Fast Forward Stories founder Dr. Matthew Dunn did not wake up in the middle of the night five years ago and see his work solving one of the great communications issues of the day, but that is exactly what his product is set to do for the real estate industry in English and Spanish.
His company licenses explanation videos to companies that need to explain difficult terms to people who need to know what they mean. If you have ever been asked the same question a second time or more, you know how frustrating this can be, especially when the person who needs the information does not understand you tried to explain.
Dr. Dunn has taken the adage a picture is worth a thousand words and smashed it to smithereens. His philosophy is more like "A few chosen words and pictures on a one minute video are worth thousands of dollars.
Case in point:
"A couple was considering a house, and when I showed the husband our Spanish-language Fast Forward video on closing costs, he lit up like a Christmas tree," said Ken Harris of Welcome Center Realty in Port St. Lucie, Florida. "It clarified things that would have been hard for him to follow had I just explained them in English. It sealed the deal."
This real estate explanation videos, all 174 of them, in Spanish or English, are finding their way to lenders, homebuilders, and real estate companies. Can you imagine the same answer for the same question provided by all services? Dr. Dunn can. He saw video explanations coming 20 years ago as he earned his doctorate in Digital Media at the University of Washington.
The content is branded for each licensee, and is available in both English and Spanish-captioned versions.
Dr. Dunn said that a Fannie Mae study published in November 2013 called Hispanic homebuyers "a key driver of future homeownership demand." with Hispanic share of homeownership in the United States growing from 15% of the market in the 1990s to more than 35 percent in the 2000s.
"According to a recent Pew Trusts study, while many Hispanics in the United States speak English, over 37 million persons in the U.S. speak Spanish at home."
"We produced a Spanish-captioned version of each video in this comprehensive new series to help real estate agents, homebuilders, lenders, title companies and related real estate services reach this growing market sector," Dr. Dunn said.
But it's the way that its done that makes it so attractive to the customer.
"Visual communication and storytelling techniques convey a common understanding across multiple levels." Dr. Dunn said.
"Our real estate video service gives agents and brokers a competitive advantage for content marketing.
"Prices for effective custom explanation videos typically start at $3000 and range upward, Dunn added, "so producing a library of this size would typically cost a company hundreds of thousands of dollars up front," Dunn said.
" Our licensed service averages less than $2 per month per video instead. The service brings the leverage to video content that Software as a Service (SaaS) has brought to software."
Fast Forward Videos makes this content instantly usable by providing import-ready Wordpress and text files with video embed codes and related short articles. The video hosting technology also generates HTML codes for specific email marketing platforms such as MailChimp, Constant Contact and 20 other vendors.
Fast Forward Stories is the first video content service in any industry, and the Real Estate Explanations library is the largest licensable set on the market, according to Dr. Dunn.
If you are an English or Spanish speaking real estate agent, an onsite sales consultant, or lender , can you imagine the day when you provide the same answer to the same question 24/7 from your website on demand? In two languages?
If you can imagine it, you are seeing the future: a fast, visually compelling way to serve the real estate homebuyer and seller on their terms in their language whether they are asking you, your broker, or one of your peers.
At some point, the National Association of Realtors, The National Association of Home Builders, and others will start to see that Dr. Dunn has done something that it would take a committee years to approve. Until then, Dr. Dunn, just keeps explaining what the terms mean adding value on top of value to his work.
This is a big deal, amigo.
