How To Create A Virtual Reality Property Marketing Strategy?

The property world is changing. Just as technology continues to grow in capability and pervasiveness, so too do the ways that real estate agents can harness its power. This is no more true than in the use of virtual reality.

Virtual reality property marketing will, before long, be a central part of how properties are marketed and sold. Many agents are already taking up the challenge and integrating the technology into their listings. Some are even going so far as to offer high-end virtual reality equipment in their offices and showhomes. However, we are not yet at the stage of total mass adoption of virtual reality devices. Whilst a virtual reality property marketing strategy may be the future for real estate agents, today it is all about 360° photography - a technology that opens the doors to virtual reality property marketing.

Some virtual reality property marketing works with highly photorealistic simulations. This is a particularly useful strategy for agents marketing development properties, which may not even exist yet in the real world. These kind of simulations are fantastic when used in the right context, but they are expensive - and not without good reason. The skill and time that it takes to build a full virtual reality simulation of a property from scratch carries with it a corresponding price tag. However, a virtual reality property marketing strategy does not have to be complicated, time-consuming, or expensive. In fact, it can be done well by even the most uninitiated of users.

So what do you need to do to get started with a virtual reality property marketing strategy?

Hardware

The first thing you will need in order to get started is, of course, a 360° camera. 360° cameras are now easy to come by, and with a few simple steps, a virtual tour can be created of an existing space of any kind. The beauty of 360° virtual tours is that they do not depend on virtual reality hardware, though they can be viewed on VR devices as simple as the Google Cardboard, which costs next to nothing and - as a bonus - can be ordered in bulk from some retailers customised to your company branding. 

Content

360° photography is easily accessible on desktop, mobile, and tablet, easily embeddable into your company website. Once you have created the virtual tour itself, you can put it together in a matter of minutes using EyeSpy360™'s simple, free software. Once you have your 360° virtual tour ready, it can be embedded within the property’s listing on your website by copying and pasting the iFrame embed code. This is a strategy already being widely used by brands like Foxtons with much success. But your virtual reality property marketing strategy does not end there. 

Social Media

Facebook is the first, and currently only, social media platform to harness the marketing power of 360° virtual tours. But it is also the key platform on which to showcase your properties in this engaging and innovative way. To view a 360° tour on Facebook, all a user needs to do is drag their mouse pointer or finger, and the image swivels around for a view of the entire filmed space. 

Globally, 1.28 billion people access their Facebook accounts every day. Even when you narrow down your audience to the most likely people to engage with your brand, there is still a huge potential audience for your 360° virtual tour content - not just domestically, but from overseas as well.

Facebook has made it incredibly easy for anybody to share 360° content on the platform, and most brands will already have worked hard to build a strong presence on this key social network. So the next step is to share your 360° far and wide, using Facebook’s in-built audience targeting tools to reach the right people at the right time. 

Exposure

We mentioned above that Google Cardboard devices can be customised with your company branding. So a good way to get your 360° virtual tours in front of people, and thus further your virtual reality property marketing strategy, is to offer free Cardboards to all new buyers who register with you. This is a genius strategy for letting them know that you are offering this new technology in order to allow them to see properties in a true-to-life, immersive way. Strategies like this, as any good marketer will tell you, is how the word gets out.

These steps demonstrate just how easy it is to get started with implementing a virtual reality property marketing strategy for your agency. So long as you keep up the good work, consistently generating 360° virtual tours of every property that you market and making sure they get seen, it is certain that you will reap the benefits, and so too will your clients. 

Recent research (by US property website, Realtor) has found that three-quarters of people interviewed said that virtual tours influenced their property purchasing decision, and that they preferred the interactivity offered by 360° tours over flat photos. So there’s no reason to wait any longer to join the revolution!