Virtual Tours and Visual Tours (list creative uses)

If possible, be sure to post your virtual tour with your MLS listing and share a non-branded version for use on competitor websites.  Get as much mileage for your investment as possible.

Nice info, I am about to sign up with Visual tours. I use virtual tours in general but visual tours offer a better value for my clients and myself.

Thanks for this post! I love all these great comments that people gave you. it's making me thinking how I can apply this to my business. I am a stager and I have been thinking about adding visual tours to my service and portfolio, because sometimes the staged homes look great in person but somehow it doesn't translate onto the 2D photos.

Cheers,

Cindy 

Highlightning the neighborhoods and its most attractive features and benefits are the way to go. The buyers and sellers can't help but to feel that your marketing is superior to other brokers in the neighborhood.

http://www.realtytube.biz

 

Check it out!         

all excellent ideas and input. i see many of the real estate companies here in Tracy CA prominently feature the words => virtual tour in print advertising.

great post.  I have thought about using my VT for more than houses.  Now I am motivated to do so.

Hi Sam,

Excellent post. You’re so right…tours go so far beyond just showcasing a house. Agents using our virtual tour service have created them for…

•    Showcasing their local community for out of town buyers
•    Showcasing favorite restaurants and pubs in their area
•    Creating tours for rental properties and vacation properties
•    Creating tours of other agents listings to send to their own clients
•    Creating a tour of a clients’ vacation that their client can send to their friends -- which obviously has the agent’s branding on it
•    Taking pictures of a kids’ talent show (grammar school), and sending a photo tour to all the parents – again with their branding on it.

We recommend some other ideas on our website. But these area few that we have seen recently.

Also, people may or may not realize that when they post their tours to REALTOR.com, it in turn links back out to AOL, Compuserve, Netscape, MSN, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Sun Times, Daily Herald, Excite, United Online and a variety of other top sites. So, you’re getting a lot of extra exposure from REALTOR.com.

If this is too ‘promotional’ of our services, please delete it, as that wasn’t my intent. I just thought I’d throw out a few more ideas.

Thanks for letting me post to your blog.

 When choosing a virtual tour company, look for one that offers syndication or offers to help you with syndication. These helpful companies can save you an ENORMOUS amount of time getting the tour featured or ranked in your area and most of them don't cost any more than the others. 

It is great information, Does anyone know about theFlip?

Wow - great post and comments. I don't see how you can sell a home without using a good VT. I get really irritated with Realtors as a buyer or seller when they skimp - its so cheap and accomplishes so much to make the home more accessable, it simply a no-brainer.

Greetings!

I have used Visual Tours for many years for both listings and for Buyers.  I a Visual tour for our Community Service Day work at Habitat for Humanity which made it easy to share the pictures with our volunteers.  Visual Tours also exports to other sites like Yahoo and Realtor dot com ($20). I also create CD's for open houses and of course the Tours can be emailed and posted to our MLS in a non-branded form.

I love your idea of getting a screen shot of the eneighborhood data and adding that to the tour.  Can't wait to try that one.  I do wish their viewers had a more web 2.0 look.

Mnay great ideas for use of a virtual tour.  That's why I use Visula Tour.  I can make as many as I want with a small monthly fee.

Great ideas!!   I've used Distinctive Home Tours for  a couple of years and like their tours.  I've been thinking about doing virtual tours of the neighborhoods and areas where I work - but haven't taken the time yet to do it.  I'm motivated to do it now .  Thanks. 

Thanks EVERYONE for the great ideas and uses for the virtual tours.  ActiveRain is absolutely one of the best marketing resources for REALTORS that I know of!!!

I love using Visual Tour.  I have made tours for community fundraising events and an brief listing presentation.  I love the idea of doing one for your buyers and putting it on DVD.  I have also downloaded other agent's tours to a CD to show people at Open Houses in case they are looking for something in a different price range.   

Virtual tours are fine for some people and I'm sure there are many of you that have use them and will use them for you lisitngs but I think that Video tours are taking over. I did virtual tours for years but now I'm only using video. Arguably, video marketing is exploding and will soon be the most popular online marketing strategy.

http://www.viamediatours.com