out there, we're starved for new stuff that we can, you know, work with on the social media side, or just on the website email, whatever the case may be. And that can be a little tough, you know, when you're putting out the same feature image, you put out, you know, seven, the last 10 emails, whatever the case may be. And that can be a little tough, you know, when you're putting out the same feature image, you put out, you know, seven of the last 10 emails, and you know, we don't have new stuff to play with. So I would say it's absolutely worth sitting down

and kind of figuring out the basics of the photo, video stuff and seeing what you can do yourself. Because I do think that there is a line of quality that you have to be above, but I do think that something is often better than nothing, which is sometimes at a full position in a lot of these smaller companies. I don't know if you feel the same way,

but I would agree. And it is, I know I did the search before of, okay, you know, how much does a DSLR camera cost? Nice little digital camera, you know, you get some nice high end photos on the back end of it with a nice lens, you know, with a, a telephoto lens, some type of zoom ability there, you're probably looking at a thousand bucks. That's a nice investment. And if you really want to allow someone on your team to kind of grow their skills, that's awesome. But the other side of it is,

is that we also have these really nice little phones. Your mind doesn't look like so good on the other side, but the quality of cameras in these phones now is also quite high. Now, are you going to do a drone shot or are you going to do some of those things? Probably not, but you can- You can drop the phone in the air with the camera on.

There's your drone shot right there. There's a drone shot. But it is, there's definitely some of these property videos, some of these different types of videos, and certainly the images themselves, and if not the videos, you can record right on, or you can capture right on your phone there. So I do, I think that there's certainly levels to this.

You know, we're not asking you to do all of these suggestions because we got a lot of suggestions here too. But I think, you know, finding in each of these areas, specific areas, one or two options that you can at least explore. You know, what can I do? What is going to have a higher cost? What is going to have a higher cost? What is going to have a lower opportunity cost? Evaluate all these things. But certainly, we think, we wouldn't be recording this if we didn't think making, adding these assets to your library would be valuable.

I dig that. Let's go. So as Paul mentioned, we don't have time to go through all these unless you wanted like a multi podcast. So what we're going to do, we're going to hit like the big ideas that we think. So these are the things that it's like, you know, clients ask me a lot this to this question wrote relatively commonly to on the guest side, which is like, all right, you want me to do video, let's say they're willing to do it, they got the hardware, they got the motivation, they got the time, etc. Are we actually going to cut these up and put these into video ideas? And you know, you see the same themes kind of over and over again. So that's kind of more so we're hitting on today more of the themes.

And then again, you can decide how you want to go from there as far as processing, editing, those are all very individualistic things in terms of like what music, what editing style, what, you know, fun are you going to use on it? Those are all like your brand image comes back into play there in my opinion. But these are just kind of more of the high level ideas. So property showcase videos, number one, right? It has to be number one, because I think at the end of the day, the more unique and visually interesting your properties are, the better property showcase video content is going to work for you, right? And you see these

so-called viral Airbnb properties and we had, and both on the art of hospitality feed, I think three, four weeks ago at this point. And like, there's, I think there are people who have built their whole, almost like their whole property design aesthetic around that. This is going to look amazing on Instagram. It's almost like how they think about it when they're designing it. And yes, it's also a good experience for the guests, of course. I'm not saying that they don't think about that, but it's like that is their primary renovation is like what captures people's attention is something that looks more like what Ben Wolf and others in that kind of similar vein do than it does, hey, here's a two bedroom, you know, one bath condo on the beach. So know what you're marketing

with and that's an important consideration set to have here. But I think a property showcase can work well, you know, whether you have the really unique Ben Wolf style inventory, or if you have the two bedroom, one bath inventory, I think it both works well. You just focus in on different things. Obviously, the architecture is a lot more interesting in one scenario. Maybe the architecture is not so interesting in its condo building, but people love a property highlight reel. People love the views. People love looking at where they're going to stay. They like a real world kind of snapshot into what it is that you're offering. And sometimes I where they're gonna stay, they'd like a real world kind of snapshot into what it is that you're offering.

And sometimes I find it easier personally, sometimes myself to like picture the property or like picture the property of my mind as you say. When I see a video tour versus when I see a static list of photos, you know, in a 60 gallery set, I get confused sometimes, you know, until like what I'm looking at, like what angle is this from? You know, what room is this? You know, that's where I think I almost find myself struggling. Whereas a video tour, I find myself a lot more connected to it.

So it could be a minute, less than a minute, you know, wide angle shots, living areas, what does the bedroom look like, kitchen. And then I like the idea a lot of like, what is the outdoor space? What's the view? You know, what I think when I think of property, I think of like that indoor outdoor transition is sometimes the most interesting piece of a property. So if it's in a cabin and it has a stunning view as you're walking out the back deck and then you boom, I see the Smoky Mountains or I see Colorado or whatever the case may be, or if it's in a cabin and it has a stunning view as you're walking out the back deck and then you boom, I see the Smoky Mountains or I see Colorado or

whatever the case may be, or if it's Florida, and then I walk out the property and then boom, there's the water, there's the canal or there's the Gulf that I'm on, that sort of thing. Those are all appealing things for me. So I think, yeah, a lot of different examples of how to cut that up, but I think this kind of idea of property showcase is the way to go to kind of start with what's your read on that. I think you, you really hit it with the the trying to transition you know we can try to transition a photo gallery and make it give you the feel of a

walkthrough but inevitably you know you can't necessarily connect those 60 70 80 pictures together to give people this seamless experience of a walkthrough or something like that so I really do think that that's important to obviously show people what's happening, show people what they're going to experience there. It is that that's something that, you know, I do see, you know, when we're watching clarity sessions and stuff like that, you see people that are going to go through 20, 25 images in your gallery. That's pretty typical for an individual visit, depending on how many you have. But again, if you've got your best 25 images,

they're going to miss out on some things that are happening on the property or going on or they might be interested in. And I think the other side of it is that when people are trying to connect those dots with images as opposed to videos, they might all of a sudden miss something and then they get on site and then maybe there's a problem or something like that. I think having that quick video that they can watch and having no questions or no gray area is going to alleviate the potential for that negative review down the road there as well.

So I think that it just circles the wagons a little bit better than again leaving out some potential. You're not intentionally leaving out a room or this or that in your photo gallery, but you know you don't need 75 80 90 images when you know that not people aren't going to go all through all those images there. So I do I I like the short video, you have 60 seconds, 30 seconds, 90 seconds, something like that, where people don't have to invest too much time, but are still going to understand the complete picture and not just maybe again, get boxed off there and figure out, Oh, this, this doesn't work for me. And we don't want that. Gotcha. We don't want that. Oh, you guys got me.

This is not what I was looking for. Now I'm not happy with you and everybody and every review platform is going to know about it there. So yeah, I think that's the key. I think honestly, sometimes photography, we talked about this before too, where you can do too good of a job with photography, which I think is a bit of a, you know, tough one. Like we were talking about the professional photographers that can like edit in starlight shots. That was one thing that you talked about when we were putting this episode together where it's like, I'm always torn on that because the analogy I've done before is a model does not walk out on the stage without makeup on. So if I'm modeling photos or her mudding clothes or something

like that, they're going in the back and they're getting their makeup done. To me, that seems like a reasonable line that we can all agree upon. Changing the lighting slightly, changing look and feel slightly is kind of like putting makeup on a model, male or female, doesn't matter, right? Now with these AI tools, it's like very, very challenging to decide what is that ethical line of editing that then becomes very misleading. If you edit in a starlight shot where it never, ever, ever has looked like that, that's where I think you can easily cross an ethical line there when it comes to improving the photography and some of those elements too much. I mean, that's just my opinion. But I think that what you want to avoid is actually what you're describing that, right? If someone walking out there and going,'s like I've seen these on tik-tok before my wife sent them to me before where it's

Like what I expected versus what I got and sometimes it's like a physical product thing But I've seen some travel ones before more so just talking about a destination like someone did one in Paris That was like super about super viral and it was like what I expected it It was like croissants, you know, beautiful Arena's dancing and there was like what I got and it was like tourists and we saw this when we were in Paris like tourists trying to sell these little keychains like hey you want to buy this little dollar keychain people like pestering you and you know like dirty parts of the city because every city has dirty parts in it and stuff like that and it was like oh no like what a letdown and I think you want to avoid that if possible you know in that it like imagine that right like if

a guest were to come and be critical of what they saw online would they have some you know some ground to stand on I think it's easy to go down that path if you take this stuff too far of lots of editing and lots of, you know, so much makeup that it almost doesn't become real, I guess is kind of where the line can be crossed. I mean, Photoshop is AI is not like the first first go around of improvement. Right, right. And when Photoshop come out like 99 or 98 or something, I mean, it's been around for a while. Yeah, it's been a while. But I think even that, you know, there's people are doing things with Photoshop that I styled is kind of questioned as well. It's like, do you really want to do that? Is that improving how the guest is going to see the home? And I

can get it what happened more frequently than that with those companies who did that who over edited, or I'm going to say over edited with the air quotes there. But they did they had more of those gotcha moments of this is not what I paid for. And I just like, that's the last thing you want to do. Yes, you want to make show your property in the best light possible, while still being completely realistic of what people are getting. You don't want to overdo it. And again, I have people say, they're selling me a bill of goods. They're putting lipstick on a pig and I'm riding a pig around.

These are not good things here. So I don't know where that line is. Yeah, on the ethical side of things. But when people started actually putting elements into the imagery, that's where Airbnb is gonna start to get, that's when verbose, that's when like, like the search engines are gonna start to say,

something doesn't look quite right there. Especially once the reviews start rolling in to your point there, right? Like if you go and get five or 10 negative reviews, you know, out of your next set, then you know, at that point you've taken it too far. So you and I are both golfers to the non-golfers, this wouldn't make much sense.

But if you are a golfer and you've researched places online before you book them, you'll know that every single golf course website shows the best possible version of that golf course in terms of like, they'll take the drone shot and zoom it away, you know, so you can't see the green, it's all messed up, you know, they'll, they'll shoot it on like June 1 when the grass is perfect. And then you go play that place in February. And you're looking around, you're like, what happened? Because like, what I thought versus what I got, like I've had that experience as a consumer and then just left. Yeah, super disappointed. Like like I think it's you know a challenging thing with golf courses what I've learned 90 percent of times this is just pro advice for the listener

the most expensive one is almost always the best one like it's very rare that's not the case you know what I mean so if you're ever in doubt like I am sometimes like and it's like you know what I'm just gonna book the most expensive one here if there's two different courses I'm choosing from and like most of the time that ends up being much better one so I digress and yeah one could maybe say the same about vacation rentals usually the one that's able to charge more per night over an extended period of time tends to be better even if they look somewhat similar on Airbnb.com or they look somewhat similar on you know vacation rental manager's website of choice.com. Sometimes when you actually get there you're like yeah there's a reason this one is charging more

depending of course on what an identity value and that sort of thing. So yeah a small pivot here, so talking about property walkthroughs still but maybe taking one more step into it. Kind of curious for thoughts on this. Models or having some kind of walkthrough assistant, if you will, in the property. Pro or con, I've kind of seen a lot of data that tells me that these tend to do a little bit better, but it's been a challenge.

Like when I'm having to work hard to convince a client to do a property walkthrough, adding in a model or any kind of walkthrough person to help there just seems like a step too far. And I can't ever seem to get people to kind of dip their toe in that water. But I've seen some data from some clients that we've had a chance to work with or look at some of their internal metrics and properties that have these video walkthroughs with someone walking through the property seemed to do a lot better.

Just wasn't sure if you had any perspective on having some kind of model in the video. Some of my most fun videos I've seen, wouldn't say it's a model walking through, but it is it's someone having fun with like telling their own story. And one in particular that he had a lot of fun with it. It was more entertainment value while still doing a walk. If you could do it well. So there's a balance there.

Certainly. I don't, I mean, it is. If it's the difference between doing it and not doing it, obviously, to get rid of someone and just do the walkthrough. But I will concur that the people that I've seen do that they have they've done better not get I don't know if it's just because in that case, though in the one case that it was very entertaining. In another

case, it was they had more of a larger brand kind of in a beach market that that sold it but the individual you know, he was walking through the homes as well there. So I think that it feels like that's more of a photo shoot type of thing where you're going to get people there, you're going to have the whole setup and you're going to do some of these the next part lifestyle and guest experience videos and you're going to do the property walkthrough. I think if you're like thinking of this as a full project where it might even be a multi-day project. Yeah, make sure that you can bring people on and do those types of things because I do think it gives,

it puts, and again, it puts a face on things, but it warms it up. It's not just the house. You can have the warm, with a warm fireplace, but having someone lead you through and really kind of, even if you're talking about narration of the experience that they're walking through. I think that's a super helpful and just like, again, not leaving those

gray areas of where are we? What are we doing? No, this is this is now someone feeling it I mean, it is it feels like a human guestbook or something. So I love that idea. Yeah, I think it comes down to a little bit to we were saying earlier, but just be clear, like, it's like, well, what do you stand for? These are our ideas, we have to take your brand and like stand for something and say like, this is the kind of thing I'm going for, right? And like, I've seen some different, you know, Instagram accounts that to me, they don't match my aesthetic or what I respond to well at all. But I see that they have a ton of followers, time engagement.

I'm like, okay, you found something that other people are resonating with. Like, that's kind of what marketing is, right? Like you got to find your people, you got to find your tribe, people that are interested in what you have to say. And I think some people just get too caught in their own heads of they end up kind of being a little bit more vanilla and duplicating what other people are doing. And I think then they get kind of mediocre, particularly subpar results. It's like, well, if that's not you, then don't do that. If you are the local person who loves this restaurant and that restaurant and that restaurant, go do a video at those places and talk about how great they are. Your authenticity will shine through a lot better than just

like five places you should go to like if you don't actually care about those things. So we're gonna go take it off off the script for a little bit here. Would you say that some a company without a true brand story and a true target persona of who they're going after is going to struggle more with creating the video and the photography? Right? I think it's that's the symptom, not the cause, right? The cause is what you just said. And

then the symptom becomes, well, I don't really know how much I should spend on advertising. I don't really know what kind of video to produce. I don't really know, you know, how to write my property description. I think the root cause needs to be addressed first. And then let's like, oh, I now know because I'm going after moms who are driving in who are coming with their kids, I know exactly what video content to create for that person, because I can now talk about the board games in the property, and I could talk about the space in the backyard, and I could talk about the fact that the room is baby ready,

which would define blackout curtains, white noise machine, you know, camera already installed like the so again, that's just one little example from like my own life where I would like I would be drawn to a place personally right now with a four month old home where if we were to go somewhere nearby and not too crazy far away, we'll be appealing to us. Those are things that I just personally listed off from my own memory, because my wife and I had this conversation literally yesterday.

But it's like, that may not appeal to anyone. Like I wouldn't appeal to my dad at all. He'd be like, I don't care about blackout curtains or a white noise machine or a crib. Like, you know, my dad's about to be 70 this year. And obviously he has grand babies, but he doesn't have, you know, his kids are grown and gone.

So it's time to be appealing to him. But yeah, if you were to make a video content about that, I will say this though, you might look at and go, Oh, that's perfect for Conrad and Michelle. Like I'm gonna send this their way, right? Like it's not for me, but maybe it's for them. But I think, yeah, to your to your original question there, it's like, if you understand what the causes then the symptoms become readily apparent very quickly because you go, Oh, well, the reason that your video content has no like meaning to or doesn't feel like it lands anywhere is because you don't even know you don't even know you're going after so it's like no wonder this doesn't actually land with

anybody when they go and watch it when they go look at it. I think that's very true. Yeah, I think that is that's that's the other side you invest in all these videos, but if they're for the wrong if they're not for the right people for your target guests, what are we really doing here that then that is a wasted investment, I would say. Yeah, well, that's I think that's very true. You know, if

there's always a line to be drawn between like, have I just not done enough of this? Or have I not done it well enough? I think those are like two different things, right? Because we I'm sure we told the story before the podcast, but like the Alex or mozi line of like, opens his gym, I love this one goes and send out the postcards, you know, and it's like, Hey, I didn't get any customers from postcard. And he's like, Oh, you know, why didn't you get any customers?

Like, what was your, what was your size that you sent the list to? And he's like, yeah, I sent it to 5,000 people. Like that's a lot. And he's like, Oh no, dude, I sent 100,000 a week. You know, like his expectations got reset in that moment. And I think some clients do have to hear that, which is like, Oh yeah, I posted like three reels, you know, in the last two months. And it's like, yeah, like there's people that post three reels every day. I mean, you know, or at least every other day or something like that. Right? Like you just got, you need to readjust your expectation of like what's possible or Or at least don't compare yourself. Don't say I'm putting in this much effort and I'm comparing myself to someone who's putting in this much effort and wondering

my results are so different. There's a lot of lessons to add in that. That would be that side of it. Let's go to the next thing. Lifestyle guest experience, I think elements are really important. We can show the property with or without someone guiding us through that. That's fine. We can talk about like, here's an amenity, here's the pool, here's that kind of stuff. And that'll take you so far. I think that's a great way of going about it. To be clear, I think those have better booking intent videos like that.

So I'm very bullish on that. But I think any sort of like lifestyle guest experience thing can be quite resonant with people, particularly if you do leverage an influencer. So we did an episode on influencers a little while ago, and actually we posited this idea of do you want an influencer or do you want a content creator for your business while ago and actually we posited this idea of, do you want an influencer or do you want a content creator for your business? And I think we kind of talked about at length that I think a content creator is missing

from a lot more people's businesses than influencers. They have their place and their time and I'm all for them when they make sense. But I think you'd be better off making almost like your own style of influencer content with someone on your team or someone that you can contract out to who's going and doing stuff like,

spend the day with me at 123 blah blah blah street and 123 blah blah blah street is your vacation rental. And it's they wake up, they make their coffee and the coffee maker provide them. They go out and there's sunrise yoga on the deck. They walk to the favorite cafe that's within walking distance to the property. They experience that someone watching one minute video of like just good vibes, good energy the whole time. It's like, I want to book that place. That seems awesome. That's what I'm looking for. I'm not necessarily looking for a three bedroom, two bath vacation rental. I mean, I am in a way, but I'm looking for what that experience is going to provide me.

And I think that anything you can tie in with lifestyle and guest experience stuff, I think is so valuable, especially if you have that target person in mind. So we could do a lot of that, but any other ideas you want to kind of fold into that one? I was going to say, I think those, those are especially key for larger homes and more luxury because it is. With maybe a one bedroom, two bedroom, they replace the four walls of, I need to stay somewhere. But these larger homes where, it's more about the experience that you're going to do there. You're likely going there with a larger group, with family, with foreign events, something

like that. You do, you want to be able to kind of present that those experiences. So I love them like the examples, the grill and chill barbecue, the family game night, the sunset toast or the sunset fire, you know, fire pit, whatever that is. I think those are experiences that especially at the at some of those larger homes, more luxury homes, that's what you need to get the target audience over kind of over the hill and getting them to book because yeah, all the amenities that they need are going to be important and we want to highlight those but it's going to take more to get everybody, you know, to understand that everybody that you're bringing to this larger group experience is going

to enjoy the time. Yeah, I think it's a, you know, going back to this idea of like, what is the video content supposed to do? I mean, any sort of content in my mind done well is supposed to change someone's behavior, right? It's supposed to change their mind and change their approach of like, I saw it this way now because I watched this video, I see it that way. I didn't know what to expect from this property or didn't know expect to this property manager.

Now I saw this ad or I saw this piece of content and now I'm going to do this because of that. Now granted, I mean, look, we're in marketing, right? We, we celebrate a one or 2 percent conversion rate on this kind of stuff, right? When we're doing a really good job. So we know we're not going to change everybody's mind, but that has to be the mindset going in. When we're creating that is like, how do I get someone to see it my way or see the experience that I think they can have? And that's where you stand out a lot from the crowd too. Like I was rethinking about this the other day. This is the smaller

version. We have to go down this too much. But anyone who's like anti-direct booking, I think what they are at the end of the day, to be honest with you, is they're just into marketing. And they're just anti brand, which by the way, I'm kind of okay with like if you if you admit that you say like, I'm just attaching myself to the Airbnb boat. And I did this comment in LinkedIn the other day where it's like, if you are a particle attaching yourself to the Airbnb, though, that's fine. But also don't complain when the captain changes directions. If the if captain Chesky wants to go a different direction, or if the algorithm doesn't benefit you, you can't have both ways. You can't say I am okay with putting to the side this idea of doing my own direct marketing, setting up my own direct booking

website, putting a lot of effort into search marketing, social marketing, email marketing, video content, which is obviously the topic today. If you're okay setting all those things aside, I'm okay with that. I still understand that there's things that I don't do in my own business that other people would say, that's how I grew. So like I can see that from my own perspective. But again, then you can't also have it the other way and say, but I also want to be in charge. It's like, no, no, no, no, no.

Those things are the thing that put you in charge. So when you choose not to do those things, you are now no longer in charge. And if you're fine with that, I'm fine with it too, but you can't have it both ways in that sense. So that was a small diversion. But anyways, all this stuff that we're talking about here is again, part of a broader idea of when you go and make your own kind of brand awareness,

when you go and create your own video content and social, and you amass a bunch of influence in a way or followers, or you amass people that are paying attention, that's your audience that then becomes your customer, right? Like, Airbnb is fantastic. We all love Airbnb. People are absolutely going to book in Airbnb for a very, very long time, decades, the next 30, 40, 50 years, I think probably is reasonable to assume that Airbnb will continue to do pretty well. Who knows that they'll have more serious competition that comes in and augments them or fights them. Who knows? Time will tell. We could look silly if we make any predictions too far out. But that's not enough to satisfy most people. That's not enough to satisfy your overall brand demands and what you're trying to

do. All these video content ideas, none of them go on Airbnb. They all go into your own channels that at least you have some varied level of control over. And that's what's going to build you an audience and an audience is the thing you're after. So if that's what we're after, then why wouldn't we at least explore these ideas further as a way to get more audience? So you're spot on there. randomly placed in there, but I digress. It's a good I mean, that's the thing. It's an excellent point. And I think it is this is something that you kind of have to make a decision

if you're going to go down the road with any of these marketing efforts. How much do you want to invest? How much do you want someone else to invest for you? Because that is, although it cringe worthy for my ears when I hear someone say, oh, what kind of market are you doing? I'm on Airbnb.

Well, we've had that conversation. But again, if that's what you see marketing as and It's not any further, you know understanding of your audience or what differentiates you or some of these other things Cool, but I think you hit the head with you can't have it both ways You can't have the the story you can't have the brand story You can't have all those things and then say well Airbnb is gonna do it all so pick and choose store, you can't have all those things. And then say, well, Airbnb is going to do it all. So pick and choose. Yeah, those are those. Yeah, those are contradictory ideas, as it were. So well, let's let's take this a few further. We got a few more ideas. Actually, I want to do

homeowner stuff, because I think that our blog coming up here is about social proof. So we'll come to that one second. But one more kind of block maybe I'd like to put in here is this idea of like, any sort of local area information, We have so many clients that have hit so well on content like this, where it's basically the X number, so the 10 best restaurants in destination name, and then it's literally two to five second clips of that actual restaurant. And it's basically ranking them, or you could just do our 10 favorite restaurants or something like that. And I think a lot of people don't understand how valuable that type of content information can be, because it generates a lot of discussion and a lot of engagement. And you can also tag all those 10 people into that piece of content and say, hey, restaurant ABC, we tagged you when we went in that direction. And that's

a good way to kind of get more awareness there. So many things you can do are 10 best hiking trails, best places to park. If you come here and go to the beach, there's like a thousand places to park. Which ones are the best one to park at? What are the best beach access points? We've done that content for our client here locally. I love stuff like that because it's very practical, it's interesting, and anyone watching it, they ones are the best one to park out, the one with the best beach access points, we've done that content for our client here locally. I love stuff like that because it's like very practical, it's interesting, and anyone watching it, they're in the market for a place to stay, right? Like I think that's what you're focused on there.

Not some distant, far off person is not interested, you want someone who's actually coming and looking to stay there right away. So love that idea, but you wanna bring us into like social proof and reviews, because I think it could be a guess thing, but I think at home, we haven't touched on homeowner at all, and I think homeowner marketing,

video marketing can be quite powerful. I think the testimonials are such a huge piece. Guest testimonials and owner testimonials. I think that's the other thing is that when you look at someone who's looking at a property description page or a property listing page, they are, they're looking through the videos and they're almost always going down into the reviews. So if they're gonna willing to read it I think you're having someone willing to get back on a video and tell Users tell tell potential travelers how good an experience they had with you. Oh my goodness That is so powerful and I think that we don't push for it as much on the traveler side because again

We have you know It's a volume game if you're getting a lot of of five star views on Google and TripAdvisor, all these places, cool. That's fantastic. Airbnb, we're about, I guess that's important too. But it is, if you can have, you know, one traveler who's willing to get in front of a, I think that's the one thing, people who have tried to incorporate like a selfie wall, an Instagram wall, something like that, to kind of do things and be willing to do a 15 second little, hey, this is what I loved about our stay. Man, I love that that concept because as you can put, you know, 10,

15 of those together and do one of those what guests say montages. And really, you know, talking about not just you, not just your business, but talking about some of the local, you know, some of the local area vendors and talking about maybe people on site that gave them a great and special experience or doing something like that. On the guest side, it's great. On the owner side, it's almost a non-negotiable. You really have to be able to have an owner willing to say, this is why X, Y, and Z is a better property manager than anybody else.

They keep my home in better shape. I don't have to worry about late night this or that. I feel comfortable with the amount of money I'm making. You can go down the line there. There's a lot of different, whatever your USPs are, you want to make sure that these owners are actually talking about those. Maybe hammering on those a little bit just to make sure that you're actually getting that end value. Any type of video that you can do to give that homeowner peace of mind about their home,

whether it is talking about the behind the scenes type of stuff, the speed clean, talking about your crew coming in and taking care of a home that's already on your portfolio. Talking about you yourself. Talk about you, not necessarily your business, but why you, the owner of the business, the general manager of the business, whatever role you play, give people that peek behind the scenes because it does. It humanizes your business more for someone who is about to put a half a million million multi-million dollar home in your portfolio. That is not an easy decision

to make. It's not a testimonial. Maybe you're actually putting together the XML sales pitch type of thing where you're highlighting the individual parts. It doesn't need to be a slideshow, but you can talk through a slideshow presentation that you give while you're kind of putting together some of the video clips of what's happening on site. You can do a lot with a little bit on the owner side of things because it's more about convincing them that you are going to, you're going to meet the expectation and exceed the expectation that they have.

That's something that everybody is kind of in the same boat. Well, we're going to make you more we're going to do this, we're going to do that. The video is really how you can differentiate yourself. Someone who's doing the research has already seen seven different landing pages with the exact same stuff. So how do you differentiate yourself? These videos are a great way to do that and having your owners do it. And that's just the it's it's like super charging the whole

experience there, I would say. Yeah, could not agree more. There's nothing less convincing than an anonymous quote, you know, where it's like, hey, I did a great job, this person did a great job and saying, okay, you know, your cousin could have made that up for you, right? It's meaningless. One step up is like maybe a photo of an actual owner on a landing page saying, hey, you know, Conrad school cabin did a great job managing my cabin my cabin. Okay, that's one click up. Ten clicks up from that is someone talking about you positively for two or three minutes about I was doing it this way before and now I'm doing it this way. We talked at length on the former version of CASA being incredible at acquiring inventory. The CASA was incredible at acquiring inventory. Go look at their case studies page. You know how

much longer that will be up. We should probably save it or archive it, I think, for like future show reference purposes. Um, you know, it's hard to know exactly where that's going to go. But it's like that page is a master class, in my opinion, of photo, video assets, particularly video assets, where it's evolved does a great job to give the give both those companies credit. Again, amassed a lot of inventory, and it's different business models, but they've asked a lot of inventory and it's videos saying, I was trying to do it on my own. It didn't work well. I hired these guys and things were going better from that moment or some variation of that story. It was with another manager. They weren't doing a great job. I gave it to other company and other great job. That is so much more influential than, you

know, a little pull quoters or even worse to your point what you nailed at the end there. I'm going to say about myself, I'm great. Well, it's like, of course you're going to say you're great. You know, I want someone else to say you're great. That's actually the thing that convinces people. But, you know, it's it's checking the box marketing. It's not actually thinking about the the way someone feels when they watch that message. They watch that media. I mean, I won't lie, I've been very, very jealous of Evolves whole idea and concept of case studies and everything like that, because they do.

They present it in a very meaningful way for these homeowners. Part of it is unearthing the pain, but then getting on the back end of it. And I think that's any story you're telling, any marketing you're doing, any video you're putting together, you do have to, I mean, we got to tell a story with it. I think that's, and that maybe puts the differentiator on why you would do video as opposed to photography is that you can infer a story. You can hope people have that same experience when they look at that image. It is worth a thousand words, but is it going to be the same experience for everybody? No.

And I think that's maybe where you universalize the experience a little better with video because you're putting the interpretation in for people. So they can they can get the value that you're trying to deliver to them. Yeah, I could agree more. Well, like I said, as we talked about the topic call, we didn't get through every single video idea, but here's what I'm going to do for the listeners. I've been all the way to the end. I put them in the show notes for free. So go to the show notes, scroll down, you can like, you might have to click over to build up Bookings website and go to the show page or the podcast page. I don't know the full show notes show up in all the feeds, but if

they do, then obviously go down there. I'll check them out, put them all in there. But it's like, I think it's somewhere around 70 ideas that we came up with. And these are ones that we're now circulating internally for buildup clients. I don't know if you're gonna do something similar with clients that you advise, Paul,

maybe that would be the case. And the idea is, hey, if we're, I don't wanna hear the idea that we have no ideas. Like, okay, we can say we're struggling in execution or we can't get someone out of the film, film the property. I can live with all those kinds of things as reasonable excuses for sure.

But I don't want to say, I have no idea what to do. You know, like that is no longer an acceptable idea here. You know, when I work with our clients here at Buildup. So we're going to solve that through a list of ideas. You listen, we're going to get the same thing. So scroll down there right there, no opt-in or anything required. All good there.

But Paul, anything else you want to button in here before we tie bow in this one? Do video. That's it. That's, I mean, this is, we've said it a lot. This is, if we divided an episode, do it, do some video. Put some video into your content plan through the end of the year here. You got, you know, we're just about to June.

Hope I'm probably about June release here. You got six months. Like I would, actually, I would love that. If someone does a review in the next six months here, I would love for them to attach the link to their video that they did after this this episode because they got some great ideas from us. That would be awesome. That would be cool. Yeah. If the idea does help you, yes, and if

you ask what I'm working on, and this can be a longer term thing that we can work on is showing a handful of examples of every single video type in the idea list because we can kind of envision what these would look like. That's great. But I think what helps me sometimes as well, I tend to be this way is like, show me an example, like show me a version of this that you kind of think makes sense. And then we can go from there. So the more examples that I kind of collect on my social team is going to work on the same thing as well. The more useful that resource can be. Maybe that could be a blog post and build a website where you kind

of look at some different examples of reels that are done well and Instagram content that it's performing well. And then you can, you know, not steal, but you can remix it in your own format and figure out a way to make that work for your business. So I think that's a good way to go about it. Awesome. You know, one thing actually, Paul, it's not a video. It's not even an image. It doesn't take any specific hardware or, you know, really a lot of additional skill to do doesn't take a lot of training at all. It's just leading us to review. So go to your podcast, stop the choice, iTunes, Spotify listeners. That's where we get the most downloads. So we appreciate it for you there. The most click five stars, just write a friendly little message. If you're

not going to click five stars, email us instead, tell us what we did wrong because we always are open to feedback. We only want five star reviews. Just like you as an Airbnb host or vacation manager, you only want five star reviews. We are the same way. So we have that in common amongst many other things, of course. Leave us five stars, leave us a review, and we'll catch everyone on the next episode. Have an awesome day. Go Wolves, as it were were. Now the Southlakes are bumped. I shall be on the ant train if you will. We'll see how this all shakes out and we'll catch you on the next episode. Have a great day.