Issue #12 March 6, 2001
 

Contents:
* VisualTour® of the Week
* Using Virtual Tours in your Listing Presentations - Part II
* Customer Success Story of the Week

VisualTour® OF THE WEEK

Click the link to view the tour: http://VisualTour.com/show.asp?t=2178

For golf fans (or if your clients are golfers!), see this great VisualTour® from Teri Isner in the Orlando, Florida area community of Windermere. The Bay Hill Invitational is one of the annual PGA events leading up to the Masters and it starts next week. Teri specializes in homes on or near the Bay Hill Country Club and uses this VisualTour® to promote much more than just a particular home. See it now!

USING VIRTUAL TOURS IN YOUR LISTING PRESENTATION - Part II

Last week's e-marketing tip started with how you can quickly establish your Web savvy advantages in a Seller's mind using your digital camera to create their virtual tour immediately. This week, we'll continue showing you how to use an "agent controlled" virtual tour as a listing advantage!

You used your digital camera to take photos of the inside and exterior of the Smith's home. Now you sit down with them at their kitchen table and open up your notebook PC. You don't carry a notebook PC with you? According to the National Association of REALTORs, nearly one in three agents uses a notebook PC. If you're not using a portable/notebook/laptop PC, what message does this send to your customers and prospects about your ability to work while mobile, having access to your important files and market information?

Anyway, you startup your notebook PC and download the photos you just took from your digital camera. You show the Smiths the photos when you're adding text and voice descriptions in your VisualTour.com software. What's happening? You're engaging the Smiths into your marketing strategy and presentation. You ask them, "Which photo of your living room do you think shows it better? This one is a little dark. Don't worry, we can brighten it easily. Now, we're going to make some panoramic images to show how spacious your master bedroom is. The panoramic images move on the Web. This feature really draws buyers' attention to your listing!"

You add, "Not only can I include views of every room in your home, I can also eliminate areas that you don't want shown on the Internet such as that lovely artwork or the expensive home theater equipment you have in the family room. And some of the top selling features of your home aren't in your home at all. I'm sure any qualified buyer would love to see the guarded security entrance and the community pool and park down the street. In fact, I already have a number of photos of these features taken on a beautiful sunny day last summer that I'll include with your home's virtual tour." Including these other neighborhood photos demonstrates your expertise in their community and provides their home tour with the best views possible while saving you time and effort!

"Now, as soon as you sign this listing contract, I can put my marketing plan in action. First, I'll add some finishing touches to your virtual tour back at my office (or your assistant will, if you prefer - especially if you don't have a notebook PC!). Then I'll put your virtual tour on some diskettes with pretty labels and drop them off with the yard sign and some custom flyers by Tuesday. And I'll email you a link to this virtual tour so you can forward it to all your friends, neighbors and co-workers. In fact, if you have a list of their email addresses, I'll be happy to send this to them myself! That reminds me, you said your best friend was thinking of selling their home as well. Would you like me to send your virtual tour to them to show them the kind of professional service I deliver?"

Now, how fast do you think Mr. and Mrs. Smith can sign your listing contract?

Tune in next week for Part III! In future e-marketing newsletters we'll cover other marketing and photographic tips. Stay tuned!

 
CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY OF THE WEEK - Take on the local bully in their backyard!
 

Carol Pease, ABR, e-PRO, RECS, Whitehead Realtors, Rockford, IL http://www.carolpease.com

"We were contacted by a seller who had another listing agent and their listing contract was about to expire. They were frustrated and asked me to come out and tell them why their house had not sold. I asked them if their current broker had used any high tech marketing strategy to promote their home, and they were completely unaware of these marketing methods or that Realtors like me even used them!

The husband had already moved to California, so I met with the wife. I took photos with my digital camera and uploaded a VisualTour® right then and there. We emailed the VisualTour® link to the husband so he could see his home tour just minutes later. When I explained how I could start showing their home like this to buyers all over the world from my website TODAY, they were floored!

The next day they withdrew their listing with the other agent and signed with us. I never deleted that tour so it's now linked to a valid listing for me! VisualTour.com is so easy to use I almost hate showing sellers just how easy it is because I want them to think a virtual tour is more difficult to create than it is! But it demonstrates how I use the Internet to gain an immediate advantage instead of delivering empty promises."

See Carol's dynamic inventory list of VisualTours® at http://www.VisualTour.com/inventory.asp?u=2221
 
 

Copyright 2001 by VisualTour.com®. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be used or reproduced without prior written permission.

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If you have comments, have suggestions for future articles, or would like to submit a tour for consideration to be the tour of the week, please contact us via email at newsletter@visualtour.com.