If your leasing team is in the world of do-it-yourself videos, you know there are plenty of ways to store and manage that content. There is DropBox, Google Drive, YouTube, saving to your desktop and, of course, using real estate virtual tour software.
Many are user-friendly and simple to navigate. However, they aren’t all the same and definitely don’t offer the same benefits. Say your leasing agents have mastered recording virtual tours for real estate on their mobile devices. Then, they simply save them there. Easy to do, true. But what happens when they leave the property for a new opportunity? You hope it’s on good enough terms, and they’d give the content to you. But what if they don’t? Is it worth the risk?
Or say you’re using one of the other cloud-based hosting platforms. That’s great from an access standpoint, but consider these questions.
- Will those integrate with your leasing platform?
- Your customer relationship management software?
- Will it allow your management team to ensure brand standards across properties?
Considering all of those options. Real estate virtual software is still the best choice for leasing teams to manage their marketing videos and assets. Here’s why.
Data is Key
At the end of the day, you need a virtual tour creator and hosting service that will give you the data and insights to be the most successful. That isn’t YouTube, Dropbox or Google Drive.
Hosting videos on those services do offer some benefits. They are cloud-based and easy to navigate and searchable, if you allow it on YouTube. These are, of course, important aspects. However, they don’t allow you to track or provide any data outside of macro view counts. There is no active lead generation involved. You’ve spent all this money on virtual tour equipment and software but because of the way you manage it, there’s no data to act on. For those videos to be actionable, you need real estate virtual tour software.
Having the data readily available, may help drive a lead to a signed lease. Virtual tour videos need to be on a website with a call-to-action. These videos could be gated (put behind a form so you can capture the prospects information), or sent to a prospect via email. They can’t just be posted on YouTube for a prospect to search. You’ll have no idea what they looked at or how they engaged. The general rule is that it takes at least seven touches with a cold prospect before they engage and respond. You won’t know where they are on the funnel, how many times they watched your 3D virtual tours for real estate or which of your unit specific floor plan videos. It’s critical to the lead-to-lease process to know how people are and are not engaging with your content. You’ll then be able to engage with each individual prospect based on that information.
Managing videos through real estate virtual tour software will enable deep data tracking and analytics. Depending on how the prospect has engaged or didn’t engage, you can then set up automated or personalized follow-ups. The best virtual tour software will allow you to have the customer engagement insights you need for success.
Learn more about how to make a virtual tour video to engage with residents
Corporate Visibility
When a parent company owns several properties, it can be extremely challenging to balance what needs to be done for each property and its unique resident base. One way to make that easier is through real estate virtual tour software.
No matter what real estate virtual tour services you use, it’s important for the corporate team to have visibility, tracking and some controls on marketing videos. They can then easily work hand-in-hand with the onsite teams. That can be instructions on new CTAs, providing necessary assets, or just having some insight into the campaign. There is a level of corporate branding and uniformity a property group may desire. Having access to view onsite teams marketing efforts can help make maintaining uniformity more easier.
The all-too-necessary tracking and data insights allow corporate teams to see what’s working, and not working, across multiple properties. Real estate virtual tour software vastly out performs other ways of marketing video management. YouTube and the other platforms are great resources but for this? You’ll need the expertise of a virtual touring platform designed for multifamily real estate needs.
Get In Touch!
Close more leases, market more effectively, engage with residents and, as always, keep it real. Do you have a question or suggestion? Or want to learn more about what you read? Email us at contact@realync.com. We’d love to hear from you!
