7 Unexpected Marketing Wins You Can Achieve with a Virtual Tour
Budgets are tightening in today's real estate market, and your marketing budget is probably no exception. But before you cut back on specific marketing activities, take a look at the tools you already use — they may offer features you don't know about that can help you promote your listings at no extra cost. One of our favorite sources of hidden marketing features is the virtual tour. Not only do you get three major visual assets (an interactive 3D tour, listing photos, and a floor plan) from one photoshoot, but these platforms also offer a wealth of tools you can use to market your listing. Today, we're going to explore seven marketing wins you may not have known you could achieve with a virtual tour. And, bonus, these are things you can (and should!) talk about in your listing presentation to win over sellers (but more on that later). Let's dive in: 1. Create feature sheets Have an open house coming up? Help your listing make a lasting impression by offering printed feature sheets to attendees. There's no need to open Canva or Photoshop — your virtual tour solution can create this for you! Let's use 3D virtual tour provider iGUIDE as an example. Their platform automatically generates a visually appealing Feature Sheet with photos, a floor plan, and property info in just minutes. The feature sheets are generated as a PDF for easy printing or sharing online. 2. Share downloadable floor plans Did you know that listings with a floor plan spend 50% less time on the market, according to Zillow research? That's great news for agents who use 3D virtual tours, as most come complete with floor plans. Floor plans often mean detailed measurements of your listing have been taken, too — but check with your virtual tour provider to see how accurate these are. iGUIDE, for example, uses a time-of-flight LiDAR laser to capture accurate measurements of the space, which can be viewed directly on the tour. You can use these measurements in your listing. If iGUIDE is your virtual platform, visitors can see these detailed measurements in your virtual tour under the "Details" tab. There, visitors can also download a PDF of the floor plan. You can share these PDFs, too! They're easy to print, email, and upload to your website — or, if you convert them to image files, you can share them on social media. (See a sample PDF here or navigate to the "Details" tab below to see one available in a live 3D virtual tour.) 3. Highlight selling points or property features in your 3D tour One of our favorite virtual tour features is the ability to add tags throughout the tour to highlight your listing's unique selling points. Does your listing come with luxury appliances, like a Viking stove? Tag that in your tour to grab buyers' attention! It's the next best thing to showing off these features in person. Tags can include text, photos, and even videos — you can use whichever medium best highlights your listing's best features. 4. Share directly to social Sharing your listing on social media is an expected part of any marketing plan. Unlike photos or videos, it's not so easy sharing virtual tours, however. Technology to the rescue! Many virtual tour platforms, including iGUIDE, will generate snippets of your tour as an image file that you can share on social media. 5. Use as a landing page Using online ads to draw attention to your listings? No need to create a brand new landing page — just direct your ads to your virtual tour. This works well because virtual tour platforms, like iGUIDE, don't just offer a digital walkthrough of your listing. They also offer property details, detailed measurements, photos, local maps, and more — all branded to you and featuring your contact information. You can also promote your virtual tours in your offline marketing. Use a QR code or short URL that leads to your tour on yard signs, flyers, postcards or other printed marketing. 6. Impress your sellers with data We're going to switch gears. While previous items are about marketing to buyers, the next two are about impressing your sellers — the key to winning referrals, testimonials or repeat business from them in the future. When evaluating which virtual tour solution to use, ask if they offer analytics. iGUIDE, for example, provides data on how many people are visiting your tour, how they're interacting with it, which areas are getting the most attention, and how long viewers are spending in the tour. You can share this information with your sellers to show your value and demonstrate the marketing you are doing on their behalf. 7. Include tour data in your closing gift Your transaction may be drawing to a close, but that doesn't mean you can't stay top-of-mind with your client. If your virtual tour provider allows you to download your files, as iGUIDE does, you can give this data to your seller at closing. Load up the files on a USB stick that's branded to your business and include it in your closing gift. It's a nice gesture that plays on the nostalgia your sellers may feel about their old home — and it helps keep you top of mind for when they're ready to transact again. BONUS: A flyer to include in your listing presentations The items above are great talking points to cover in your listing presentation as part of your marketing plan! To help you start that conversation, we're including a downloadable listing flyer that you can incorporate into your listing presentations, courtesy of iGUIDE. Download the listing flyer now to help you win your next listing presentation! Then visit goiguide.com to learn more about iGUIDE.

Exploring the Revolution of Real Estate Virtual Tours
In 2023, the real estate industry witnessed a significant shift in the way properties are showcased to potential buyers. Virtual tours have revolutionized the home buying experience, offering a cutting-edge, immersive, and convenient approach for prospective homeowners. Gone are the days of relying solely on static images and floor plans; real estate virtual tours now empower buyers to explore properties from the comfort of their own homes, making the home buying process more efficient and enjoyable. The Rise of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) Advancements in Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies have propelled real estate virtual tours to new heights. VR headsets have become more affordable and accessible, allowing buyers to step into a property and explore every corner virtually. Augmented Reality, on the other hand, has introduced a new way of envisioning properties in real-world settings. Buyers can use their smartphones or AR-enabled devices to superimpose virtual elements, such as furniture or decor, onto an empty space, providing a clear visualization of how the property can be personalized to suit their needs. Virtual Staging and Home Customization Virtual staging has become an indispensable tool in the real estate industry. Gone are the days of costly and time-consuming physical staging; instead, virtual staging allows real estate agents and sellers to digitally furnish and decorate properties with a wide range of styles. Buyers can see a property's potential, transformed into their dream home, without the need to physically move any furniture. Additionally, home customization have become increasingly popular in virtual tours. Prospective buyers can visualize and explore various design options for rooms, allowing them to tailor the property to their preferences before making any structural changes. Interactive and Guided Tours Virtual tours have evolved from static, pre-recorded presentations to interactive and guided experiences. Today, prospective buyers can take control of their tours, deciding where to navigate and what to focus on, enhancing their sense of autonomy during the exploration process. Guided tours have also gained popularity, where a real estate agent or AI-powered virtual assistant can accompany buyers throughout the virtual journey, providing insights and answering questions in real-time. This personalized touch helps build a stronger connection between the buyer and the property, leading to more informed purchasing decisions. Conclusion Recent times have marked a turning point for the real estate industry with the rapid adoption of virtual tours. By harnessing the power of virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and interactive features, real estate virtual tours have transformed the home buying experience for the better. The seamless accessibility, customization options, and global reach have made virtual tours an indispensable tool for buyers, sellers, and real estate professionals alike, shaping the future of real estate in an increasingly digitized world. To view the original article, visit the Realtyna blog.

CPG Tours

CPG Tours is an online service that allows real estate agents to easily create virtual tours, using your own photos, in a matter of minutes. Features of this service include: • Unlimited Tours, • No Setup Fee, • Unlimited Photos- All of their tour options allow you to use unlimited photos, • Create a Tour in Minutes- CPG Tours can be created and distributed in a matter of minutes, • Create Tours Anywhere- This software is all online, so users can create/edit tours from any computer with an Internet connection (yes, even a Mac), • Customize Your Tours- Choose from a variety of interfaces and music, customizing each tour, • Real-Time Updates- Changes are 'live' the instant the user clicks Save, with no need to redistribute the tour, • MLS Compliant- The CPG Tour includes both a branded and unbranded version, • Viewer Statistics- Real-time statistics will show tour traffic, and where it's coming from, • Tour Distribution- CPG Tours provides direct submission to REALTOR.com, Trulia, Zillow, Move.com, AOL, MSN, Wall Street Journal, and many more top national and regional sites.

ProHomeSites® Virtual Tours

ProHomeSites® is a self-service, do-it-yourself virtual tour programfor real estate professionals.  For a monthly fee, real estate agents and brokers canload all their digital pictures, videos, and any virtual tours they create to a listing website. They can post to Realtor.com and their local MLS.   ProHomeSites.com feeds their listingsto hundreds of sites including Trulia,Zillow, Google, Yahoo and more. ProHomeSites® features include: Listing Template includes Property Data, Google® Maps, School Information, Printable Brochures, Mortgage Calculator, Request More Information, Set Showing, Agent Branding and more Disable template pages individually – agents and brokers can even create a commercial presentation by removing residential listing specific template pages Choose any background, foreground, and button colors for the template Fully compatible with their current digital camera. ProHomeSites’® tour will be posted on all major internet portals and can be posted to Realtor.com Full photo gallery online- The template includes a page dedicated to showing every STILL image of the property in a fully-interactive, FULL SCREEN capable Photo Gallery. Movie tours- Agents and brokers can include multiple movie presentations created from any source, even a video-capable cell-phone or digital camera and place background music or narration on their videos Area Map – They can show an interactive and multi-layered map, provided by Google™. Thisfeatures standard map view, satellite and aerial view, a 3D Rotating Earth view, and Street View virtual tours taken by Google™. Data sheet- Include detailed information about the listing ProHomeSites®also includes options to make brochures, post blogs about the listing, offer school information and distribute the virtual tour across the Internet.

Video Tours by AgentCasts

  AgentCasts’ photo-based video tours deliver the optimized rewards of real estate video professionally and affordably. This service is considered an upgrade to a virtual tour. It includes unlimited hosting, custom video players and online distribution to the web video and podcasting sites. With photo-based video tour you get audio narration, music and graphics to enhance the professional photographs of your listing property.  To order a photo-based video tour, you simply fill out your profile online, upload your photos and submit your narration script. You take the photos and control what the narration says. Then you fill out your profile, upload your photos and submit your narration script. Then AgentCasts will create you video and send it to you, before they launch it for you across the Internet. This video service includes: Complete Video Production - AgentCast fully produce your high-quality video and professionally record your audio narration for a totally slick and effective presentation. Formatting and Optimization – AgentCasts’ production team optimizes your video for complete compatibility with all of your viewers across the web, and embeds your video listing with your search terms for SEO results online. Video Display Pages - AgentCasts creates a clean, custom MLS video display page for every one of your videos. Web Video Saturation - YouTube, Google Video, and the web video sites can help get your listings in front of potential customers. AgentCasts posts your tour to over ten of the best video sites on the web. Podcasting Perfected - There's more to podcasts than iPodsTM and iTunesTM. The value of podcasting lies in Really Simple Syndication (RSS), which delivers new content to your viewers online automatically. Hosting & Delivery, Handled - You also get unlimited hosting for your video on AgentCasts’ servers as long as you want your video online. Video Player Widgets – AgentCasts includes custom video player widgets you can use to post your video on your website, blog, or anywhereon the web you'd like.  

Property Websites and Photography

Gold Coast Real Tours builds showcase single property websites for real estate agents. These websites are dedicated entirely to the home, with its own unique and memorable web address. A user's property website will be marketed in the newspaper, on multiple listing service (MLS), their agent website, and the firm's website. Their website will also be submitted to the most popular real estate search engines such as REALTOR.com, Trulia, Oodle, Google Base, PropSmart and Edgeio as well as Yahoo! and Google. These services are only available to members of select California MLS systems. Clients are also given an account that allows them to login to access website statistics and track how many people are viewing their site. Users can customize and view graphs for particular date ranges, review the top five pages visitors are looking at and see what sites are leading them to their home's website. Your website will include the following: Photo tour with up to 100 photos for slide show with detailed captions Detailed marketing text, feature highlights and custom content Google Analytics Lead Management and Alert system Printable flyer Property map School and census information Mortgage calculator Link to schedule a viewing Open house information Multiple ways to contact me for more information Enhanced search engine optimization Property documents (disclosures, plot maps, floor plans, etc.) for downloading Professional photography services are available through Gold Coast Real Tours as well.

Matterport Launches Property Intelligence: Transforming Real Estate and Property Management with AI and Automation
Leveraging years of innovation in spatial data and AI, Matterport's new suite of AI-powered features revolutionizes property analytics, enhancing Marketing, Design, Construction, and Facilities Management solutions. SUNNYVALE, Calif. Feb 15 — Matterport, Inc. is today launching Property Intelligence, a collection of AI-powered features that provides customers with access to automated measurements, layouts, editing, and reporting capabilities generated from a Matterport digital twin of their property. The result of years of advancements in spatial data, computer vision, and deep learning, Property Intelligence unlocks information and data about a property that has never been so easily available thanks to the power of automation and AI at Matterport. These new features bolster the company's Property Marketing, Design and Construction, and Facilities Management solutions for automating key elements of home listings, construction projects, and factory floor operations. "Since day one, our mission has been to fundamentally transform how people understand and access the built world. Our 3D digital twin technology set the industry standard for the virtual tour, and now we're delivering unprecedented information and customization capabilities to our customers for any type of property anywhere in the world," said RJ Pittman, Chairman and CEO, Matterport. "Across the globe, Matterport serves nearly one billion virtual tours each year to let people walk through their potential dream home, manage a chain of retail stores, or operate their manufacturing facilities remotely. Our advancements in AI, automation, and property insights save our customers valuable time and help them make smarter decisions for their businesses and better serve their clients." As part of Matterport's Winter 2024 Release: Automating the Future, the company is introducing a series of new Showcase plugins that streamline property navigation and expert connections for users. Compass and Minimap plugins help visitors intuitively navigate large spaces with new visual cues, while the new Business Card and Quick Link plugins provide key contact details and additional property information inside the digital twin experience. Real estate agents can brand virtual tours, while property and facility managers can insert key information in the form of a card anywhere in the virtual space, including operations manuals, restaurant menus, reservation pages, and more. To better serve real estate agents and property marketers, Matterport has upgraded its RICS-standard schematic floor plans with options such as color floor plans, branding, multiple languages, and the ability to add or remove furniture. These new floor plans help agents attract qualified buyers while saving time by reducing site visits. Announced in beta last December, the Matterport CAD file add-on is now available, which converts Matterport digital twin point clouds into editable CAD drawings for any space in several formats, including DWG and DXF files. This add-on introduces a powerful CAD file export feature, offering construction and design teams a seamless solution to the traditionally labor-intensive tasks of documenting existing conditions and manually tracing files. The CAD file add-on streamlines the process of as-built documentation and speeds up project timelines. Matterport is also sharing a preview of Project Genesis, the company's upcoming generative AI release that leverages the organization's experience in machine learning and AI to automatically reimagine and redesign a space within the digital twin. Initially, customers will be able to de-furnish an entire space, remove items from the property, or clean out the clutter. Next, customers will be able to reimagine an entire property with AI-generated interior design styles and furnishings. Project Genesis, leading the transformation of the digital twin and built world itself, is slated to enter its first beta with select customers later this year. To learn more about the new capabilities and features, explore the 2024 Winter Release and read our blog. About Matterport Matterport, Inc. (Nasdaq: MTTR) is the World's #1 Digital Twin Platform* leading the digital transformation of the built world. Our groundbreaking platform turns buildings into data to make every space more valuable and accessible. Millions of buildings in more than 177 countries have been transformed into immersive Matterport digital twins to improve every part of the building lifecycle from planning, construction, and operations to documentation, appraisal and marketing. Learn more at matterport.com and browse a gallery of digital twins.

Visual Tour Shop
The Visual Tour Shop has provided cost-saving virtual tours for the real estate industry since 2007 and has hundreds of satisfied clients. We utilize the "Keep it Simple" philosophy with a 'plasma-type' unbranded tour template. No matter where an agent is located, we can supply them with a great looking tour for as low as $25 with them supplying the photos. Upon request, we will also supply the necessary files for the agent to 'burn' their own CD's to market the property or hand out at open houses. There are no contracts or monthly charges. Your total satisfaction is guaranteed or there is no charge.

iGUIDE 3D Tours and Floor Plans
Precise floor plans & 3D virtual tours made easy Planitar Inc. is the maker of iGUIDE, a proprietary camera and software platform for capturing and delivering immersive 3D virtual tours, precise floor plans and extensive property data.

RICOH360 Tours
RICOH360 Tours is a game-changing all-in-one mobile app solution that works with any mobile phone and Ricoh Theta camera to create professional quality 360 ° virtual tours tours in just 15 minutes. RICOH360 Tours mobile first solution includes a bundle of Ricoh Theta camera, dedicated monopod, smartphone app, unlimited virtual tours, floor plan integration, MLS compatibility, tour analytics and much more.