20 seconds. The amount of time you have to engage a buyer into further investigating your listing and your information. According to a Wall Street Journal article called 20 Seconds for Love at First Site researchers used eye-tracking measurements to determine how homebuyers looked at listings online.

The research segmented users into two groups:

1. Bounced:  Visitors who viewed the first image and left the listing.
2. Engaged:  Visitors who evaluated the first image and continued their due diligence.

When studying consumer attrition, it’s important to focus on the bounced users and determine why the visitor left.  We believe that this group can be further sub-segmented into two groups:

1. Visitors who left because the listing did not match their criteria.
2. Visitors who left because they weren’t engaged in the first 20 seconds.

There is little that can be done about the former. The latter however, can be remedied with beautiful, meticulous, flattering photography that highlights the home at it’s best angles. Referencing the infographic above, the goal of great photography is to facilitate Z eye movement each and every time for each applicable site visitor. This means:

1. Attract buyer attention with a breathtaking first photo.
2. Influence them to investigate further by researching the “quick specs”
3. Build compelling thumbnails that will lure the buyer into viewing the gallery.

According to Professor Michael Seiler, founder and director of the Institute for Behavioural and Experimental Real Estate at Old Dominion University at Norfolk, Virginia,

“Without an eye-catching photo, the battle is lost before it begins. You have to grab people’s attention within two seconds. Do it the way a billboard does.”

The key component that stitches together this consumer journey is photography. It’s the big red marketing bow that makes the listing inviting and compelling for further investigation.

As one of Calgary’s top Real Estate Photography companies, we see a Real Estate agent as a marketer for the listed home. Subsequently, we see ourselves as a key partner in the delivery of the sales campaign. Since over 80% of listings are viewed online, we focus on ensuring that the images we shoot and the formats we use are flexible enough to display consistently both in digital and in print.

Here’s why we’re different:

We look at every campaign from the consumer’s perspective. If we were buying this home, would this image motivate us to investigate further and keep going? What does the perfect image look like to us as homebuyers? If we were the homeowners, how would we want our home featured? By taking on this first person perspective, we have a vested interest in every picture of every shoot, every time.

Let’s get started…

Source: Wall Street Journal