What can Christophe Choo teach YOU about real estate video marketing?
Christophe Choo started using real estate video marketing in 2008. His YouTube channel which focuses on luxury real estate and the Lifestyle in Los Angeles that goes with it has 9.5 MILLION views. He has 29.9k subscribers. Only Josh Altman has more. I am estimating Christophe has 120 million in sales that were directly produced from leads generated off YouTube or Facebook posts. This ESTIMATE was generated by him sharing some early numbers with me and then me taking that as a standard and averaging for 10 years. Chances are strong this is a very low estimate. Bomb Bomb/Tom Ferry voted Christophe the #1 Real Estate Video Influencer in North America in 2018.
How to brand yourself with Video Christophe style
Since this is a blog ABOUT video I will be using the visual storytelling style giving an example after each bullet point with a brief written explanation of what you are looking for.- Find subject matter in your local market that you are passionate about. Christophe loves luxury and spends tons of time shopping the stores in Rodeo drive and driving the neighborhoods he represents. He just films it and talks about it. Here are a couple of videos that represent about 400k in views of him doing just that.
- Decide on a posting schedule and stick with it. Christophe publishes new real estate video two or three times a week. That is FAR more than is required for success. You can start with as little as two times a month while you build-up expertise and acquire an audience. In order to get LEAD results, you need to keep an audience engaged with your channel.
- Focus on transactional and lifestyle videos. Christophe does market updates once a month and posts frequently on the conditions of his local neighborhood. He gets frequent inquiries from our out of country foreign investors due to his positioning as the undisputed “mayor” of Beverly Hills. My personal favorite of his Beverly hills market updates is the ones he’s done recently simply sitting at his desk. Here is his most recent from July 2020 that in less than a week already has 700 views.
- Drop the sales persona and be “real”. People buy from PEOPLE more than they buy from messaging in 2020. We are over-marketed too. Period. The reason Christophe is MY number one video influencer is to watch his videos is to know the man. I DO know him and I speak from experience. What you see is what you get.
Does Christophe use professional video marketing services for listings?
Christophe shoots two or three sets of videos around listings. When it is HIS listing he has a professional real estate videographer shoot a video that focuses on JUST the listing. He then shoots a video of himself introing the property and touring the property. A personal virtual tour is how he brands the walkthrough. Here is a good recent example of a 10 million dollar listing in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles. He produces a SECOND video that is 100% professional. His TITLE for that video is the same as the address of the property in question. Most of the time anyone searching for the property will find his video on the first page of Google. This RECENT example has 2400 views in under 90 days.
He plays with combos of these two styles often times arriving an hour earlier and staying much later than his camera crews in order to shoot some personal footage. (I’m basing this last on his own comments on social media about work ethic and showing up early and staying late).
What type of equipment does Christophe use to shoot his real estate videos?
Christophe uses one of the latest versions of the Apple I Phone. Full stop. His videographer might use different equipment to shoot the “professionally” done videos but Christophe shoots all his content on his cell phone. He might have a couple of stands for the car and desk shots. But the shots themselves come from the same device.Want to learn about Real Estate Video Marketing Directly from Christophe?
No problem. I wanted the EXACT same thing which is why I was excited and honored to bring him on the podcast I co-host that discusses real estate marketing. Christophe shared some brilliant stories and analogies about using video to sell real estate. Here are SOME of the topics he covered.- Work Ethic
- Sales History
- How long before he started to generate leads from Video
- Why Christophe got into video
Finally a Personal Story about Christophe which is why he is the ONLY agent I have ever blogged about.
It’s not an accident I chose Christophe as my mentor for Real Estate Video Marketing. I met Christophe in 2009. I was a Senior Sales Executive for Agent Image. Christophe contacted AI to potentially create a unique real estate website that would showcase videos. He was insistent that we come to Beverly Hills to meet with him AND we needed to bring a technical resource to the meeting to make sure we knew what we were talking about. It takes a lot to get me to run an in-person appointment. If you’re a busy salesperson in the digital marketing space chewing up a whole afternoon for a single prospect is a lot to ask especially if they haven’t spent any money yet. But Christophe sold me. He was prompt to our calls. He ALWAYS asked a ton of questions. He agreed to buy us lunch. So Andrew and I hike out to Beverly Hills from El Segundo and sit down at Spago’s or some such similar super fancy eatery (Andrew and I are both Burger and Fry guys) and there is Christophe dressed to the nines with his own technical resource. I truly had moment where I questioned my sanity. I REALLY was not one of the guys in the office caught up with chasing luxury real estate agents. I was pulled into THIS meeting because Christophe was asking alot of questions about SEO. He was smart and so was his companion. Based on the questions he was asking I knew we wouldn’t end up earning his business. Our custom work would have been extraordinarily expensive AND we hadn’t produced something like he was looking for at the time. Christophe was literally 5 years ahead of the rest of the real estate industry in terms of what he was looking for. He was also confident AND humble simultaneously. Charismatic is an understatement. He absolutely understood his own value as a client. But he treated Andrew and me extraordinarily well which take my word for it is a rarity on the digital services side of the luxury real estate business. During our 90 minute meeting, I asked what his goals for the website and video where. Here’s what he told me without blinking an eye.- I want to sell 100’s of millions of dollars of real estate using video (the number might be made up but he did attach an almost unbelievable expectation. At the time no one had done what he was suggesting)
- I want to be the industries leading authority for Beverly Hills (Self Published Video)
- I want my own T.V. show.
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6 Comments
Thank you so much for the wonderful article.
Christophe, it was a pleasure.
Thank you for sharing such kind of knowledgeable information. I think it is useful for digital marketers to learn video marketing.
Lucas,
Congrats on being the first approved comment. Video marketing is going to be the next BIG thing in real estate mark my words. Glad you enjoyed the post enough to leave me a comment. Really appreciated.
Awesome blog. Thanks for sharing
Talking about Christophe is one of my favorite things to do lol.