Blog Tag: real estate photography

Virtual Tour Software Updates – July 2019 Update

July 20, 2019

Hello and good afternoon RTV fans! It looks like 2019 is shaping up to be one of the busiest years on record. I know that many of you are also saying the same thing out there with your photography and virtual tour businesses. That’s fantastic! Keep up the great work and we appreciate your support and dedication. BlueLaVaMedia is going to the moon and back on new business and we attribute much of that to our new BOOST Marketing office pitch that you might have heard about by now. In the days to come, I will be sending out a message to you all with a step by step guide that will help you stand out in your market and grow your business faster by harnessing WOM marketing. More on that later though. Stay tuned!

The programming team here has a lot of great things cooking for you, and we even have some great surprises that are yet to come this summer. Let’s take a look at the latest changes that you will find the next time you log into your RTV Virtual Tour Software system.

Those of you that would like to watch our latest technology update feel free to watch the video below.

Branded Tours on Portal Sites: There’s nothing more important than having your brand on your virtual tours. From your name in the URL to your logo on the end productions. It’s all a vital part of you spreading the word about your unique services and amazing photography business. That’s why we decided it was time that the national portal sites (Realtor.com, Homes.com, Movoto.com, Redfin, Zillow.com, and others) pulled up the branded virtual tours and not the non-branded. Even though the national real estate portals pull directly from the MLS, your branded virtual tours will appear on those sites. Be sure to let your customers know about this noteworthy change in virtual tour behavior. Branding is EVERYTHING!

AstroZoom Property Lines: So Property lines have been a HUGE seller over at BlueLaVaMedia. About a third of our aerial drone orders coming in are ordering Enhanced Property Lines. It might be our best add-on for 2019 next to our Exposure Engine. Because of the interest level, we decided to bring you the same type of service for your AstroZooms at RTV! You can now add property lines to your AstroZoom videos for only $5.00!

TinyTurls Now Secure: We have trained most of our customers to encourage the directing of traffic from print to digital so it was essential for us to secure the TinyTurl short printable link via HTTPS. If you notice that your customers are utilizing your photography for print marketing, you should take that opportunity and educate them on our TinyTurls link that is nice and short for print marketing and redirects to your online virtual tour. From print to digital is where it’s at!

Social Media Video Files: More local real estate professionals and business owners than ever are asking for short videos that they can use on Instagram and Facebook. The RTV Video Ripper is great for making videos out of your production but it’s not able to support short clips from your video files or custom transitions just yet. In light of this, we thought it would be a good idea to offer a new product to you in the form of a custom Social Media Video file. Our social media video file is 1 minute because that’s the limitation of Instagram and studies also show that 45% of people stop watching a video after the one minute point. Whether you want to use Fusion to make your short Social Media videos or have us do it, this is something that you need to start offering! The custom social media video files can now be ordered directly from RTV for $12 each from your video promotion section. See how we make your social media video file here – https://youtu.be/2LAt24sQ_0k

Ask Alex Webinar: We have launched a new weekly training show called “Ask Alex”. This is a show for anyone and everyone that would like to learn a little more about our Fusion virtual tour hosting platform. If you would like to register for this webinar-based show, log into your virtual tour manager and click on the little blue ? (question mark) in the lower right corner. From there you can register. The show runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings at 11:00 AM Eastern. We hope to see you there so you can ask Alex!

Keep your eyes peeled for many more system updates to come team. We’re currently in the middle of a full re-write to our system. After we finish, we’ll be announcing a brand new Single Property Website Layout as well as a new RTV Client Center 2.0.

The upgraded Client Center will take our existing private-labeled login and kick it to the next level. For starters, you will enjoy full integration with Stripe. This means you’ll be able to have your customers pay before they download your photos. The Client Center will also support a much-needed photographer scheduling system which will allow your customers to book online without having to speak with you. We’ll take mileage fees and travel time into consideration as well. We will even allow for photo only scheduling since so many of you do hundreds of photo only jobs each month.

In addition to these two bigger ticket items above, please note that we will continue to make the overall virtual tour building process much more streamlined for you by implementing smart settings and system-wide/profile defaults which equates to fewer clicks for you and faster tour creation time. Thanks for checking in for our technology update and get ready for more coming soon!

Check out these updates now in your RTV Virtual Tour Software Manager – https://manage.RealTourVision.com

Thanks for your support!

Team RTV

Virtual Tour Software & National Photography Services

Order a Virtual Tour – 866-947-8687

www.RealTourVision.com

 

 

Real Estate Photography Marketing – New From RPM

May 30, 2019

As we go into this summer its all about getting the local realtors talking about you and your unique offerings and services. What do you do in your market to stand out from the other real estate photographers and virtual tour providers? What additional services are you offering that come standard with your photography packages? Are you standing out or blending in? Getting the local real estate professionals to work you into their listing presentations and recognize you as a source for unique marketing services not offered by anyone else is what you should be focused on.

When you’re on their mind and you can get them pitching your unique services to their prospects you’re likely going to be photographing every home they list. Below are a list of real estate photography and virtual tour provider marketing pieces that will get them talking about you, help you “Stand Out” in your market, and will separate you from everyone else that’s out there trying to take a piece of your business.

BOOST Marketing Services Office PowerPoint & Signature Pack – That’s right, we have finally updated our office power point and have retired the original RTV virtual tour photographer office pitch. This office presentation is centered around professional real estate photography first and foremost then goes into the BOOST Marketing Services that set you apart from every other real estate photographer out there. If you’ve been looking for a ten-minute hard-hitting pitch this is it!

Download, customize, and deliver. Each time we have delivered this pitch up here in the Traverse City market we have picked up between two and four new customers. It works!

Also included with our BOOST Marketing PowerPoint is a signature for you to use with your Fusion virtual tour and photography deliveries. The signature shows new and existing customers what they need to do with the virtual tour links and helps them get the MOST out of your unique services, virtual tours, and professional photos. Enjoy!

 

Professional Photos+ Flyer – BlueLaVaMedia decided to Stand Out this year by offering full green grass and sky replacements with every photo shoot. A bold move but it’s got all the local realtors in town talking about them and nearly a dozen new agents have come through the doors already this year as a result. Use this marketing piece at your next luncheon, office pitch or presentation to let them know that your images are the BEST in town. – Login to RPM today https://www.RockPointeMarketing.com to download.

profession photos flyer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Home Preparation Flyer – Hand off a stack of these double-sided flyers to your best customers this year and encourage them to work your professional photography into their listing presentation. This home preparation flyer ensures that when you get there the home will be photo ready! Also use this nice flyer to let prospects and current customers know that you’re not there to clean, tidy up or stage the homes. This is a must-have in your marketing arsenal!

Real Estate Photography Preparation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2019 Drone Marketing Flyer – We have updated our drone flyer to include the 107 certifications VS the 333 waiver that was indicated on the previous version. If you purchased this you can log in and download the updated version free of charge. This aerial drone flyer also mentions additional services that are available for purchase. If you’re shooting drone make sure you get the word out with this slick double-sided flyer.

2019 Google Street View Business Tour Flyer – Here’s a nice double-sided leave behind for those of you doing Google Business Tours. This marketing piece gives you a great starting point for creating your own Google Street View packages and pricing.

 

Enjoy the new pieces and feel free to contact us with any questions that you may have!

Login to RPM today https://www.RockPointeMarketing.com to download.

Sincerely,

Team RTV

Virtual Tour Software & National Photography Services

866-947-8687

Always Hire a Professional Real Estate Photographer!

March 13, 2018

professional-real-estate-photographyAll too often I see properties listed with pictures that were either taken from a cheap camera or, heaven forbid, a cell phone. I can not stress how incredibly important it is when selling your home to have professional photography. Whether you are listing it For Sale By Owner or with an agent make sure you get professional real estate photography. If you choose to list your house with a real estate agent you should require them to hire a professional photographer that specializes in real estate photography. I would even go as for to say that if your agent is not willing to take on that marketing cost for you it’s time for you to interview a different agent to assist you in selling your home. It’s not 1999 anymore and over the last dozen or so years it has been statistically proven without a doubt that professional real estate photos not only make homes sell faster, but for more money too. Try googling it for yourself and do three minutes of homework here. Try searching for “Professional Real Estate Photography Statistics” It is such a popular search phrase that Google will likely finish it off for you. After only three to five minutes of reading you will see some hard-hitting statistics that have been put out by companies like Redfin, Zillow, Realtor.com and more. The facts are the facts here.

The two key components to successfully selling a home is Pricing and Marketing. Pricing is first for a reason, no matter how good the pictures are if it is overpriced you WILL sit on it and end up taking less for the property than if you had priced it right. Moreover, when marketing your home, you have to have top-notch real estate photography as this will be every potential buyer’s first impression of the house and quite often be the deciding factor on whether they will set up a showing.

Now with all that being said I always hire a professional Traverse City real estate photography team for all my listings. The team over at BlueLaVaMedia does a superb job for not only myself but just about every agent in our office. Just for clarification, I pay for all of my listings photography, drone shoots, virtual tours and interactive media out of my pocket, and this is a cost I absorb even if for some reason your home does not sell.

To wrap things up if you are in the market for a new home or need to sell yours, please feel free to reach out to me. All of my contact information can be found on my Traverse City Real Estate Website. If you liked my article and found my real estate photography statistics useful please be sure to come on over and sign up for more of my articles in my Traverse City Realtor Blog.

Thanks!

Dereck Dykes
Century 21 Northland
Traverse City Real Estate Agent
231-714-0627

The Formula 81 – Business Plans for Real Estate & Virtual Tour Photographers

August 23, 2017

Photography Business Building Plan

Building a photography and virtual tour business starts with a business plan. It might help to think of the structure of this plan the same way you would the building of a house. You work in stages, and that’s because there are some things you cannot do until you’ve done the other things first. For example; you start by building a foundation and these are the basics that you must have in place before you can move on. In this webinar, we’ll call Stage 1 in our plan The Foundation, since we need to have a strong platform upon which to build the rest the photography and virtual tour business. If we miss any of this, or if we don’t build our foundation well enough, then the rest of what we do on top of that will be much weaker.

Stage 2 in the building plan for a business is where we add a little more structure to the business, and we’ll call this stage The Frame. The things we do during this stage will help us get more clients and increase our revenue, building further upon The Foundation.

Once again we need to complete Stage 2 before we can move on to Stage 3, which we’ll call The Fitout, and that’s where we add the bricks, the doors, the windows and the furniture.  Stage 3 is where we are fitting it out with the luxury features such as RTV’s robust virtual tour software  or aerial drone services that help take us up a level in terms of quality and service offerings. After all, every home has a foundation and a frame, but it’s in the fitout where we separate the good home from the amazing home, and it’s the same with your business. 

What’s important here is to understand the need to do some things first, and not to start trying to add a beautiful staircase and huge windows before we’ve got our foundation built. If that foundation or that frame is incomplete then these Stage 2 and 3 activities won’t be as effective as they would otherwise be, and you could seriously harm your reputation.

During this webinar we will be going through the various steps and activities that a photographer needs to accomplish at each stage of this plan, covering The Foundation, The Frame, and The Fitout. You’ll have a much better idea of what you need to do with your own business and when you need to do it, with helpful hints on:

  • What you must have on your website and why
  • Tips for how to get the most from your Facebook Page and Facebook ads
  • What you can learn from the way McDonald’s makes their burgers
  • How to keep clients coming back to you
  • What not to say in a marketing email
  • How to be a leader in your market
  • … and much more!

Real Estate Photography CoachOur presenter for this webinar is Darryl Stringer, creator and founder of The Real Estate Photography System. Darryl started in real estate photography in 1998 and built a successful business in Brisbane, Australia, photographing billions of dollars worth of commercial and residential buildings. Today he helps photographers and virtual tour providers across the USA, Australia, Canada and Europe get more clients and build more profitable businesses. We hope you can join us on Tuesday, Sept 12th at 7:00 pm EST. You will be glad you did.

Please visit our webinar information page to register.

See you there!

Sincerely,

Team RTV
RTV, Inc – Virtual Tour Software & National Photography Services
Order a virtual tour – 866-947-8687

The Value of a Pre-shoot Checklist

May 10, 2017

Hello RTV virtual tour providers! A Pre-shoot checklist holds immense value for the virtual tour photographer. It’s always a great feeling to walk onto a location for a real estate photography shoot and see that every detail your Pre-shoot Checklist has been covered.  It makes the whole process go much smoother and leaves the brain free for creative thinking, and to pay attention to the technical details of the photo shoot.

For any given image, the photographer has a myriad of tasks and details to be concerned with. Camera angle, diverging lines, composition, white balance, shutter speed, ISO, aperture, lighting, and the list goes on.  With so many critical details to attend, it is easy to miss little things, like a wrinkle on a bed spread, the distracting floral arrangement that obscures a key element, or a bulb out in a hallway.

A well laid out Pre-shoot Checklist is valuable because it will work to cure many of the repeat issues we see when shooting a property. I like to follow through with my agent to ensure that the home owner has in fact received a copy of the checklist.  I encourage my agents to hold off on the shoot until all items on the list can be completed.  The most frustrating thing for me for real estate photography, is showing up and neither the agent or home owner has ensured all bulbs are working prior to shoot time.  

Another value of the Pre-shoot Checklist is marketing.  Make your checklist attractive and include your branding.  An attractive and informative checklist will be retained by agents. Brand your checklist with web and phone numbers. Include a call to action.  Keep your name in front of the customer.  On my website, www.360-Media.us, I provide all visitors a free download of our checklist. The customer is required to enter their email prior to download.  We use the emails in further marketing for our Tyler, Texas Virtual Tour Company

Final thought on the value of a Pre-shoot Checklist.  A good checklist, is another way to serve the client.  It’s the first step in making sure the final product meets the expectations they have of you.  The checklist is also another key part of relationship building with your client.  So, in closing, I encourage my fellow RTV virtual tour software customers to dust off your checklist and see how you can use it to better serve your client and smooth out your shoots at the same time.

FL virtual tour provider

 

 

Dave Hall
Owner-Photographer
Office: 903.502.0360
iPhone: 903.253.3979 (Primary)
Order Professional Real Estate Photography  – www.360-Media.us
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