116-WGAN-TV | How to Turn an iGUIDE 3D Virtual Tour into a Real-Time 24/7 Lead Capture Machine for R

“Lead generation is top of mind for everybody. Being able to understand that someone’s looking at that listing, they’re already interested, it is a warm lead. So as soon as I receive that notification, I can respond to that person in real-time before they look at another property. So it eliminates that lag in time. It opens up a wealth of possibilities for that real estate agent to just quickly reply using the custom feature, or as Chris mentioned, the automated feature.”

Charlene

Planitar Inc. (iGUIDE)

www.GoiGUIDE.com

WGAN-TV | How to Turn an iGUIDE 3D Virtual Tour into a Real-Time 24/7 Lead Capture Machine for Real Estate Agents | Guests: Planitar Inc. (iGUIDE) Product Marketing Manager Chris White and Planitar Inc. (iGUIDE) Senior Marketing Manager Charlene Hancock | www.GOiGUIDE.com Episode #216 | Thursday, 9 May 2024 | www.GOiGUIDE.com

– How do you turn an iGUIDE 3D virtual tour into a Lead Magnet for real estate agents?

– How can you help real estate agents get iGUIDE 3D virtual tour real-time leads via SMS or email?

– How can real estate photographers make money with a free lead magnet service for real estate agents?

Stay tuned.

Hi all. I’m Dan Smigrod, Founder of the [www.WeGetAroundNetworkForum.com] Today is Thursday, May 9th, 2024. You’re watching WGAN-TV Live at 5: a podcast for digital twin creators shaping the future of real estate today.

We have an awesome show for you: How to Turn an iGUIDE 3D Virtual Tour Into a 24/7 Real-Time Lead Capture Machine for Real Estate Agents via SMS or Email.

Our subject matter experts are:

Planitar Senior Marketing Manager Charlene Hancock, and Planitar Product Marketing Manager Chris White.

Charlene and Chris, thanks for being on the show.

- Excited to be here. Thanks for having us, Dan.

- Thank you for having us again.

- You bet. Charlene, before we dive into today’s topic, please tell us about Planitar.

- Sure. If you haven’t heard about iGUIDE, so iGUIDE is actually manufactured by Planitar Inc. And we’ve created a LIDAR laser camera system that measures all spaces to an nth degree of accuracy.

So you can use it to scan any type of space, residential or commercial, and gather thousands of measurements in minutes. And then it’ll generate your 3D virtual tour, your floor plan, your feature sheet, and all of the pieces you need to market or list a real estate property online.

- And in addition to iGUIDE, you all have a camera solution.

“Lead generation is top of mind for everybody. Being able to understand that someone’s looking at that listing, they’re already interested, it is a warm lead. So as soon as I receive that notification, I can respond to that person in real-time before they look at another property. So it eliminates that lag in time. It opens up a wealth of possibilities for that real estate agent to just quickly reply using the custom feature, or as Chris mentioned, the automated feature.”

Charlene Hancock

Senior Marketing Manager Planitar Inc. (iGUIDE) www.GoiGUIDE.com

- We do. We use the iGUIDE PLANIX Camera. So it’s a proprietary camera that we’ve developed ourselves. So our founders actually created it 11 years ago. And then we couple it with the Ricoh THETA 360 degree camera.

- We’ve done a lot of shows, WGAN-TV Live at 5 on iGUIDE. So for our viewers who want to really do a deep dive into various aspects of iGUIDE, you can see those episodes at:

www.WGAN.info/iGUIDEonWGAN

Today, we’re going to focus on the iGUIDE Lead Magnet service. Chris, what is an iGUIDE Lead Magnet?

- So glad you asked, Dan. Thank you. So we’re really excited about this new feature: iGUIDE Lead Magnet.

And it is essentially a contact form or a pop-up form that appears in the iGUIDE. So that’s in the virtual experience.

So, well, we can also call it a 3D tour, if you’re more familiar with that. And that lead form allows you to request access to more information. So it’s essentially a contact form that connects the person using the tour with the person providing the tour or the listing agent.

- Terrific. Thank you for the top line on it. We did a pre-call just to talk about three different demos.

So for our viewers, I’m going to ask Chris and Charlene to demo first the home buyer’s experience; then to demo the real estate agent experience; and then demo the real estate photographer’s experience; the back-end of how to implement this. Chris, how about taking us into the demo for the home buyer’s experience.

And as Chris is getting set up to share his screen, you can go to learn more at:

www.GOiGUIDE.com

And if you’re a real estate photographer, you can set up a meeting with an iGUIDE Specialist.

And if you’re a real estate agent and you’re looking for an iGUIDE photographer, just look for the button: [Find A Service Provider] that shoots iGUIDE. Chris, I can see your screen. Take us through your demo please.

- Cool. So hopefully on screen here, you can see an iGUIDE. So I won’t go into great detail. But there’s a floor plan on the left and 360 degree visuals on the right.

So a typical home buyer experience would be one where, they’re shopping for home and they’re sort of looking at the visuals and they’re kind of thinking of themselves. Like, is this home for me?

And so there’s a lot of information. And what we noticed over the years is that most people connect with someone when they’re requesting more information.

So the home buyer experience is typically one where they get to a point where they wish they had, essentially, there’s a lot of information. They wish they had more. They wish they could see something that’s not available.

- So Chris, even before we get to the iGUIDE Lead Magnet here, if I may, even though we’ve done a deep dive show, let’s still take our viewers through the different aspects of the iGUIDE that we’re looking at, all the different features that we can see.

- That’s what I was hoping you would ask. Fantastic. So the basic components of an iGUIDE here are floor plan and 360 degree visuals. So, that’s the experience that makes an iGUIDE an iGUIDE.

And essentially it mimics the sort of idea that you would walk around a property, but then you have a map to guide you. So the map to guide you is navigable. So that’s this floor plan. And you can click on it. It’ll take you wherever you click.

And it also gives you a sense, because it’s a floor plan, of the size of the space and how the rooms connect. And it gives you a sense of what the property would be like to be in, in addition, sort of to the visuals. iGUIDEs have more than just that though. There’s some extra tabs up here.

There’s a section for photos and then there’s a details section. A big part of any iGUIDE is measurement. So all the room dimensions and total square footage are included here, as well as the placement on Google Maps so you can kind of see where the property is located.

And the goal with the whole iGUIDE is to create this comprehensive experience whereby you can really get a good understanding as a buyer of the home so that you can compare it to other homes and then make that decision of whether you’d like to reach out for more information and connect with the person listing the property.

- Okay, great. Could you walk through the house a little bit for us?

- Absolutely. Charlene helped me shoot this house.

- I love this property. It’s so beautiful.

- Yeah, check this out. The door’s like 14 feet tall. It’s crazy. So you can navigate by clicking little circles or scan positions. And those are obviously visual perspectives that give you a 360 degree view.

Or you can click on the floor plan. So if I click on the deck, I’m sent outside to the deck. Or if I want to jump directly to the laundry room, ‘cause that’s important to me, I can do that. What we noticed when we watch people use the tours is that often, they use the floor plan to go directly to the thing that they’re interested in.

So they read the room label. They say, “Oh, yeah, kitchen. I need to know what that looks like.” And they click on it and they go there. And then once they get there, they look at the visuals and they inspect things and they say, “Oh, what kind of stove is that?” , so it’s one of the cool things or the magic of the iGUIDE is that people have that type of experience.

They can quickly navigate to a space from the map. And then they can visually look at that space and get a sense of whether it’s for them or not.

- Are there any labels in this space to show us?

- Oh, yeah. There is one. Let me check it out.

- Yeah, there’s others, a couple ones. There’s one with the-

- So here’s the tag right here. So this tag shows a little pet dining area, which is pretty cool. Tags are great.

They allow you to identify anything in 3D space, add photos, add text. You can add videos. You can outsource this stuff. They’re a great way to make the tour richer, more valuable. And they’re valuable outside of residential real estate because you can tag anything. Electrical panels and water heaters as well as granite countertops and pet food bowls.

- Yeah, I know today we’re talking about iGUIDE specifically for real estate agents, real estate photographers.

We’ve, again, we’ve done other shows for other verticals for iGUIDE. And again, you can see those shows. It’s www.WGAN. info/iGUIDEonWGAN. There’s a little icon of a person there at the top. Is that the real estate agent for this property?

- It is, yeah. Dave. Yeah, so every iGUIDE can be branded. So it can be connected to typically the listing agent in a real estate scenario. So in this case, you can see that this branding has a headshot logo and then it’s got contact information.

“Lead generation is top of mind for everybody. Being able to understand that someone’s looking at that listing, they’re already interested, it is a warm lead. So as soon as I receive that notification, I can respond to that person in real-time before they look at another property. So it eliminates that lag in time. It opens up a wealth of possibilities for that real estate agent to just quickly reply using the custom feature, or as Chris mentioned, the automated feature.”

Charlene Hancock

Senior

Marketing

Manager Planitar Inc. (iGUIDE) www.GoiGUIDE.com

So if you wanted to reach out to the agent here, this is going to be a good segue actually to Lead Magnet, you can do that. Just like any listing portal, there’s always going to be some way to connect with the agent. And so the segue or question is, is there anything to incentivize that beyond just the desire to reach out?

- And so I see some buttons in the bottom right. And one of those buttons looks new for me in the bottom right, yeah?

- Oh, it is. It is. It is new. So it’s sort of funny. So one of them is VR. So we’ve always had VR. That’s the thing. It’s having a new renaissance right now with Meta. But the button next to it is the Lead Magnet button.

So from a buyer’s perspective, they could click that. But we don’t really expect people necessarily to find a random button and click it. The way the iGUIDE Lead Magnet works, and I’ll show it to you in a second, is that if someone is viewing the tour, after a certain period of time, around 30 seconds or after a series of clicks, this popup will automatically pop up.

So it’s not something they have to find because obviously, the likelihood of them finding it is low. So I’m going to click it. The big reveal here. So this is it. It’s a popup form.

- Okay, so let’s pause there for a second. So had this been a live walkthrough by a potential buyer of the home that either after a predetermined amount of seconds or based on maybe a number of clicks, this would’ve popped up automatically.

- That’s right. Yeah, exactly. So the goal is to not be too obtrusive, but at the same time, still get people to see it. And the idea with any popup form, right? Is to make it splashy enough that people recognize it when it pops up.

- Okay. All right, so if you fill out this form what is it that you as the home buyer will then receive? Do you want to fill out the form? Do you want to submit it?

- So filling out the form does exactly what you think it does. It connects with the listing agent. So someone looking at the tour might want more information. And what this form does is, at its most basic, is basically connect with that listing agent and provide them with whatever information is inputted in the form.

But the cool thing about this from a buyer perspective, because we’re still talking about the buyers, is that they have a reason to fill it out. So if you read the text, it says, “Get access to additional visuals.” So what that means is that there’s more information in this tour than is currently visible.

It’s a fully functioning tour. There’s lots of visual data there. But often, when people are looking at a property, they want more. And so we know from research that 99.99% of the time, when someone’s reaching out to an agent, they’re reaching out for more information.

So we’re using that as the magnet. We’re giving people a reason to fill out the form because when they do that, they get more. So in exchange for their contact information.

- All right. So how about let’s, maybe you could fill out the form?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- [Dan] Okay.

- Got some names already pre-populated here. We’ll put it there. There we go. We’ll give them a good phone number.

- And I recognize this is a demo account, so-

- Yeah, it’s not real.

- [Dan] Okay.

- It says put in a valid phone number. It somehow knows that’s not real. Actually, phone numbers are optional anyway. So, hey. There we go. So when I submit the form, what happens is I get this little popup that says, “Thank you very much for submitting the form.” So the experience doesn’t change. You’re still in the tour. And it basically sends you a little thank you.

And then you can continue on your way. So what happens behind the scenes for the buyer-

- No, I just want to see what the buyer sees. So take me into your email.

- Exactly. So that’s what I was going to say. So for the buyer, they’re going to receive an email essentially. And that email is going to give them a link to a more detailed tour.

So it’s a little boring. I have a demo email to show you. It’s not super exciting, but I’ll do it anyway. So hopefully you can see this email here.

- It’s a little bit small. So I’ve read this before. So I think we see three things here. One is it’s a link to an enhanced tour.

Two, there’s some additional information. And three, it’s the contact information for the real real estate agent. Yeah, thank you for enlarging it. That’s great.

- Long story short, it’s a link plus some other information. So yes, a hundred percent. So exactly what you just said.

- Okay, can you take us into that enhanced tour. I think you have it pre-set up. But it would’ve been the link that’s in the email.

- Yeah, exactly.

- And then all of a sudden, then what? What is different based on this enhanced tour?

- Excellent question. So I hope you can see this in your view.

- [Dan] Yes.

- [Chris] There’s a lot more green dots.

- Yes.

- So what we do is we’ve essentially, as a buyer, we’ve requested more information and then we’re given a tour that’s different in that it has more. So the dots are extensive, just for this property around the outside.

So that was done specifically because when you have a lot of scans around the outside of the property it, in an iGUIDE, gives you the ability to zoom out to see it. But that makes the floor plan very small.

So rather than do that, the first view, or what we’ll call kind of like the teaser view, has those removed so that we can zoom in to the floor plan and really give people a good sense of where they are in the property.

And then when they make that request, they’re given the detailed view, which isn’t doesn’t require that same zoom level. It can zoom way out and then they can get the context of the property. And so there are just literally more things to look at in this version of the tour.

And so in this one, we’ve included things beyond just the exterior. You can also see, once it loads, this garage is a very clean garage. So you could probably just put this right in the tour. But sometimes-

- So for clarification, the home buyer could not access the garage in the initial view. And only after they requested, filled out the form, were they able to get bonus access to the property.

- Yes, that’s exactly right. So the additional information available in the requested version, or the detailed version as we call it, does include, in this scenario, the garage, a lot of these exterior scans, and then a few extra scans here or there to give people more positions that they can sort of look around and... What were you going to say?

- I think we actually hit some features in the original view.

- Oh, okay.

- Including that cubby. So a couple of the things that the team, as they were thinking through this and we were creating this example, we actually hit some of the great features of this home. Like this home happens to be a very feature rich property. So we were able to hide some of the pantry.

So you see, it’s almost like a secret pantry for entertaining. In the basement, it has this really cool little cubby hole that we hid in the initial view.

- Oh, yeah, yeah. This thing.

- Yeah. It’s great. So it kind of entices the buyer. So in the default view, you could see that something existed there.

So it adds that element of gamification, which I think then entices somebody to want to have a deeper look. And then when you see this, you actually get the benefit of seeing all of those cool little, we’ll call them Easter eggs, if you will, Dan, behind the scenes.

“Lead generation is top of mind for everybody. Being able to understand that someone’s looking at that listing, they’re already interested, it is a warm lead. So as soon as I receive that notification, I can respond to that person in real-time before they look at another property. So it eliminates that lag in time. It opens up a wealth of possibilities for that real estate agent to just quickly reply using the custom feature, or as Chris mentioned, the automated feature.”

Charlene Hancock Senior Marketing Manager Planitar

Inc. (iGUIDE) www.GoiGUIDE.com

- Okay. And so still staying on the home buyer experience, so I want to say in addition, now that the home buyer has filled out that form to get access, they may have actually asked the question and they, then the real estate agent is either calling them, emailing them, or sending them a text based on how they filled out that form.

- Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah.

- So they get the bonus access and there’s probably some email, phone, text that they’re getting from the agent to help answer their questions.

- You got it. Yep.

- Yeah.

- Okay, is there anything else to talk about in the home buyer experience?

- So, no. After this, after the tour is provided, it’s really in the hands of the listing agent. So the conversation has begun. And that listing agent is going to do their thing.

- And before we transition to the real estate agent experience, Charlene, was there anything else to talk about on the home buyer experience?

- I think for me, like from a home buyer experience, I think it’s kind of exciting. Even just from the seller experience, if you have the ability to have an iGUIDE, you can actually have an open conversation with your real estate agent, which opens up to how can we market the features of this home?

How can we differentiate ourselves? I mean, if you’re in a highly populated area that has high turnover and you want to make your house a little more interesting, give you those options as well.

- Is there a feature that I don’t see for a live guided tour by the agent for the homeowner? The homeowner writes in that form, “I’m ready to buy the house, but I have some questions.”

And the agent gets a hold of him and says, “Well, I’m,” Okay, you’re about to show, Chris?

- Well, I can, yeah. So I can’t do a live virtual showing, but I can describe what it is, so.

- [Dan] That’s great.

- Sort of connecting people with the property in a slightly different way. So I’ll frame it like this. An iGUIDE is very much an exploratory, you’re on your own kind of thing like most virtual tours are, right?

They’re not very guided, if we sort of ignore tags. But there is something to be said for a tour that is guided by a real estate professional where they show you something. So we have a virtual version of that.

And it’s called iGUIDE Virtual Showings. If you click on any iGUIDE, the little share button, there’s an iGUIDE Virtual Showing option.

And what it can do is allow someone to share an iGUIDE with someone else via any device with a browser and walk them through a property. So rather than someone clicking and looking around, if you will, themselves, someone can do it for them and so-

- So the real estate agent could reach out to them and say, “Hey, there’s some special things about this property based on your questions. May I walk you through your virtual tour?”

- That’s exactly right, yeah. Yeah, they could send a link and then they could connect with someone and show them something and then have a conversation about that, yeah.

- Yeah.

- Great. Moving on. What is the real estate agent experience?

- Excellent question again. So the real estate agent is going to obviously have this iGUIDE created for them.

And they are, in all likelihood, going to have it created by someone like a real estate photographer. So we’ll get to them later. But they’re going to set up this agent branding that I hope you can see on screen now.

- [Dan] Yes.

- Your contact information will be in the iGUIDE. So we use that contact information to connect the popup form to the person who’s on that agent branding or banner.

So that means that very literally, the agent is going to receive an email, which I’ll show you right now, and they’re also going to receive, if they choose to receive it, an SMS, which you mentioned at the top of the show.

So we’re pretty excited about that. Everyone handles leads in different ways. Like different professionals. So having the ability to get it on your phone via text message is pretty cool. But essentially, they’re going to get the information in the form.

So that’s name, email and phone number. And then they’re going to get any questions that obviously were put into the custom field.

- Okay, so for clarification, Gary Newman has requested access to the detailed iGUIDE 3D tour. Here’s Gary’s name, email address, phone number. And then Gary had some questions about the property. And it also included the detailed link. In this case, it says, “Best, the iGUIDE team.” So is that still, so that’s still the case, so iGUIDE-

- [Chris] Yeah.

- Is this the photographer’s information that goes there?

- So essentially, this is going to come from iGUIDE directly.

- [Dan] Okay.

- So the reason that that looks the way it does is that we want to make it as easy as possible for the real estate professional to ingest that data. There’s all sorts of different ways that people are going to do that. CRM or reach out directly.

But then the detailed iGUIDE link that’s there -- is there so that the agent can reach out directly if they wish to. So part of the agent experience is flexibility. So we know that every agent is different. Some are very high volume.

Some are very low volume. Some are very hands-on and some aren’t. So we’ve built in the ability to configure, and we’ll get to the actual configuration later, but from the agent’s perspective, they can choose to have that reply be automatic or manual.

So earlier, when I showed you that email that went to the user, there are times where that might not be the case. They might not receive that email automatically. The agent might reach out directly. And so we’re giving them the link to the details.

- So I’m confused. There’s actually two different emails that we’re talking about.

- Potentially.

- The first is notification. Gary Newman has requested access to the detailed iGUIDE 3D tour. And Gary Newman had a specific question.

In this case, “is the second washing machine included in the listing?” Totally get that. You’re starting to talk about a second email. What is that?

- Well, so it’s not a second. It’s one or the other. So when this data goes to an agent, essentially they can make the choice, through their real estate photographer, whether they want to reply themselves manually or they would like it to be done automatically.

So the email that I showed you earlier for the buyer was the automatic version of the email. So if an agent wants to reach out manually, they’re very much hands-on, they just want to talk to people directly, exactly, they can make a customized email.

And they can basically take this information and craft their own email and provide the detailed tour via a link right from here. So we’re trying to make it as easy as possible for real estate professionals to get that data, the lead data, and then be able to reach out to the person who is the lead as quickly as they can with the information that they need to provide them.

“Lead generation is top of mind for everybody. Being able to understand that someone’s looking at that listing, they’re already interested, it is a warm lead. So as soon as I receive that notification, I can respond to that person in real-time before they look at another property. So it eliminates that lag in time. It opens up a wealth of possibilities for that real estate agent to just quickly reply using the custom feature, or as Chris mentioned, the automated feature.”

Charlene Hancock

Senior Marketing Manager Planitar Inc. (iGUIDE) www.GoiGUIDE.com

- Okay, great. I’m going to take it off screen share for just a moment and come back to Charlene and say, Charlene, what’s the benefit to the real estate agent regarding getting that notification that someone has just looked at the tour?

- Well, I think Dan, everybody’s struggling to generate business these days, right? And so lead generation is top of mind for everybody who’s working either in a sole prop, small business, or even as you enter into enterprise.

So being able to understand that someone’s looking at that listing, they’re already interested, it is a warm lead. I think what the team has done -- is done a great job of making it: instant. So as soon as I receive that notification, I can respond to that person in real-time before they even look at another property, right?

So it eliminates that lag in time where there’s information shared. They’re considering other homes. Maybe that person’s looking for a real estate agent at the time and maybe they don’t have somebody for their current home.

It opens up a wealth of possibilities for that real estate agent to just quickly reply using the custom feature, or as Chris mentioned, the automated feature. I think because of the pace that real estate agents work at, and oftentimes they don’t have time to get to their inbox until the next day.

That’s a long time for somebody to wait for a reply. And you can lose that lead or lose that access pretty quickly.

So it’s beneficial as well. You get accurate information. You’re not getting random spam or form fills that may not lead to anything.

And for real estate agents, it’s really easy to activate because you do it through an iGUIDE Operator. And we have Operators

across North America that are available and ready to help.

- Okay, we’ll talk about photographers. Let’s stay with real estate agents. So, so far I think I’m hearing it’s 24/7.

- You betcha.

- The reply to the home buyer can be automated to let them know the agent’s info in addition to the link for the enhanced tour. The real estate agent can decide if they would prefer to handle replies themselves.

- Yes.

- Which may lead to their CRM system for how emails are handled that come in when perhaps when the agent is not in front of their computer. Nights, weekends, holidays. There may be a, “oh, email just came in.” That’s going to be handled by a team member. Whatever it might be.

- Right.

- Are there... And so I think what I’m hearing is, leads, leads, leads. It’s turning the 3D virtual tour into a lead magnet, generating leads for the agent in real-time as opposed to, I’ve put the tour out there, but I don’t know who’s looking at it, when they’re looking at it.

- Yeah.

- And unless they click on the agent info, they may not be getting back to me. So you’re providing an incentive for the prospective home buyer to fill out the form in order to generate that lead for the agent.

- Right. Right. And I think too, just to kind of add to that, because that was an excellent summary. I mean I think you’ve really captured it. But also, there’s that opportunity to get feedback on your listings.

So if the price point is maybe higher than expected by somebody browsing for a home in that area because they have a specific taste or they’re looking at the quality of the listing from the sense of you really could have taken this photo better or the kitchen looks awkward to me. Is it really as small as it appears?

Or is the kitchen in fact as big as it appears? Because I would love to come and see it. You get the good and the bad with your feedback. And I think that is also really helpful if you’re trying to sell a home. It helps again just the communication side with the Realtor to the home buyer to make that connection as well.

- The iGUIDE Lead Magnet has not been out all that long. It’s a new service just being rolled out. Is it too soon to ask if you have real estate agents that are already providing feedback?

- Yeah, we actually do.

- Oh, yeah, yeah. People are using it. It’s been really popular. You never really know how things are going to go, despite your best efforts to find out ahead of time.

- Yeah.

- But apparently, leads are really important. Who knew, right? So-

- Come on.

- So the response has been really positive, which is great.

- Yeah. Yeah.

- Do you have any specific tangible examples to point to?

- I don’t have enough data to give you specific numbers.

- Okay. I know it’s still a bit early. I just wonder if an agent has already reached out and said “Wow, got the lead. Closed the sale.”

- Oh, I talked to an agent on Friday who’s already using it, yeah. I don’t know if he’s closed the sale yet. I could check while we’re on this call, but maybe.

- Yeah.

- Okay. All right. Is there anything else to talk about in terms of the value to the real estate agent?

- I think really, Dan, the value is there in that lead and that instant communication for them. I would say that if there is one-

- And it’s timely. So if somebody’s filling out the form and the agent is there when that email comes in or that, then they’re literally responding in real-time to somebody who is inside the house now virtually.

- You’ve got it. Yeah, yeah.

- Okay, great. So I’m a real estate photographer. Chris, can you take us through this in terms of “okay, from a real estate photographer standpoint, how does this get implemented?”

- I’ll walk you through it. So it’s actually super-duper simple. There is one checkbox that you need to click on.

- Oh my goodness.

- And when you click on it, it’s enabled. And then part of any iGUIDE is something called views.

And so this leverages that. And it’s a way of showing an iGUIDE in different ways. So all you have to do is configure a view that’s automatically created, you don’t do anything except check the box, to be something different.

So with iGUIDE, you have full control over what people see and what they don’t see. It’s a big strength. It’s very useful because it allows you to show things on a floor plan that you don’t show visually.

With maybe a competing technology, you might have to show that. Otherwise, there’d be some sort of hole. With iGUIDE, that’s not really a problem. So that means that when you’re configuring an iGUIDE, you can choose to turn things on and off.

So we’re using that essentially to create, sort of an initial view or a default view and then a detailed view. And so all the photographer has to do is check the box saying, yep, I’d like to turn it on.

And then go in and configure the second view or the detailed view to have more visuals on. So, honestly, it’s about a minute and a half to do. It’s very easy.

- Could you show us?

- Yeah.

- Oh, yeah. Let me share again. Talk amongst yourselves while I do this.

- Great.

- You can go to: www.GoiGUIDE.com Yeah. Okay, great.

- So this is behind the scenes.

- [Dan] Okay.

“Lead generation is top of mind for everybody. Being able to understand that someone’s looking at that listing, they’re already interested, it is a warm lead. So as soon as I receive that notification, I can respond to that person in real-time before they look at another property. So it eliminates that lag in time. It opens up a wealth of possibilities for that real estate agent to just quickly reply using the custom feature, or as Chris mentioned, the automated feature.”

Charlene Hancock

Senior Marketing Manager Planitar

Inc. (iGUIDE) www.GoiGUIDE.com

- So this is... Only iGUIDE Operators get to see this. But there are two sorts of things here, two boxes. So one represents the detailed view. It’s this one on the right. And the other one represents the default view. So I’m going to show you, well, the extremely complicated process of enabling this.

- Funny. Very funny.

- There’s a single checkbox and you just click it. And when you click that, it automatically creates that second view. And then the second view is here. And then, so if you haven’t, you’ll, I mean this should be pretty familiar to most anybody, really.

- So essentially, you’ve opened two windows here, right? So you have the detail and the-

- That’s right.

- Default view opened. Just so people can follow along.

- So when that box was checked, essentially, as Charlene says, it’s a duplicate tour. So you have two identical tours. Now, you’re taking the initial view that you want to have the home buyer look at.

- That’s right. So you can think of it like this. It’s essentially two steps. We can slim it now to two. You turn it on.

And then you have to go in and configure the automatically created duplicate view, if you will. So you can see this one. I’ve already configured it. But it has all the exteriors turned on and it’s got the garage turned on.

- Okay.

- So how you configure it is completely up to you. So we made this sort of obvious distinction.

- Well, for example, the garage, when we looked at the first tour, there were no scan points in the garage. So how would we disable those? Yeah, that’s that first view. How did those get disabled?

- So I hope that that was visible.

- Yes, it went from green to red.

- Yeah. Perfect, okay. So when it’s red, that means it’s essentially off. And if I double click on it, that means it’s on. That’s it. So you can just double click on all the scans you would like on or off. And red is off and green is on. That’s it. Easy peasy.

- I like that little trick where you turn them all off and then you just choose what to turn on.

- Oh, yeah. There’s sort of advanced controls. You can go up here and you can turn, yeah, turn them all off.

- I love that trick.

- You can go turn them back on one by one love. What we’ve found is that people like a simpler tour sometimes. It’s less overwhelming.

So from a photographer’s perspective, they might want to configure that for their agent so that their MLS is showing a tour with fewer scans. It’s just less hassle for the home buyer.

- It’s less overwhelming.

- It’s less overwhelming. Exactly.

- Yeah.

- So the detailed version of the tour, well, I mean they want more information. So you can give them that. You can turn on everything and so they can see significantly more data. So you can have curated experiences that are for different stages in that buyer’s journey.

- Okay, so from the real estate photographer’s perspective, there’s two things. One, check the box that you would like to have the iGUIDE Lead Magnet activated. That creates a duplicate tour.

And then second, either, as Charlene mentioned, deactivate all scan points and add in just the ones you want or the reverse. Start with all your scan points and then hide the ones you don’t want to show.

- Yeah.

- You got it, yeah.

- You got it.

- Okay, great. So there’s not much work for the photographer. Well, let me ask the question a little differently. Charlene, iGUIDE Lead Magnet Service, iGUIDE Lead Magnet, this feature.

- Yeah.

- Does iGUIDE charge for this service?

- Aw this is the most exciting point. I love that the team doesn’t. I think it’s just an awesome feature that iGUIDE enabled and created for the benefit of the photographer.

Because if you’ll let me, I’ll talk about some of those where it’s like, it’s an added feature where it helps you differentiate yourself.

- Well, let me just first, for clarification, there’s no charge. It’s a free service.

- No charge.

- Whatever it is that I’m doing with iGUIDE, if I’m using iGUIDE Instant, iGUIDE Standard, iGUIDE Premium, regardless of which service I’m using, the addition of iGUIDE Lead Magnet is no charge. No charge to the photographer. No charge to the photographer. Okay.

- Yeah.

- So what are your thoughts in terms of, does the photographer charge, not charge?

- I would. I think it’s a service. And I think if you put it in perspective of what the relationship you have as a photographer with your Realtor is that there is additional conversation and time. And that needs to be monetized because it is a service, right?

To be straight and simple about it, I think it’s fair. So you can figure out if you wanted to.

You could use it as a bonus for a limited time if you wanted to entice real estate agents to work with you or Realtors. You can use that as a lead gen tool just as being a photographer because it’s simple and easy.

You can use it as a differentiator in the marketplace because this isn’t offered with other providers. The level of detail, the quality that you’re going to receive. And the fact that, I have to say this, we don’t charge for your hosting, right?

Like we have a per project pricing model. We don’t charge for additional monthly subscriptions and otherwise. So it makes it really flexible for that photographer to use the solution, which we’re really proud of.

- For clarification, how long, since you’re paying per tour, how long is the hosting?

- 150 days, is it Chris?

- So iGUIDE Instant is 120 days. And every other type of iGUIDE package is one year.

- And in the 10 plus years of Planitar, has iGUIDE ever charged for hosting after that year?

- No.

- That’s why I asked because-

- It allows you to just turn it back up.

“Lead generation is top of mind for everybody. Being able to understand that someone’s looking at that listing, they’re already interested, it is a warm lead. So as soon as I receive that notification, I can respond to that person in real-time before they look at another property. So it eliminates that lag in time. It opens up a wealth of possibilities for that real estate agent to just quickly reply using the custom feature, or as Chris mentioned, the automated feature.”

Charlene Hancock Senior Marketing Manager Planitar

Inc. (iGUIDE) www.GoiGUIDE.com

- Don’t promise, iGUIDE doesn’t promise that it’s free forever. But in your history, you-

- Yeah.

- Even though you promised that it’s, the hosting is no charge for a year, you’ve never charged even after a year.

- That’s right. We automatically turn an iGUIDE off after a year. But we give you the ability to turn it right back on if you wish.

- Okay. So Charlene, going back to your two points, I heard two thoughts. One was a service. Photographers should charge for it just like any other service.

- Of course.

- Second is there might be real estate photographers that say, “Hey, I’m not going to charge my clients. I’m going to use this as an added value. I’m going to differentiate my photography service business in the market because the other photographers are not offering this.” It’s a differentiator: why to use this particular real estate photographer.

- Exactly.

- I would offer maybe a third idea: do the first tour at no charge.

- Yeah.

- First let me say that again. Do the first iGUIDE Lead Magnet for every one of your clients at no charge for the first one. And then let them know. I can offer this to you for all your other tours. Here’s how I charge for that.

- That’s a great idea, yeah.

- Yeah, okay.

- I mean, like everything with iGUIDE, you can really make it your own, right? In terms of how you use it. You market it. You put it out there. There’s enough flexibility, I think, in the platform that you can tailor it to whatever you need it to be.

- Cool. So for our photographers that are watching, real estate photographers, you can go to: www.GOIiGUIDE.com

And you can schedule a video chat with an iGUIDE Specialist. If you’re a real estate agent watching today’s show, you can book an iGUIDE shoot with a real estate photographer that offers iGUIDE. Simply look for the button that says: Find a Service Provider.

- You got it.

- Are -- Anything else that we haven’t talked about in terms of the iGUIDE Lead Magnet?

- I don’t think so.

- I think we nailed it.

- I think honestly, it’s a very straightforward tool that was created for the benefit of the Realtor and the photographer. So for us, we tried to keep it easy to use, simple to understand, and not too overwhelming, given of course the volume of work that they’re doing in this environment and trying to drive for. We want to keep it easy.

- And again, I know this is, today is Thursday, May 9th, 2024. I want to say the service has been out for maybe two weeks. iGUIDE Lead Magnet. Is it too soon to ask you about feedback from real estate photographers?

- So it’s interesting. We reached out to people before we released this to get feedback. And what we noticed was that people immediately understood the value of generating leads.

But what they didn’t immediately realize was that the lead generation in a 3D tour would create essentially a feedback mechanism. So there’s nothing more boring than talking about web traffic. Unless you find that really exciting, which is cool.

- Yeah, yeah.

- So the number of views is a valuable stat in terms of how well a virtual tour is performing for sure. It’s on the internet.

But the number of people that have reached out because of the tour is so vastly more important. That’s the thing that we’re sort of looking to see if people appreciate or pick up on.

And that feedback is no longer, either non-existent or meek. It’s pretty incredible because if you can say that your virtual tour connected you with 10, 20, 30 buyers, that’s absolutely massive.

And we’re hoping that shows value essentially for the 3D tour experience at iGUIDE. And then that translates into something that our real estate photographers and service providers get to see. So that’s what we’re hoping for in terms of feedback.

- We’ve talked about the iGUIDE Lead Magnet specifically for leads for real estate agents.

Chris, with your background as a real estate photographer -- in your previous life -- do you see the iGUIDE Lead Magnet as potentially being a lead magnet for real estate photographers as well? The way they show off a particular tour?

- Absolutely. Whoever’s connected to the banner was going to receive the email. So someone can use it as a demo for their services. Absolutely. It’s also viable for rental properties. There’s no reason why you couldn’t use it.

And there’s probably applications we haven’t even thought of yet across a whole bunch of different industries, yeah.

- Okay, so while we tried to stay laser sharp focus for real estate agents, real estate photographers, in terms of verticals, and in

addition to rental properties, have you given any other thought in terms of other use cases for the iGUIDE Lead Magnet in other verticals?

- Well, I think it would be great for construction. I mean, if you’re, we have a lot of photographers that are now branching out into construction in off season times and otherwise.

So if you have a construction project and you do an iGUIDE, you can anonymize it so that people can’t find the property by outdoor details or otherwise. You could add that lead gen magnet into that. I mean, and ask people in terms of getting their project done, if they like your kitchen, they like your work you’re shopping online at night, that’s a great way to drive leads, right?

- There you go, yeah.

- For... For projects and otherwise. I think anytime that you introduce a lead gen form, you can find an application for it. Just because if you’re showing off your work and you’re using the iGUIDE, there’s probably ways that you can implement it into your business.

- So just for clarification, you can embed an iGUIDE. So-

- Yeah.

- A photographer could add some content around a tour to say, “Ask me about our free lead generation magnet.” “Try it for yourself.” “Move three steps ahead in the tour and you’ll see it pop up.” And “here’s how you can use that.”

So there’s ways to do that. Incidentally, Chris we talked earlier about the real estate buyer experience that either by time or by the number of scan points -- does the photographer set how many seconds or does the photographer set how many clicks or what action before that Lead Magnet pops up?

- Oh, that’s a good question. So we did our research and we’ve pre-configured it. So in order to -- there’s always this delicate ballet between flexibility and complexity. So we wanted to make this as simple as possible at launch. So we’ve set it.

And then based on user feedback, we’ll refine that as we go. Initial feedback has been nothing but positive. So I’m not super concerned that people will want different actions. But I mean, this is going to grow as it matures. So, yeah.

- So the default is actually two things. Either in around 30 seconds or if you move through the tour X number of scan points, then the Lead Magnet’s going to automatically pop up?

- That’s exactly right. Now, the interesting thing about that is that that’s going to catch people who have no idea that this exists.

“Lead generation is top of mind for everybody. Being able to understand that someone’s looking at that listing, they’re already interested, it is a warm lead. So as soon as I receive that notification, I can respond to that person in real-time before they look at another property. So it eliminates that lag in time. It opens up a wealth of possibilities for that real estate agent to just quickly reply using the custom feature, or as Chris mentioned, the automated feature.”

Charlene

Hancock Senior Marketing Manager Planitar Inc.

(iGUIDE) www.GoiGUIDE.com

But what we can foresee is that people will get accustomed to this and they’ll want to take advantage of it. So iGUIDE in, for example, my area is ubiquitous. Every house has one. When there isn’t one, it’s weird.

So if I know, I mean I’m obviously very familiar with iGUIDE features, so. I’ll specifically look for them.

And this is going to be one of those. So if I were, for example, a buying agent and I was looking for my client, I would immediately just go to the speech bubble icon for Lead Magnet, click it, and then request that information for a house I thought was interesting. It’s not necessarily just for a buyer.

It can also be for a buyer representative. And it can be for someone who knows that that button is there. So we’re trying to get people to that information as quickly as possible. That’s kind of on brand for us.

- Okay. Charlene, from the photographer’s perspective, are you able to kind of list, “hey, photographer, here are the selling points on the iGUIDE Lead Magnet of how you can use this service as an add-on charge for it.”

But here are the three points or five points that you should make with real estate agents about why use the iGUIDE Lead Magnet.

- For sure. I think it’s instant. So the interactivity is right there. It’s simple to use. And it’s very intuitive for buyers and agents alike to manage. And then it’s integrated right in with your iGUIDE system.

So it’s becoming just part and parcel with the experience that you’re providing to your clients. I think anytime you’re improving

your client experience, it adds to your value. So whether that be brand equity, your UX, if that’s your user experience that you’re looking to develop, or just even your professionalism.

I think it’s a great way to increase your offering as an agent to be able to build yourself out.

- So as a photographer, I’m going to help you generate more leads.

- More leads, yeah. You’re going to increase-

- More houses for more money more often.

- You got it. You’re going to get larger listings because you’re going to look like a more professional agent. And it’s such a simple feature to enable just from both sides of that, right?

- Right, which is the flip side. We’ve only touched on it a little bit, but we’re talking about leads for prospective buyers of the house.

And I think Charlene, you talked about it, is that may very well be somebody who also has a house to sell.

- Yeah, right?

- And that’s an opportunity to engage with that person before they have already picked an agent to help them.

- You bet. Because I think that buyers are smarter than ever. They’re more educated than ever. I think in a slower housing market, you’re looking to look, to get the most for your investment.

And so you’re going to choose that buyer that has a better profile, has, if you will, more bells and whistles, offers more for the charge of their services. And it really puts you at the forefront of that listing.

So the buyer’s interest is represented by that, by increasing the accessibility of their listing and having the ability to get real-time feedback.

- Chris, anything to add to that?

- No, that was perfect. She’s too good. You don’t even need me.

- So Charlene, Chris, how excited are you about the iGUIDE Lead Magnet feature?

- This is my excited face, right? Pretty excited.

- Come on. No I think, I don’t know. I mean I live and breathe marketing. That’s been my professional career for a number of years now. I love anything that makes it better for a buyer or makes it better for our clients. I mean, I think the team was very thoughtful about putting it together and making it easy to use for both a photographer and the Realtor.

I think it’s an awesome solution.

- Yeah, everybody wins here. The buyer gets a better experience. The agent gets more people who convert into leads.

The photographer gets something that they can sell. Obviously, the seller, and then the seller’s agent as a representative, they’re going to get the whole experience of having people virtually interact with their home without having to literally have them physically go there.

So that’s kind of nice. You don’t have to clean. I think everybody wins.

- Awesome. Charlene, Chris, thanks for being on the show today.

- I appreciate it, Dan. It was awesome to get to chat. It’s always great to see you. Thank you for having us.

- Yeah, thank you.

- You bet. And we’ve been visiting today with Planitar Senior Marketing Manager Charlene Hancock and Planitar Product Marketing Manager Chris White. Planitar again is the company, the maker of iGUIDE.

For Charlene and Chris. I’m Dan Smigrod, Founder of the We Get Around Network Forum.

And you’ve been watching WGAN-TV Live at 5.