Jason LaVanture of BlueLaVaMedia recently posted a blog, Virtual Tour Follow-up is KEY to Success. In his blog he talks about the importance of (...you guessed it) following up with your clients and customers.

If your business services include the delivery of digital photos via Zip files from FTP (or if you are a real estate agent that sends zip files to homeowners), I would recommend that you add instructions on how to properly Unzip images. While many people are familiar with unzipping files, there are a few that are new to this process.

So, to avoid the question "Unzip my what?" I always found it helpful to include instructions on extracting images from a zip file on every virtual tour delivery to my clients.

The easiest way to ensure uniformity (if you use Microsoft Outlook) is to setup a template that is sent out to each client upon completion of their virtual tour. You can do this by writing an email as normal and then saving it by clicking on FILE>SAVE AS and then selecting OUTLOOK TEMPLATE from the drop down menu at the bottom. Remember to name your template something that you will remember before saving it. From them on it is as simple as selecting TOOLS>FORMS>USER TEMPLATES IN FILE SYSTEM> MYFILENAME.

I have included a sample of what I would send to my clients at the bottom of our delivery emails for your convenience. Feel free to copy and paste this into your email template.

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To download photos:

1. Click on the photo link above.

2. Click on open

3. When the folder opens, click on 'extract all'

4. Extract the photos to a folder on your computer.

Please note that if you save the zip file to your computer, the photos cannot be uploaded directly from the zip folder. The photos MUST be extracted from the zip file as instructed above, otherwise your MLS system will not recognize the images as valid and you will get an error.

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Adding these simple, yet straightforward instructions to your emails will assist those clients unfamiliar with Unzipping files and your clients that do understand will still have step-by-step instructions for reference.