The OFFICIAL Virtual Tour Blog is Released by RTV

The new OFFICIAL virtual tour company blog is now available at www.virtual-tour-blog.com!!

As you already know, the first RTV virtual tour company blog was established in February 2007 as way for our dealers to communicate with their local markets. Since then, our virtual tour company website and blog have grown to attract over 30,000 visitors every month.

Now just a year and a half later we are excited to be releasing the OFFICIAL virtual tour blog located at www.virtual-tour-blog.com. The original blog will remain at its current location and will be converted to a virtual tour blog archive.

Full instructions for how to submit a blog are available from the dealer menu after you log in to the new blog!

What does this mean to our dealers?

Dealers can now create their own account and submit blogs right through the blog interface! Dealers can go there now and setup their account!

Dealer blogs will be even MORE search engine friendly than ever before and will help dealer websites get visited more often by potential customers that are already looking for their services!

If you want to be one of the first dealers to reap the benefits of our NEW SEO optimized blog, then visit the OFFICIAL virtual tour blog, log in now and get your blog submitted through the NEW blog interface!

-Team RTV
Real Tour Vision
Virtual Tour Software Company

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Marketing your virtual tours to sellers

Some of the older generation of real estate sales associates might recall a simpler, gentler time when the selling of a house required only a for sale sign outside and a quick hand when answering the phone. Those days are now long gone. Keeping up with modern day competition keeps every real estate associate in a never ending race to stay ahead of the competition. The new name of the game is offering a new and cutting edge technology to the customers of today in order win their business and stay a step ahead of the competition.

The combined use of traditional marketing and virtual tours has now become the ‘norm’. Many real estate sales associates market the virtual tour to the buyer by posting a local ad in the newspaper and including the URL of the virtual tour in the ad. When users visit the virtual tour web site, they can take their time examining all the available tours on the realtor's web site. This cross promotion of local real estate is a simple and easy way to draw attention to the real estate agent or broker's web based virtual tour from the buyer.

BUT, what about the marketing of the virtual tour to the home seller?

With home sellers, many simply are unaware of the existence of virtual tours, or are sometimes not aware of the effectiveness of them. Presenting the virtual tour to the home seller is a completely different process, as it is sometimes difficult to convince some seller to allow a virtual tour of the property. The reasons for the seller's reluctance are varied and range from reluctance to present photos of the interior of their home to strangers, to not wanting to deal with the hassle of filming the virtual tour. It is essential for the real estate sales associate to convey the importance of the virtual tour to the seller and the similarities between preparing for a traditional ‘open house’ and an online ‘open house’. It is also important to stress the overall advantages of the online ‘open house’ via a virtual tour.

When the virtual tour is added to the traditional media advertising and marketing effort, the results improve dramatically, as buyers appreciate having the ability to remotely view potential homes before buying them; identifying worldwide interested buyers who actually intend visit the physical property. This is of course, the entire purpose of the virtual tour, to encourage visitors to travel to the physical property in hopes of selling the home and land or other real property to the interested party. Relating the importance of the virtual tour to the prospective sellers is a vital part of the real estate sales associate's overall effort to sell homes and real estate.

Selecting some of the best virtual tours you can find and presenting it to the seller to view an online virtual tour gallery or via some other format, such as a CD, can help to quell the home seller's objectives in using a virtual tour in the selling process. A professionally produced virtual tour increases the perceived quality of the home. Virtual tours do an outstanding job of conveying the general ambiance of the home or real estate in general. This method of presenting a well produced and easy to understand virtual tour for the prospective buyer to peruse is a powerful marketing tool.

Marketing the virtual tour to home sellers may be somewhat more difficult than dealing with buyers nevertheless; it is a vital marketing tool and should be routinely implemented in the seller's overall strategy.

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Professional Photography Service from RTV

RTV is excited to announce that it now offers Nationwide Professional Photography Services! With this new service, companies that need high quality high resolution still photography can contract with us to handle all their photography needs for them.

It will allow them to streamline their photography, minimize their administrative duties and give them a consistency they wouldn't have if they used multiple vendors at multiple sites.

With our vast network of Professional Photographers we can guarantee national photography service coverage, even in the smallest of towns.

Working with our network of photographers across the nation, I've come to see how wonderfully talented they are. I've sent a photographer out to shoot a virtual tour of a ranch and received not only the virtual tour, but also a whole host of stills shot from expert angles and expansive shots taken from the roof. These photographs are not "snap shots", they were high resolution, high quality well shot photographs worthy of magazine covers.

So when I had an inquiry from a national company looking for high quality still photography only, I didn't hesitate to say we could do it. Seeing the amazing shots I get every day I had no qualms telling them that we certainly were able to provide them what they needed. My work with this client opened my eyes to the lack of National Professional Photography Services available today.

With that in mind, RTV decided to step forward and take the initiative in establishing a high quality, reliable national virtual tour network that will provide consumers with a single point for ordering commercial photography for sites located across the nation.

To showcase the wonderful work our photographers do for us we created a gallery of some of their work. Below is a slideshow that is just a sampling of the excellent photos I get in every day.

Jacque Burke
Team RTV
National Virtual Tour Photographer Network
Order a virtual tour - 866-947-8687

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Virtual Tours are Safer than Open Houses

Most all of us have heard of, if not felt outright, about the tightening of the economy. In fact, unless you have been on the top of Mt McKinley for the last six months without a cell phone it would have been impossible to miss it.

As a Realtor just breaking into the virtual tour market I understand probably better than most the fears and the opportunities in our market. Brokers are sitting on houses for longer that they have for a very long time. Many are scared to death about what the future holds. All of us try to focus on the good news and not the bad, but there are times that the bad speaks so loudly that it is difficult to ignore.

That being said, the active Realtor out there needs as many tools at his or her disposal as possible. Hence the virtual tour, front and center. It is something that can be offered to Sellers as an added bonus to the services already being provided and can also be used to decrease the risks that accompany selling a house.

Seller’s often want their agents to hold open houses. Open Houses can be a dangerous activity. Realtors can find themselves in compromising positions because the guests of the Open House cannot be controlled. When the traffic is slow an agent's safety could be compromised and there is no record of the visitors.

There are also liabilities to the Seller. An open house could be seen as a personal invite to thieves. Medicine cabinets are often ruffled through during the open house along with dresser drawers, jewelry boxes, etc. because the agent can’t watch every one in every room.

The virtual tour can end the Seller’s desire for an Open House while providing potential Buyers with their own walk through in the privacy of their own home. While virtual tours show a lot of detail, it isn't as specific as an in person visit. The public gets to see only what the photographer and Realtor choose to show.

Next time an agent or a Seller says no remind them of the value of the virtual tour.

Randy G Morley
Colorado Springs Real Estate Agent
www.springsnet.net
Give me a call today - 719-599-3888

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The Power of Personal Contact

In this day and age we all get accustomed to sending e-mails and playing phone tag with a myriad of people. We no longer feel the need to see the client in person. After all, I can receive my clients’ question and answer it in less time than it once took to establish a place to meet and talk it over. But at what cost? Is speed of communication better than a concise message with a direct focus on your customers needs?

E-mails are one dimensional; all you receive are the words. Phone calls are two dimensional; now you have the words and maybe a little emotion. Meeting your client in person provides you with a three dimensional communication. You receive the words, you can hear the emotion and most importantly, you can see your clients’ body language.

Body language and facial expressions are key to understanding your clients. Many shoppers, your potential clients, would choose to reject your proposal over offering you any objections or explaining and justifying their decision. They just want to move on to someone who meets their needs. But, if you are aware of your customers' body language, you will receive cues to the areas of your service that are of interest and the areas that provide an air of trouble.

I feel this level of communication is vital to the success of any business. In fact, vital to every aspect of our human interaction. Just imagine trying to sustain a relationship with your family members with only e-mails. Our business clients are truly an extension of our friends and family. Without either of their support our virtual tour company would not be possible.

So the next time you need to contact a client, consider visiting them in person. I’m sure the long term benefits will greatly outweigh the time spent.


Jim Kopcho
Full View Marketing
Ohio Virtual Tour Provider
www.fullviewmark.com
Order a virtual tour - 740-624-3368

Visit our Virtual Tour Blog

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Traverse City Insurance Documentation Service

BlueLaVaMedia proudly announces the Insurance Documentation Virtual Tour Service! Did you know that when making an insurance claim a photo is worth as much as an actual receipt to your insurance company? Over the last ten years at RTV I have been hearing our virtual tour providers around the world show growing interest with the concept of the “home inventory tour”. To date only a select few RTV dealers have actually put a program like this together. Now we are very pleased to announce that after many meetings with Traverse City insurance companies BlueLaVaMedia has officially launched our Insurance Virtual Tours. You can read more about this exciting new addition to our tour offering by visiting our home inventory virtual tour page found here:

Insurance Virtual Tours

“As we get closer and closer to the winter here in Northern Michigan it will be more important than ever to diversify as much as possible. Summer was great and filled with a good amount of real estate tours and commercial / business virtual tours. With this new addition to our product offering I plan on staying busy all Winter long especially with the incredible feedback that I have been getting from the insurance companies and adjusters. Basically as long as Jason keep coming up with these new income streams for our product I don’t see things slowing down that much!” said Jim Blue, manager and virtual tour coordinator of BlueLaVaMedia.

Each Home Inventory Tours Includes:

Up to 30 Rooms featured of your choice
Both 360 panoramic and still images
One full year of secure tour hosting
2 Virtual tour CD's for off site storage
Insurance company contact information

BlueLaVaMedia is nearing our 200th virtual tour produced since our launch in May of 2008 and it is our goal to hit just over 300 before our one year anniversary. We plan on launching one more virtual tour type here in the near future so be sure to check back with us often!

PS. Did you happen to check out our virtual tour testimonials?
PSS. Are you using virtual tour stickers?

BlueLaVaMedia
Traverse City Insurance Documentation Service
www.BlueLaVaMedia.com
Order a Home or Business Inventory Tour Today!

Special Thanks to Rob Lenthe from Robo Tours for keeping this concept alive over the years

Visit our Virtual Tour Blog

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Building a Virtual Tour Business

I was reading some of the last newsletters and noticed that there was a photo submitted where some comments were made about how good of a photo it was. I realized that I have not been participating enough in the RTV networks or blogs.

I wanted to take a moment to write RTV and thank them for everything that they have done for me. Both Ben Knorr and Morgan Makowski have been a huge help to me and Jason has had his times of listening and educating me. I first began working with Real Tour Vision in April 08. I do not consider this a part time hobby. Since then I have concentrated all my time and energy into it. It is my full time job. I first started out just by myself, working for one realtor; however he just happened to be the TOP producing Realtor of 07 in my city. Before venturing out and taking on more Realtors I focused all my energy on perfecting my Tours and pictures.

Now a short 6 months later, I, and this Realtor put on a conference for all the Top Producing Realtors of the city. Here in Lethbridge there is the 90/10 rule. That is, 10% of the Realtors produce 90% of the market. At this conference we had in attendance those 10%. I shared with them my Vision and Dream to have a Virtual Tour for every single property in the city. I told them that I wasn't here to just make a profit but to revolutionize real estate as they knew it. This meeting was one week ago. Within the period of ONE day I received 10 New Clients each already possessing more than 30 properties and in some cases 45-60. Every day I receive calls from Realtors wanting to sign up. I am no longer self employed, I now run a successful business. With my clientele improving by the day.

Since April 08 I have 3 photographers a secretary and developing several websites were Realtors will simply log on to set up a Virtual tour, which we then will see on our side, and servers that host all photos and anything regarding Tours for their houses that they can have access to 24/7. I believe that the secret to this success was 1: Real Tour Vision and 2: Taking the time to perfect all the skills required to produce High quality Tours and Pictures (baby steps). Creating systems was a key as well.

When I first started off and even now I have had my wife come along and write down in detail everything I do to shoot and create the tour. I then took that and created a manual, so when some is hired to shoot they don't need any expertise, all they need to do is read and follow the SYSTEM that has been put in place. Having all this in my back pocket has HUGE when I met with the Realtors, it allowed them to see quality, experience, and professionalism; giving them the confidence in the product that was being presented. I am now looking to hire more staff.

Here at Elements Digital Design we have a team of 10 staff, varying from photographers, editors, secretary, Account, Lawyer ext.. Thank you Real Tour Vision.

Here is the link to one of our latest tours, which was presented in our conference (it was a for sale by owner). Please view the tour and Slide show.


http://www.10087thaves.com


Sincerely,


Daniel Lee
President/CEO
Elements Digital Design
Lethbridge, Alberta
(403) 393 5350
Alberta Virtual Tours

Visit our Virtual Tour Blog

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Houston Virtual Tour Company is Making Changes

Digital Tours and More has gotten a face lift and name change. Now Leneé Photography (formally known as Digital Tours and More) offers 360 Virtual Tours in Houston and much more!

The reason for the face lift and name change is simple. Just take a look at our name. The change brings in a new area that we thought we were missing. Now we can accommodate REALTORS®, Business owners, events facilities, families, Weddings and more. Our focus is on professional photography as a whole, and not just the virtual tour market.

So far it has been a big hit with Realtors® knowing that we can now handle all kinds of professional photography service for them and for their clients. NOTHING HAS CHANGED IN SERVICE but we just added some more for your clients. Visit us online at www.leneephotography.com to view our new look.

Mike Stolte
Leneé Photography
Houston Virtual Tours
www.leneephotography.com
Call me about photography for virtual tours and more! (832) 247-0634

Visit our Virtual Tour Blog

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Virtual Tours and Free Golf - The Best of Both Worlds

Recently while speaking with another RTV dealer about branching off into various other markets for virtual tours, the subject of golf courses came up. Being that I have done more than a few already in different states, we continued to talk about how to get in with courses to produce tours.

It may be intimidating for some to walk into a high-priced golf course and speak to the management, but it isn't as difficult as one may think. They are humans just like the rest of us and they don't own the place so just go with that in mind. Once you explain your objective and show them an example of a golf course virtual tour it's really an easy sell. Sometimes it's not an immediate decision but they will steer you to the right person to speak to if they are not the decision maker. In that case it's probably someone from corporate management and that's even better! Why? Because then you have the right person to speak to for multiple courses they handle. (I offered to create a quick mini-tour at one course to give them a better insight. It worked and I still use that example for other courses.)

I have not paid for a round of golf in Las Vegas for over 2 years since I barter part of the invoice for free golf. In fact, I've even taken a pitching wedge, putter and a couple balls to play the short game since I'm the only one out on the course while shooting! It's looking like there may be other courses lined up for next Spring that are from referrals. I've even picked up more business by getting paired with other golfers at the course that become interested after conversation. Nothing better than playing free golf at premier courses while still making some money as well. Even though my game is not up to par, I'll gladly spend a day on the course rather than out working...especially when it's free!

So if you have a passion for golf and want to reduce the costs of the game, you may want to consider talking to the course managers in your local area. The worst that can happen is they will say no. And since you're already at the course you might as well play a round!

Robo-Tours.com
Remote Global Viewing
www.robo-tours.com
S. Nevada/Utah Virtual Tour Creator
Order a virtual tour - 702.449.2850

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Listing Exposure is Key to Selling Homes

Three Key Factors in Selling Real Estate

1. Fair Price
2. Location
3. EXPOSURE

Listing Solutions can help you with exposure! We are a locally owned and operated virtual tour provider in St. Augustine, Florida. We are a Full Service dealer with RTV, the world’s largest network of virtual tour providers, and an approved vendor with Realtor.com.

This means that our distribution list is far superior to our competition. According to recent statistics from the National Association of Realtors, 86% of current home buyers utilize the internet when searching for a home. 67% of current home buyers in Florida come from outside the state. This is an impossible market to penetrate using just a yard sign and local advertising. That is why exposure is so critical in today’s market.

Listing Solutions will brand your virtual tours with your information, ensuring you the online exposure needed to compete in today’s challenging market. We utilize links to your personal web site, your company’s web site, business partners and your email address to guarantee that the potential home buyer has all of the necessary information needed to contact you.

We offer state of the art additions to our virtual tours like:

Videos Maps Area Information Professional Narration
Slideshows Audio Biographies Custom Pintable Flyers Interactive Floor Plans

We understand that our value is created by the level of service and support that we provide to you and your company. Complete customer satisfaction is our goal and your continued success is our main priority. Allow us the opportunity to serve you on your next virtual tour and show you a difference. Our virtual tours and single property web sites are the difference between For Sale and Sold.

Dave Hall, Marketing Director
Listing Solutions, Inc.
St. Augustine Virtual Tour Company
Order a Virtual Tour - (904) 540-9962

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Florida Virtual Tour Company Hits the Road and Blows a Tire

Impressive Virtual Tours, Inc. had a 360 virtual tour to shoot that was a 50-minute trek to the location. The trip went pretty well, besides the fact that there were tolls that I had to pay to get to the job.

The virtual tour shoot took two hours longer than it should have because of high resolution image processing and the fact that the staff really didn't know what I should shoot or really why I was even there when they were going to be remodeling in a month (time spent on location: 4 hours). It was a Tour Track order and was ordered by corporate, so the the staff on site didn't know why I was shooting now instead of waiting for the remodel.

On the journey home, traveling at speeds in excess of 70 miles an hour and during, of course, the depths of rush hour traffic . . . all of a sudden I heard a very loud banging noise in the right rear part of my truck. There were four lanes of traffic, me in one of the middle lanes, and vehicles on all sides. I had no idea what I should do. So I slowed a little and edged myself over to the right lane to exit at the first exit.

When I find a place to safely stop to investigate, I find that my tire has pretty much exploded and I'm lucky, quite honestly, to be alive!! Had I lost control of my truck in that amount of traffic, it could have been tragic.

I called AAA to have them come change my tire. However, upon closer inspection after waiting an hour for help to arrive, the spare is dry rotted and we now need to wait for a tow truck (another 45 minutes). Unfortunately, I've had so many truck issues this year that I’ve used all my allotments and now they have to start charging me for service. Anyway, I finally arrive home after eight long hours for one virtual tour.


Finding humor in a day like this: PRICELESS!!!

Beth Pauvlinch
Impressive Virtual Tours, Inc.
Clearwater Florida Virtual Tours
www.ImpressiveVirtualTours.com
Order a virtual tour - 727-343-2658

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Digital Insurance Documentation Services

Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Ike hit Houston, TX, people are still without power. The security of your home and business is challenged without question. Looters are a daily conversation on the Local channels. Ice is drying up and stores are restocking their supplies as fast as they can. People with power have started the clean up process.

Once people start cleaning up the debris, and remove the fallen trees and make everything safe they still have to make their insurance claim. This is a daunting task to do during a chaotic time in your life. Wouldn’t be easier if all you had to do is find a CD that had high resolution digital photos of your home and personal belongings? I’d say it would be.

Digital Tours and More can provide Digital Insurance Documentation service for you. Using the latest technology from RTV, Digital Tours and More can digitally capture your personal belongings and put them on a CD-ROM for you and your insurance agent. We also include a detailed list of serial numbers and other personal information that is also stored on CD. Please call Digital Tours and More for a free no obligation quote today on this service. Check out our website for info on our other services such as real estate photography and virtual tours.

Mike Stolte
Digital Tours and More
Houston Virtual Tour Provider
www.digitaltoursandmore.net
Order a virtual tour - (832) 247-0634

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Traverse City Real Estate Team Fall News

For many, fall in Northern Michigan is the ideal season. Days are still warm, but evening temperatures have cooled making for a good night's rest, leaves are changing to the most spectacular shades of red and yellow, and crisp apples, pumpkin donuts and cider have returned to the road side stands and supermarkets, and soon to the waistlines!

For sports fans everywhere, it is a smorgasbord! College and Pro football, Major League Baseball playoffs and hockey have made their way into households everywhere; while hunting and fishing enthusiasts are taking it to the woods and water.

The National Association of REALTORS reported in late September that recent sales for existing homes declined slightly, to an estimated annual volume of 4.91 million units for 2008. Recent tightening in mortgage lending has created challenges for some of today's home buyers. According to Freddie Mac, the thirty year fixed rate mortgage hovered around 6.5 percent during the month of August, up slightly from the month before.

Officials are hoping that recent actions taken by the Federal government will create stability in the housing market. Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of REALTORS, says, "With higher loan limits and a beefing up of the FHA program, all the mechanisms have been falling into place to increase mortgage availability."

Many experts are predicting an upturn in market confidence once congress agrees on a plan to deal recent challenges in the financial markets.

Good News for Veterans

On September 11, the House of Representatives passed the Veterans Construction and Extension Act of 2008, which helps Veterans achieve their dreams of home ownership. The legislation provides assistance for veterans who need to refinance their Sub prime or adjustable rate loans into a safer, more affordable loan backed by the US Department of Veterans Affairs. The bill has been passed on to the Senate for finalization. If you're in the market for a home, contact us for information on FHA, VA, and other mortgage programs that might be right for you.

FEATURED PROPERTY!

A great opportunity to own an up-north retreat, investment property or year round home below SEV! An incredible value - now priced at $309,900! Don't miss out on this opportunity to own a desirable Old Mission Peninsula address!

Fine Home & Estates Accredited

The Traverse Team is now Fine Home & Estates accredited through Century 21. Through this training we gained additional strategies for prospecting clientele, and for recognizing relevant market trends influencing the purchase and sale of luxury property as well as to how to effectively market high-end homes using the CENTURY 21 Fine Homes & Estates program.

Susan Hintz
www.hintz-rice.com
Grand Traverse Real Estate

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Virtual Tour Seminar Presentations

If you’re like me, you have clients that are always looking for ways to set themselves apart from the competition. This is especially true when they are hosting a booth at a local trade show. This is an opportunity for them to really showcase what they bring to the market and invariably show what your services can bring to other clients.

I am currently working on such a project and wanted to share with you some interesting ideas we came up with to draw more attention to our client’s booth. Our first project was to produce a tour featuring spins from the tours we have already produced for the client. We then added still images that included text graphics that shouted out key points to observe during the tour. We then added a custom sound track and will display the production on a wide screen monitor above the booth.

In addition to the wide screen presentation, we will also place several lap tops on the seminar tables to allow the visitors to browse the client’s virtual tour gallery. This presentation is like nothing we have ever seen and expect great customer retention at our booth.

I will submit another blog upon this seminar’s completion.
If anyone has any questions or suggestions, please contact me!

Thank you and have a great day!!

Jim Kopcho
Central Ohio Virtual Tours
www.fullviewmark.com
jim@fullviewmark.com
Order a Virtual Tour - 740-624-3368

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Be an Architectural Photographer

Are you a Real Estate Photographer or an Architectural Photographer?

It may seem like semantics, however, the later designation may spark a whole new set of clients and opportunities to showcase your skills and portfolio. Often people associate Real Estate photography with those taken by the agent with their point and shoot camera.

Have you thought about becoming a Real Estate Marketing Specialist?

As a Real Estate Marketing Specialist you offer your clients a one-stop shop for the marketing of their listings, including:

• High Quality Architectural Photography

• High Quality Virtual Tours

• Virtual Assistant Service

• Print Services

• Coordinate with local publications for submissions; i.e. Homes & Land, Newspapers, etc.

• Newsletters

• Website Design

• Know your communities and their amenities, and the difference in Architectural Details and Structure Styles

• Say what you know and know what you say!

Despite the down turn in the world economy, foreclosures, and the loss of jobs, we are still seeing new real estate agents pouring out of the real estate schools. The schools teach them the laws and prepare them for the state and federal exam, however, they leave them unprepared for the marketing challenges they will face. Take this opportunity to develop new clients and increase your worth as their Marketing Specialist.

We like to tell agents, “We’ll make you look great, all you have to do is the paperwork!”

Have a great day and shoot something . . . with a camera!

Ken Bowman
In And Out Services
Phoenix Virtual Tour Company
www.inandoutservices.com
Order a virtual tour - 623-322-4431

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RTV Announces the Release of the Rotator-Mini™ Panoramic Tripod Head

Traverse City, Mi – October 9, 2008 – Real Tour Vision (RTV) today announced the release of their newest 360 virtual tour system, the RTV Rotator-Mini™. This newest addition to their line of proprietary, calibrated virtual tour hardware and software solutions is engineered with the same precision as their full size virtual tour hardware packages. Their unique process involves Variable Controlled Stitching™ technology which controls more variables throughout the image capture and photo stitching process than other available options available on the market today.

Jason LaVanture, Vice President of RTV stated, “We are excited to release the Rotator-Mini this month. Now more than ever, real estate agents and local virtual tour business owners need economical solutions to remain competitive without sacrificing the quality of their services or their business image. The addition of the Rotator-Mini allows both our in-house and full service virtual tour providers to offer the same high quality virtual tours as our complete builder kit and at a fraction of the cost. In the nine years that RTV has been in business this is one of those moments that you look back on and say, 'that was a game changer'!"

According to the website, the new Rotator-Mini panoramic tripod head provides uncompromised quality for virtual tours and panoramic VR. The evenly spaced and level photos taken with the Rotator-Mini produce beautiful interactive panoramas quickly and effortlessly. This small pano head is engineered specifically for lightweight point and shoot digital cameras and weighs in at less than 2 lbs. Combined with RTV software, the Rotator-Mini enables real estate agents and virtual tour providers to turn digital photography into immersive interactive virtual tours at an economical price.

RTV is also offering an upgrade program to replace the now discontinued 360 stick. Real estate agents that wish to upgrade to the Rotator-Mini may contact RTV at 866-947-8687 ext 410 for reduced upgrade pricing. Because of the compact size, the Rotator-Mini may not be compatible with many larger digital SLR cameras; however interested parties are encouraged to contact RTV for other available options.

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Health Club Virtual Tools are Effective Marketing Tools

Do you own a Health Club? Do you have a virtual tour on your website? If not, you are missing out on an incredible, cost effective marketing tool! A virtual tour will allow your potential customers that ability to view your facility from the comfort of their home or office 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Often times, it is hard for today's work force to be able to make the time to visit your site in person. In no small part this may be due to the fact that until they know whether they like the facility, they do not want to commit to a sales pitch in the middle of the day. With our virtual tours, you can have a professionally voiced sales pitch included in the tour. Then, you both win! Your potential customer has the ability to manage their time and you are able to show off your facility and ensure that they hear the exact sales pitch that you want them to hear.

There are many optional buttons available on our tours, as well. You can have a button that allows the viewer to email your club directly. You can also have a button that brings up a sales flyer to ensure that folks know what your current promotions are! Our tours even come with a tool that allows you to see how many times per day people are viewing your tour. Contact your dealer to find out about additional items of interest.

Be sure to consider adding this dynamic, affordable marketing tool to your health club's website today. You will not regret it!

Contact J Gettings Photgraphy today. We are a full service RTV dealer and provide top-notch customer service to our customers. We offer Virtual Tours, still shots, 3D walkthroughs (perfect for that gym that you are building) and many more options for your marketing needs.

Jeff Gettings
North Carolina Virtual Tour Provider
www.GettingsPhoto.com
Order a virtual tour - 704-910-4601

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Virtual Tours can help you Market through the tough times

It seems that right now everyone is in a slump. It also seems that the first expense to get cut in a slump is marketing. But, does this really make sense? Sure marketing can be a big expense, but it doesn’t have to be and with very little effort you can make sure that you are getting the most bang for your marketing dollars.

Consider newspaper ads. How many people see the ad, how much ad you get for your dollars, and what kind of response you have gotten from this type of advertising? Once you have this information, you can make an informed decision about how to allocate your marketing dollars.

The internet is an excellent place to stretch your advertising dollar. First, the distribution is literally worldwide, second, many of the marketing options are inexpensive, and third, you can make a large amount of information available. If you are in an industry such as real estate, which has experienced a market shift to the internet, then you definitely want to invest some dollars there.

Ark-La-Tex Virtual Tours, an RTV Full Service Dealer, can help you get your information out on the web. We offer virtual tours, high resolution photographs, 3D walkthrough animation, website design and supporting print advertising such as yard signs and fliers. We can help you get the exposure you are looking for. And with the weekly reports you receive on your virtual tours, you will know exactly how your campaign is doing. Call us to discuss your options in the Shreveport/Bossier City area.

Rebecca Bolda
Ark-La-Tex Virtual Tours
Shreveport Virtual Tour Company
www.TheVirtualTourPeople.com
Order a virtual tour - 318-572-1779

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Stickin to it - Virtual Tour Marketing

BlueLaVaMedia producer of Traverse City Virtual Tours is proud to announce our Tour Sticker marketing blast which is the latest addition to our virtual tour marketing program. What is a tour sticker you say? You should ask Susan Hintz a Traverse City real estate agent about the tour sticker.

Back in the day tour stickers were SO popular that Susan would get in trouble if she forgot to leave one behind on the listing sign. In fact, back in early days, Real Tour Vision actually sold virtual tour stickers by the hundreds to virtual tour providers all over the world who then turned around and placed these little vinyl stickers onto the real estate yard signs of every home that received an interactive 360 virtual tour.

What happened to the tour sticker? Well that is a very good questions to ask indeed. First of all RTV stopped selling tour stickers because they were not branding the dealers as much as they were RTV. When RTV stopped selling the stickers new virtual tour providers did not know of their existence. At that time we had no marketing department so the tour sticker simply disappeared from existence altogether only to be remembered by few. While the tour sticker has been lost in RTV past it has certainly not been forgotten and by golly Jim and I are fired up to bring it back!

Here is how the little virtual tour sticker worked back in the day and can still work for you and your virtual tour company today:

First you will want to download the new non branded virtual tour sticker from the RTV site that found here (or make your own):

Real Tour Vision Icons

As a side note there are some pretty nice images on that site that you can use for your virtual tour company like I have done here:

Traverse City Virtual Tour Linking


Next give Bill Modzel (or your favorite screen printer person) a call from Modzel Screen printing and design.

Traverse City Screen Printing

Just tell Bill that you would like the same virtual tour sticker printed out that Jason at BlueLaVaMedia had made and he will hook you up with a very sleek vinyl sticker that measures about five inches by five inches. The stickers do cost a bit to produce but you will have the honor of telling your customers that the stickers will not fade in the sun, bake on in the heat or flake off in the bitter winter cold. In fact the stickers easily peel off years after being in place without destroying the real estate listing sign.

Next you will want to announce to ALL of your real estate virtual tour customers that after completing each virtual tour you will be placing an attractive virtual tour sticker onto the listing sign. You will find that some real estate agents will want to place these stickers on themselves while others will be fine with you placing the sticker on yourself. Just use your best judgment and don’t cover up any letters or images!

To date Jim and I have yet to find a single customer that refused the placement of our sticker. Can you guess why this is the case? Of course you can!! It’s because virtual tours are a sense of great pride for home sellers AND the real estate agents who use them. The more tour stickers that start showing up all around your town…the more people start asking about using virtual tours to sell their homes faster. That my friends is secret of the tour sticker. It works great for you AND your customers. Now go get some and happy sticking to you all!

Jason LaVanture
Traverse City Virtual Tours
www.BlueLaVaMedia.com
Order a Virtual Tour! 877-941-8687 (TOUR)

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Kalamazoo Virtual Tour Company Goes Full Time

I have had a passion for photography my whole life and spent every spare moment I had out taking pictures of anything and everything. But I always did that as a hobby, never as a career. I have been a graphic artist most of my career and never dreamed that I could make my interest in photography be my main source of income. It just didn’t seem possible.

With encouragement from friends and family, I finally decided to step out from behind the desk and “go for it”. I invested everything I had into a full-service photography franchise. Along with that as a backup income for the slow times, I bought a full-service dealer kit from RTV.

It has been almost a year since I made the leap of faith. Starting out, as I mentioned, with the intent of the virtual tour company to be an “extra” income or “filler” for the “Full-Time” photography franchise I purchased, as my primary source of income. Much to my surprise, and that of my peers, the virtual tour business took off much faster and has surpassed the photography franchise by a long shot.

I have recently decided to give up the hassle and stress associated with the photography franchise I own, and make the virtual tour industry my primary focus and source of income. The support I have received from RTV has been phenomenal and they have always been there when I needed questions answered. I have learned the hard way that a solid support system can make or break a business and the system RTV has in place has been a big part of what helped me to make the decision to go full-time into the virtual tour industry.

I want to thank all of those at RTV who have helped me over the last year in getting to where I am today with my business. Those who I have personally talked with as well as those who are behind the scenes that may have helped in fixing any problems I had. I look forward to my future in the virtual tour business knowing I have such a great group of people behind me.

Thanks to you all!

Dawn Frees
Frees Frame Photography
Kalamazoo Virtual Tour Provider
www.freesframephotography.com
Order a virtual tour - 616-334-9750

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Commercial Virtual Tours are Out There

For several years now I'd always concentrated my virtual home tour efforts toward real estate agents. A lot of my work came from referrals so I really didn't have to do a lot of marketing. The market I started my business in is a very hot virtual tour market.

It has been very different since I moved to Knoxville. There isn't that "want it" for virtual tours as there was back home in Houston. The virtual tour work I found so easy before is now hiding in and around Knoxville and East Tennessee and its waiting for me to come and find it.

RTV has been a great business partner. Their support system encourages us to get out of the Real Estate box and find another box that can benefit from our virtual tours and marketing.

This is really a great time for RTV dealers, the markets are all suffering, causing all of us to worry about the future, but we have to believe in America and be optimistic about what the future holds.

Right now the markets are having to change and evolve and there are many places looking for new and different ways to market what and how they sell their products. We all have the knowledge and experience and the tools, and all we need to do is go out and get it.

I'm going to the places I had thought about approaching before but I never acted on it. Everyday or so I receive the emails, and I read about how RTV dealers are getting the commercial work thats out there, its all very encouraging. It seems to be just a matter of just doing it!

Mike O'Neill
Knoxville Virtual Tour Company
www.knoxtours.net
Order a virtual tour - 865-688-1030

Visit our Virtual Tour Blog

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Marketing Virtual Tours in Colombia

I moved to Cartagena, Colombia in October, 2005, bringing my photography skills and RTV virtual tour capabilities and hoping to “make my mark” with this new (to Colombia) technology. I talked to a lot of real estate agents and quickly realized that the laws governing real estate in Colombia are vastly different than in the U.S.

Real estate licenses are practically nonexistent here because they are not required by law. That means anyone can bring a buyer to a seller and receive 3% commission on the sale. What this means is that no agent will invest money into advertising for a property that they don’t have an exclusive listing for, and owners don’t like to give exclusive listings.

Property owners here want to increase their odds for a quick sale, so they will pay the commission to anyone who brings a buyer. So, the target market here in real estate sales is the owners themselves. It can often be difficult to find the owner and to sell to them, especially if they live out of town. It is also possible to market to hotels, restaurants, resorts, museums, and I am just starting an advertising campaign to reach those markets.

My wife and I have a startup apartment rental and real estate business, which over time should draw in more 360 virtual tour customers, and I also do architectural photography for which a virtual tour is an upsell.

I have sold only about six tours since I have been here, mostly to friends. Until May of this year, I couldn’t actively market because my visa would not permit it, but now I am totally “legal.” This means that I can now use all forms of marketing available. Most of the real estate market is for apartments for sale or rent, but I am starting to become aware of some really nice houses. Next week, I will hit the streets of the old city with my laptop and some fancy brochures, where there are a lot of restaurants, hotels and bed and breakfast places.

Larry Thornberry
Colombian Virtual Tour Company
www.qualityvirtualtours.com
Order a virtual tour - 702-332-9552

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Word of Mouth Advertising is Bolstered by Free Giveaways

As an added FREE bonus for my agents I set up a URL Redirect through my website so that their virtual tour gallery is forwarded to a unique website name. I do it this way without paying for a new domain for each agent and it gives them an easy to remember URL.

I also offer them a FREE email account that I forward to their regular email address. At first it may take you a few minutes to figure out how to do the settings, but once you get it you will do it faster and faster. Anything you can do to give your agents something unique will guarantee that they use you again and refer you to others.

I do not advertise my virtual tour company but rely on 100% word of mouth referrals. Word of mouth is better than any other advertising. I am doing over 200+ tours per year just on word of mouth. Below are the examples of my web redirects.

Here is what my web url redirect looks like:

360photoshoot.com/diannemartin

and

360photoshoot.com/joyicejones

Here is what the property url redirect looks like:

360photoshoot.com/16205villarreal

To do this it should be in your CPanel control if you have your own website and will be under REDIRECTS. If you don't have that option contact your web host provider and tell them what you are trying to do and they should be able to help you.

Thanks and good luck to all!

Chuck Small
Spring Hill Florida Virtual Tours
360PhotoShoot.com
Order a virtual tour - 813-774-8605

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Most Secure Places Article Lauds Areas of Maryland

BakerB Solutions provides interactive virtual tour and marketing services to real state agents throughout Maryland, District of Columbia and Northern Virginia.

Recently, Yahoo published a list of the "Most Secure US Places" and parts of Montgomery and Frederick Counties were ranked as #3 on the list. This study ranked cities on the following criteria:

* crime statistics
* extreme weather
* risk of natural disasters
* environmental hazards
* terrorism threats
* air quality
* life expectancy
* job loss

To see the full article, click here:

realestate.yahoo.com/promo/most-secure-us-places.html

This factoid is certainly helpful to our clients when promoting our market area, especially to out of town buyers who are not as familiar with our area. This also allows those buyers to narrow their home search to view properties in Bethesda, Gaithersburg and Frederick that have a BakerB Solutions Interactive virtual tour.

Should you need to have a 360 virtual tour done of an upcoming listing in any of these secure places, or any nearby areas, including Rockville, Silver Spring, Chevy Chase, North Potomac, Potomac, Montgomery Village or another city, please contact us immediately at 301.424.8272.

We will help you promote your home to get it sold as quickly as possible! Just look at one of our recent testimonials from Teresita Vignale of Long and Foster.

Alex Saenger
BakerB Solutions
Montgomery County Virtual Tour Company
www.bakerb.com
Order a virtual tour - 301-424-8272

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