Why Virtual Tours are Important in Real Estate Marketing
Most property listings are accompanied by a list of details and some photos. However, if you really want to succeed with your real estate marketing efforts, it’s time to step it up and start using virtual tours.
Virtual tours, as the term suggests, are usually videos that take the viewer on a walkthrough of a property, all from a first-person perspective. Sometimes, others may opt for more advanced versions that make use of 3D technology, where the viewer can click on his or her screen and move the mouse to look around, zoom in, zoom out, or “travel” from one part of the property to another, all at their own pace.
It’s not just some fancy form of advertising, however. Instead, it can be a powerful tool that can make the difference within a prospect’s decision process.
If you’re still on the fence about the need for virtual tours in your real estate business, here are a few of many good reasons on why you should start offering virtual tours as well.
A great way to grab attention
As many marketing studies and papers have already presented, these days, people tend to be highly visual. Their attention tends to latch on to images and graphics much more easily than chunks of text. This is why it’s important to make use of visually-engaging materials in your marketing efforts, and what can get more visual than a virtual tour?
Preferred by today’s home buyers
These days, everyone’s always busy and on the go, and not too many people have the time and resources to personally visit every property that they think they may be interested in. Instead, people now prefer to get as much information as they can online before committing precious time and effort to anything.
Along with the usual information sheets, photos, and descriptions that accompany a listing, virtual tours can provide a slew of information that a prospect may be looking for. From it, they can get a better feel on how rooms connect to each other, how big certain spaces are, and so on, all of which contribute towards their decision on whether to purchase a property or not.
Best of all, prospects can view these virtual tours at their convenience on their laptops or phones, and without the need for any special tools or programs!
Saves time and money for everyone
Though it may first seem like such an investment to have to produce and publish virtual tours, keep in mind that this ultimately saves on resources, both for you and your client.
Whenever a prospect wants to do a walkthrough of a property, you both usually need to schedule a meeting, and drive or commute all the way to the property. Sometimes, your prospects may even arrive late, and then end up only touring for about ten minutes or so after they decide on the spot that they’re no longer interested. This amounts to wasted time and money. Bummer, right?
With virtual tours, this risk is eliminated. Prospects can check the virtual tour first to see if all the parts of the property are really something they are interested in. By the time that they get in touch with you to schedule a face-to-face meeting, it’s usually when they’re already in a buying mood, and just want to confirm a few things.
Easy to share
When it comes to purchasing property of any kind, people tend to consult with others first before making a final decision. This could involve a spouse, family, friends, or colleagues. For these peers to give their opinion for the buyer to consider, however, they would of course need to see the property first. A virtual tour that one can be easily shared via email or social media is the perfect tool for this situation.
Providing your prospects with a convenient way to gather approval and encouragement among their peers may just be the factor needed to give them the confidence they need, and nudge them towards the direction of a purchase.
Creates a sense of transparency
By providing a virtual tour for your prospects and clients to peruse at their leisure, you can create a sense of transparency that helps build trust between you and them. As we all know, this trust is vital for any real estate transaction. By putting your prospects’ minds at ease, once again, they can become more confident with pursuing and closing a deal with you.
Drives traffic to your website and keeps visitors engaged for longer amounts of time
While the primary purpose of a virtual tour is to ultimately sell a property, it does also have its side-benefits and perks. This includes being able to draw people to visit your website in the first place, AND being able to keep them around longer. This second factor plays a role in SEO, and can help your search engine rankings.
When people view your website for at least a few minutes, it shows that they are actually READING and consuming your content instead of just absently scrolling and leaving after a few seconds. This gives you an opportunity to lead them to other parts of your website such as your blog, or your other listings. Keeping people engaged and browsing your site is also beneficial if you happen to have ads running on our site.
