Growing Your Business with Advanced Virtual Tours

The following is an excerpt from RE Technology's latest Success Guide:

Today's advanced virtual tour solutions can drive engagement and word of mouth excitement that will make you, your buyers, and your sellers very happy. Here's how you can use them to your advantage.

Branded and Unbranded Tours

One of the greatest benefits of participating in multiple listing services is the distribution of your listing to every broker and MLS website in your market through the Internet Data Exchange, or IDX, program. Be sure to insert the unbranded tour link of all your listings into the correct field in your MLS.

Regardless of the quality of the website, your beautiful virtual tour will make the best possible impression on homebuyers as they click through listing after listing. They are sure to stop and be as amazed by your marketing as they are by the house.

Build Tours of Your Office and Affiliate Offices

Your office is your lion's den. It is not only a place where you meet with customers, but also a place where you congregate with your team. Building a virtual tour of your offices will not only make your office webpages stand out, provide comfort to consumers, make your office social media and Google business pages look outstanding, but will make a great impression on other agents in the area who may be considering switching firms. A number of brokers and agents have told us that affiliates in mortgage, title, and insurance also love to build these tours for the same reason.

Capture Community Tours

Want to really impress the owner of a popular restaurant or store? They typically struggle with marketing as much as anyone. Take a look at their website or their Yelp page. You will be astounded by how much real estate marketing has evolved beyond the way that most companies market themselves.

Consider offering a virtual tour to local businesses. They will not only remember you when they are planning a move, but they will offer referrals. Most of all, they will remember your branding and your strong call to action.

Stage the Same Home in Different Styles

Sometimes, even the most beautifully decorated home doesn't match the taste of the home buyer. My wife hates modern (chrome) and country (oak), but loves classical (mahogany and cherry). With today's virtual staging, you can get creative by developing the scans to suit a variety of palates. Another great idea is to convert a room into a nursery or convert a room that is currently a nursery into an office or a bedroom to show the flexibility of the space.

Create a Look Book

Take pride in the homes that you list and sell. Add a page to your website where you store the archive of all of the homes you have virtually staged. It becomes a great look book that you can use as a reference on listing presentations or for any other reason. It can be especially helpful when you want a catalog of designs to show.

If you survey the marketplace you compete in, I expect that you will find that few, if any, brokerages, agents, or teams have deployed these advanced marketing ideas. A little effort on your behalf can have a dramatic impact on creating the differentiation that you need to attract customers. Best of all, your listings will sell faster.

Download Success Guide: Advanced Virtual Tours to learn more about virtual tour trends, how to evaluate a virtual tour, and more.