How We Sold a Luxury Property in the Middle of Nowhere - in 3 days - and how you can do the same.

“Buying starts with emotion and then justified by logic…even if people don't want to admit it.”

So just a warning here, we're going to be diving into the psychology of buyers, the psychology of people, of you and me, and some things we won't even want to admit to ourselves, even if we're the most logical people.

But that's kind of why I love marketing, because it pulls at the deepest parts of ourselves. Things that we wish we were, we wish we had, we wish we could do. It's kind of crazy, but here we go. This is marketing and this is how we did it.

So we knew this property was going to be an uphill battle. It's in the middle of nowhere, there's tons of maintenance on the grounds, and the owner didn't even think that it was going to sell at this price. So how do we get them to stop thinking about the objections of this property, the maintenance?

Here is the breakdown. So first we have strategy, planning, and then execution.

As we get into strategy, I wanna talk about how decisions are made. And this might sound simple. It's like, Hey, I wanted to get a new pair of gym shoes, so I went and got a pair of gym shoes. Yes, but there's more to it. A lot of decisions start with an emotion. Some type of desire for more, some type of pain.

Buying starts with emotion and then justified by logic…even if people don't want to admit it.

So we always want to start with how we want to make the audience feel. In order to understand how we need to make them feel, we need to know who they are, what they value, and what they're trying to gain out of this purchasing decision.

Who are they? Probably somebody accomplished, maybe somebody middle aged, maybe semi-local, maybe out of town, or it could be an investor of some type. They're probably valuing simplicity. The outdoors, architecture, elegance. They want to make a statement.

I would probably say social gatherings too, because this house is massive. The pool is massive. It's an off-grid location. You're looking at someone who wants to impress, have social gatherings, but also be able to wind down in their own environment. So that brings us to how they want to feel and they wanna feel some kind of accomplishment, some kind of connection, and they want to feel validated.

And they want to feel valued. They wanna share this space with people from time to time. They might even want to feel youthful or inspired or have youthful energy.

So now that we know and we have identified what kind of person wants to buy this home, what they value, what they want to accomplish through this purchase, how they want to use this property after they purchase it, now we can make a plan of shots, shot lists, people, emotions and feelings.

Some shots included interactions with people smiling faces having a great time. We wanted to show the land in an impressive way. You can chop wood here. You can pick blueberries here. You can bulldoze it all and put 25 Airbnb Yurts in the backyard.

Now, we wanted to also show the experience of living here, the amenities, how you might feel with your loved one, walking through the garden area on a Sunday afternoon after hanging out with friends. With a big, sexy steamer shower at the end of the day, even if it's yourself - can still be sexy. You just press a button, steam rolls out. You sit in there, you soak up the steam, you know, it's beautiful thing. We end up with a really nice shot list, start to finish.

So now it's time for some people. We need to make it feel lively. So we have about 10 people come in, actors, and we make it a good time. We fed 'em food. We had drinks for them, we had music going. The owner even broke out his own personal bourbon stash, which I did not recommend. I didn't know it was going to happen, but everybody was fine. It was great. Everybody had a great time. Typically, that's not how it goes. Typically don't, we don't have drinks on set, but what I'm trying to highlight here is it's important for everybody to have a good time. So that's reflected in the camera.

And so production day comes - at the beginning of the video. You'll see some anticipation. We're just showing a little bit of the property, uh, a little bits at a time to kind of give you a foreshadowing of what's to come. Get those gears gowing. Oh, I think there's a pool there. Oh, there is a pool! Oh, there's this beautiful land we kind of tease a little bit right at the beginning, right? A little bit of anticipation.

Now, You have that floating, dreamy feeling of those slow motion shots. We make sure the viewer is oriented by using drone shots to help us move from one area to the next or showing them walking off camera into another area. For the ending, here's another little tip: we pull away from the house as if you are leaving the house. As if maybe the house is disappearing. Maybe you're losing your chance to buy it, maybe it's floating away. Motivated camera movements are really important to help the audience feel a certain way.

So now let's talk about delivery and creative assets. So on this one, we delivered over 30 creative assets to the client for their marketing purposes. You have the MLS video and then we did a talking portion of the video where we had the realtor listing agent do an introduction at the beginning of the video. And then we had short YouTube ads. We had Instagram reels, we had Instagram ads. We had high quality screen grabs, not just like taking it on your phone. It's actually exported from the editing software. So it's beautiful.

And something that I wish I did on this one that I did not do, I thought about it after the fact, but this house was under contract in three days. How cool would ha it have been if the listing agent had some content we recorded on the day of that said, and this house is off the market. People that were in the lifestyle portion just giving high fives and celebrating. Epic. So next time we do a listing video, I want to include that one.

And so this wraps it up. You can do the same thing. All you have to do is identify your target market, your your client avatar, that kind of person who might buy this property.

Understand what matters to them, show them what matters to them, make them feel something towards the property. When they walk in the room, when they go and see that property in person, they're thinking about having that good time that they watched on that video. Focus on the positives of the property and use cinematic storytelling to deliver it home.

So until next time, I'll see you.