Invest In Your Nest!

  The neighbor may be just the person to help you sell your listing.  Think about it: Since they already like the neighborhood, they are more likely to suggest to friends or acquaintances there's a house for sale in their neighborhood. You want, and need, all the "advertising" you can get. Talk to the neighbors, let them know that you are selling the house next door and give them a custom mini Virtual Tour CD like the one Tours D’ Force gives to all their clients and home sellers. Ask them if they know anyone looking to buy, and if perhaps they might be interested in the house themselves. Most people would like to help choose their new neighbors!

Many homeowners know people who want to live in their neck of the woods; this is one reason many seasoned real estate professionals hold their listings open to neighbors and send out postcards to neighbors announcing the listing - the neighbors might know people who are interested in the home!   Also, neighbors who are out and about chatting with each other, laughing and playing with their kids, mowing their lawns or painting their fences, or even who just offer a smile and helpful area knowledge to the buyer-to-be they pass on the street can make a very favorable impression on prospective buyers.

It’s a good idea, when listing a home for sale, to touch base with neighbors and let them know; it’s in their best interests to get good new neighbors, so they might be able to go the extra mile in showing the neighborhood’s biggest asset - themselves - off to its best advantage.

Giving the neighbors a unique marketing tool that is a perfect upgrade to your Tours D Force Virtual Tours! Available on CD or DVD, have Tours D Force create a custom disc of your Virtual Tour with a V-slideshow for their distribution. Tour Discs are also great for sales centers, open houses, investor opportunities, and much more. Leave your customers remembering what you have to offer by handing them out as a keepsake for your client and even as a business card!

GENERATE MORE REFERRALS!
Tours D' Force marketing tools makes it easy for your clients to tell others about you. Let us create a complete marketing program for your sellers and they will certainly spread the word about your unique programs. The seller’s friends, neighbors, and family will have the right impression about your professionalism and use of cutting edge marketing and technology. Tour Discs make it easy for them to pass it on to their friends and family, and each time, your contact information will be seen!



Read more:
Marketing with mini CDs:  http://halholubik.blogspot.com/2010/10/marketing-with-mini-cds.html

Home seller FREE CD Gift:  http://halholubik.blogspot.com/2010/10/home-owners-free-cd-gift.html
   
Agents FREE CD Gift:  http://halholubik.blogspot.com/2010/10/real-estate-agents-free-cd-gift.html   






Hal Holubik
Owner / Operator
ToursDForce.com
Order a Lenawee virtual tour: 517-486-4209

Powered by http://www.ToursDForce.com. Your Southern Michigan Property Marketing Experts!

Tours D' Force News

Tours D’ Force, creators of Lenawee County virtual tours, is pleased to announce three new cutting edge additions to our tours: Full screen HD virtual tours, mobile virtual tours and photo bracketing to bring out color and depth in your pictures.

Visit our blog at Lenawee County Virtual Tours for more information on all of these new technologies and view some of our HD virtual tours. Use your smart phone to view a mobile virtual tour here: http://rtvpix.com/RE-1716-3CCGHO-01

Or scan the QR Code.


Tours D’ Force provides you with all of the great tools you could ever imagine or need when it comes to marketing yourself, your business and your properties online. Backed by www.RealTourVision.com the world leader in virtual tour software and #1 Ranking virtual tour company on the Internet, you will find that our marketing tools are always evolving faster than anyone else. As your dedicated property marketing partner, we make sure the virtual tours you order from us today are still making you look your best tomorrow. See them at our website: http://www.toursdforce.com/

Today all homes, large and small, need virtual tours. According to the National Association of Realtors’ 2009 Survey of Home Buyers and Sellers, 90% of all home buyers begin their search on the internet. With so many homes available right now, most buyers narrow their search by looking at homes with virtual tours first. Whether you are a Southern Michigan Realtor or homeowner, put your home’s best face on the internet with a Tours D’ Force Virtual Tour.

Tours D’ Force has been providing the best virtual tours available in Southern Michigan since 2008. We chose Real Tour Vision (RTV) as our partner because they provide the best technology and tour quality in the business. Since that time they have continued to improve their products and services, keeping ahead of their competitors in every area.

Contact us soon to book your Southern Michigan virtual tour and find out more about optimizing your search engine visibility.

Hal Holubik
Toursdforce Virtual Tours
Lenawee County virtual tours
Order a virtual tour: 517.486.4209

Real Estate Virtual Tours are here!! More people choose http://www.realtourvision.com/virtual tour company than any other virtual tour provider on the market. We encourage you to research the 360 virtual tour industry before making a decision. We are by far the most established virtual tour company in the industry. Our virtual tour customers, and their clients get only the best and most experienced advice and help from our staff. Thank you and enjoy our virtual tours.

Powered by http://www.ToursDForce.com. Your Southern Michigan Property Marketing Experts!

Blender or Juicer

Say goodbye to white and washed-out windows… and rooms too dark!  Get perfect real estate photos each and every time in a fast and easy way with the help of your local Lenawee County virtual tour provider, Tours d’ force.  Tours D’ Force has taken exposure compensation a step further by varying the exposure into our all NEW D-Photos.

Let your photos portray the world as you see it… Don’t let your camera work on the assumption that everything is equivalent to a special hue of grey.  Ever tried taking a shot with tricky lighting, or one that has a lot of light variations between the dark and the bright areas  and you’re not sue which exposure to use?

Have you ever tried photographing a high contrast scene, and you know that even the best exposure will typically have blown out highlights and flat shadows. The solution is Tours D’ Force D-Photo processing:

Click on the picture to take the D-Photo tour

Benefits of professional photographers:
›    Saving on lighting equipment
     No need to acquire expensive lighting equipment -and carry it- when you shoot high contrast scenes. Just enable Tours D’ Force and their new D-Photo feature, and let them merge your photos into an image with extended dynamic range.
›    Great pictures on cloudy days
     Shadowless hazy sunlight or an overcast sky usually results in dull-looking photographs. The D-Photo feature of Tours D’ Force can turn them into great-looking images. Check out this amazing photography.
›    Saving time and money in post-processing
     Tours D’ Force automatic blending, unlimited stacking, easy comparison of results and batch processing will save you hours of editing time while creating results that make you look like a pro.
=    Well exposed images
     Photos taken from the inside of a home or a business are almost always a high contrast scene -- you can't limit your view to areas with the same brightness when shooting. By taking views under several exposures and processing them Tours D’ Force can create an image that will show details in both the dark and bright areas of the scene.


Don’t waste your time trying to juice-up your photos in some photo editing program.  Let Tours D’ Force blend your image to perfection.

Emphasize the quality of your properties by improving your photos.

☑    Quality real estate photos are an essential marketing tool.
☑    Say goodbye to white windows and rooms too dark.


Catch the Perfect Picture With Tours D’ Force!


Team Toursdforce
Hal Holubik
LC Virtual Tours
http://www.Toursdforce.com Order a virtual tour: 517-486-4209

Virtual Tours are here!! More people choose www.realtourvision.com virtual tour company than any other virtual tour provider on the market. We encourage you to research the 360 virtual tour industry before making a decision. We are by far the most established virtual tour company in the industry. Our virtual tour customers and their clients get only the best and most experienced advice and help from our staff. Thank you and enjoy our virtual tours.

Powered by http://www.ToursDForce.com. Your Southern Michigan Property Marketing Experts!

The Power In Numbers

 The potential for successfully selling your home online grows with each passing day. According to the National Association of Realtors, 90 percent of buyers used the Internet when searching for a home. With the excess supply of homes on the market, marketing your home online can greatly increase your reach. Chances are high that this medium will lead a home buyer right to your door.

Why Use Social Networks?

Because selling a house these days takes a lot more imagination than it used to-especially in this economy! The Internet, and in conjunction social networking sites, makes this stressful process a lot easier. The point of social networking sites is to interact and connect with people. Sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are quickly revolutionizing the way information is spread. According to Facebook, if Facebook were a country, it would be the THIRD LARGEST country in the world. Why not harness that power to quickly and efficiently spread the news about the home you have for sale?

How to Use Social Networking?

Tours D’ Force, your Lenawee County virtual tour company recognizes the importance of Networking to find prospects and get properties sold. That is why our virtual tours have social networking built right into the virtual tour viewer. With a simple click of the mouse, viewers can add your virtual tour to their social networks.


In just one click, you can harness the social aspect of the internet through social networking sites such as: Digg, Delicious, MySpace, Furl, Facebook, Mixx, FriendFeed, BackFlip, LinkedIn, Bebo, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Twitter, and Technorati.

One of the things that realtors have often said to me over the years is, they said, Hal, my customer wants to participate.  We’ll one of the things that you can do as a realtor to help your customers to participate is by utilizing the buttons at the bottom of the virtual tour.  The single click social networking buttons. 

If your client has a Facebook account, a MySpace account, a linkedIn account, a Twitter account, etc., they can upload the virtual tour to their own personal account.  Think about this for a second, you the realtor may have a hundred friends that are on your Facebook account, so you can click on the Facebook button and go ahead and upload the virtual tour onto your Facebook profile page. But your customer may have another hundred people that they know, and maybe their kid has another two hundred people, so, bottom line is don’t be afraid of involving your customers, draw attention to the bottom line buttons in the virtual tour so that way you can get the word out there. Put it in the different social networking sites, let this thing really take off and be seen by a lot of people.  With real estate as with many other kinds of sales, it’s a numbers game, the more people that see it the higher the ability of it being sold quickly.  Having a high quality virtual tour helps once again establish you, the realtor as being tech savvy as well as now involving your client in the process as much as they want to be involved. 

Virtual Tour Syndication, so folks, when we talk about going out there and grabbing a broader net.  Being able to cast your net to more prospects, we really need to make sure that you’re listing, and frankly, your virtual tour is cast out there for people to find. 

Social Networking should be part of everyone conversations and activities. 

Can You Show Me Evidence?

Let me share a story with you about an elementary fifth-grader in my home town of Blissfield, MI. population 3,000.  This Blissfield Elementary School student’s portrayal of Leonardo da Vinci for a class project ended up winning first place in a nationwide contest sponsored by electronics company Samsung.  His school teacher, who had started the wax museum project several years ago, submitted a video of Austin giving his presentation.  About two weeks ago, he learned he was in the top ten.

He was pretty excited that he actually got that close to winning, he said.  “I wanted to know how to win right away.”

Having learned that it would take collect the most votes on Facebook to win, some of his friends made signs to put on lockers in his homeroom.  His older sister, a student at Grand Valley State University spread the word among her friends. His teacher’s daughter rounded up votes at Spring Arbor University.

And, Austin said he couldn’t count how many people came up to him and said “My grandma voted for you on Facebook.”

Well, I needn’t say more, Austin’s presentation received the most votes he won a $500 prize for himself and a document camera for his school.

There is power in numbers! And it doesn’t matter who you are or where you or your listing are as more individuals turn to the Internet during the home search process, the more likely your home will be seen if you take advantage of the opportunities provided by Social Networking.

Call me today and ask me how to integrate social networking into your overall marketing strategy.


Read more:  http://halholubik.blogspot.com/




Hal Holubik
Tours D’ Force
Southern Michigan Virtual Tours
www.Toursdforce.com
hal@toursdforce.com

Powered by http://www.ToursDForce.com. Your Southern Michigan Property Marketing Experts!

OPEN 24/7

I suspect that you’ve had a conversation or two about “Open Houses” and how they are used to sell a home. Traditionally, when people were thinking about moving, they would “prowl” their favorite neighborhoods by car to see if any homes were for sale. Sundays were always popular prowling days, because many real estate agents would hold open houses for the purpose of letting interested people see inside.

It is very rare that somebody buys a home without first seeing the insides. Open houses offered prospective buyers a chance to get the rare glimpse inside the home, so they were willing to kill several hours on a Sunday afternoon going from one open house to another. But this is not so much the case anymore! In fact, that’s the reason for the e-mail today.

                                                                                                                                                                
It is my belief that the “one day per month” open house has been replaced. Prospective homebuyers are no longer prowling in their cars on Sunday afternoon rather they are prowling the internet, from the comfort of their easy chair. Through the power of the Internet, you and your clients can have an Open House, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

You have to be able to offer your open houses 24/7, and you do this with virtual tours. Tours D’ Force, your Southern Michigan virtual tour company uses high-quality digital imaging, we produce interior and exterior photographs, HD virtual tours and HD V-slideshows that enhance your existing Real Estate marketing initiatives. Realtors® can reach more clients and show more homes without even having to be there. Tours D’ Force professional photography and virtual tour services are perfect for Lenawee County and the surrounding Real Estate markets. With an eye for detail, our highly trained, professional staff uses specialized cameras & lighting to best showcase your client’s home. Years of experience combined with the latest digital technology allow us to produce outstanding results with the greatest efficiency. We take less time out of your busy schedule, giving you more time to focus on what’s important: listing, selling and of course your clients.

The language of real state is photography.  Buyers use the internet to preview homes and select those they want their Realtor to show them. To ensure that your homes are shown in the best possible light, hire a professional photographer who knows the best angles, precise lighting and has the appropriate tools.

We will build you a comprehensive, site specific custom website packed full of information about your home, the neighborhood, and quite frankly about you, a complete, dynamic website that buyers will find and stay on for several minutes. Our websites are expertly designed and get found easily on Google by buyers looking for homes in your area.

We know buyers are looking for pictures of homes, neighborhood information, video, walkability, floor plans, school information, home amenities and they are comparing your home to you competition.  By creating a site that gives them everything they’re looking for-buyers will stay engaged in your home much longer than any other home on the market, increasing the odds they will identify your home as one they’d like to see in person.

What good is getting a virtual tour from anyone if it is not seen by everyone possible? A big reason home sellers use a listing agent to sell their home is to get that maximum exposure only a listing agent can bring to the table.

At Tours D’ Force your listing & tour will appear on Google Base, Craigslist, Trulia, Zillow, Oodle, Lycos, Local, Hot Pads, Vast, Properazzi, Dot Homes and more! Listings pushed to the exposure engine receive on average 25% MORE viewings and are kept updated until your listing is sold! Tours D’ Force also has direct access to the PicturePath distribution portal through Realtor.com which puts your listing onto 83 additional national portal sites. You WILL get more viewings when you use our exposure engine and PicturePath portal than you would if you simply added listings into the MLS and company site alone.

Show your clients that you’re doing everything possible to sell their home by giving them an open house 24/7 with a high quality virtual tour.

Read more:  http://halholubik.blogspot.com/

Hal Holubik
Tours D’ Force
Southern Michigan Virtual Tours
www.Toursdforce.com
Order a virtual tour today: 517-486-4209


Powered by http://www.ToursDForce.com. Your Southern Michigan Property Marketing Experts!

The Large Home Myth

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Virtual tours are not just for large homes! A 2009 study by the National Association of Realtors indicates that more than 90% of home buyers search for homes on line. This means virtual tours are important for every home. The study also shows that the internet has surpassed yard signs as the second-most-used method for buyers to find the home they eventually purchase. Here are the significant numbers:

In 2009, 36% of home buyers found their new home through a Realtor; a matching 36% found the home they eventually purchased on line; 12% found a home from a yard sign or open house; and only 2% found their home through a print publication. For perspective, in 2001, 48% of buyers found their home through a Realtor and only 8% found their home on the internet. It seems the internet is poised to surpass Realtors as the way most buyers find a new home!

The home below is only 888 square feet, but it is beautifully maintained in a nice neighborhood - and someone is looking for it on the internet right now!  Check out ALL the virtual home tours on Southern Michigan Real Estate, TourLenaweeCounty.com.

What do buyers want to see on line? Pictures – more importantly, virtual tours. Many refine their initial search to show only listings with virtual tours. Buyers are deciding what houses they want to see based on what they find on the internet. They are telling their Realtor what homes they want to see, not waiting for the agent to come up with a list. And they are finding that Realtor on line; often because the agent represents one of the homes they want to see. Small homes need to be on the internet with virtual tours.

A virtual tour can show a home that looks small from the outside actually has plenty of space on the inside. It can show that the home has an inviting layout, plenty of light and special features that you can’t see from stills or from the curb.

Tours D’ Force online Virtual Tours, in partnership with RTV virtual tour software company, offers the very best HD virtual tours available. Our HD tours can go full screen to make an even better experience for the buyer. We offer not only tours and v-slide shows - our Internet Optimizer can help bring you great organic search engine rankings. We can also help you market your listings to area real estate agents and home owners through internet and print avenues.

Palatial or cozy, every home needs a virtual tour. Get the best. Tours D’ Force online Virtual Tours and RTV, Inc.

Hal Holubik
Tours D' Force
Southern Michigan Virtual Tours
http://www.toursdforce.com/
Property Marketing That Works!
Order your Virtual Tours Today: 517.486.4209



Lenawee County Virtual Tours are here!! More people choose http://www.toursdforce.com virtual tour company than any other virtual tour provider on the market. We encourage you to research the 360 virtual tour industry before making a decision. We are by far the most established virtual tour company in the industry. Our virtual tour customers and their clients get only the best and most experienced advice and help from our staff. Thank you and enjoy our virtual tours.


Powered by http://www.ToursDForce.com. Your Southern Michigan Property Marketing Experts!

Five Levels of Success

Do you need just digital photos professionally photographed? We will go out and photograph your digital photos for the MLS(s), Realtor.com, company web site, personal web site, flyers and advertising. There is not a virtual tour or slideshow, just the still images done professionally. Gives you more time to do what you do best, list and sell. We’ll process the stills and then email them to you!


Nothing will help sell a listing FASTER than quality digital photography complemented by a great virtual tour, 87% of potential home buyers look at homes FIRST with virtual tours. Our Basic HD Full Screen Virtual Tour Includes: 4 - 360° virtual tour spins & 6 - digital photos Free Music, Company logo, agent photo, custom banner, contact info and weekly hit report sent to you.

For those of you that prefer the V-Slide over the interactive 360 virtual tours our HD V- Slide certainly will impress. This machine of wonder has been built using the very latest flash based engine; it loads at impressively timely speeds, and displays full screen HD images with grace and elegance. With the ever growing demand for professional photography, the need to have those photos displayed in a uniquely impressive format has never been greater.

Are you ready for Toursdforce HD V-Side?  Your customers are that’s for sure!  We’ll arrive on site and professionally photograph up to 20 scenes for you to really amaze your sellers too!  Great for MLS(s), Realtor.com, personal web site, flyers and advertising.

Want to step it UP a notch. Sometimes that vantage point is UP! The kind of UP that we’re talking about is only attainable from THIRD and FOURTH story windows. It’s simply impossible to achieve this impact from the ground or from an aircraft. Elevated Photos captures an amazing picture of your property and its surroundings.

As an alternative to expensive airplane flights you now can bring your real estate listings and property to the top by adding on one of our elevated shots with any of your virtual tours. Your listings will rise above the rest!

We also have what we call an Exposure Engine, we have found multiple portals that will get your listings on more web sites than ever before. This is a proven strategy that does work. It’s a numbers game, the more places that the listing shows up, the more chances you have to sell it faster. In addition, two hot places to have your listings today is CraigsList and YouTube. Why? More people go to CraigsList looking for almost anything and everything. We can provide you with a custom Craigslist posting and you don't have to do any of the work. With the introduction of SmartPhone technology YouTube is one of the most searched places for people with their cell phones. Having a YouTube video is another great way to attract potential clients to your listings. This service is FREE with the purchase of any one of our virtual tours and our Explosive Exposure Engine. But we didn’t stop there, we’re also tossing in our E-flyer so you can easily share listing details and your tour with prospects. We will publish your virtual tour to our local Blog portal; http://www.tourlenaweecounty.com/ which allows home shoppers, locals and literally any internet visitor to preview our entire virtual tour inventory with the click of a mouse! Finally...and saving the very best for last, we’re even providing you with a custom QR code to attach to your yard sign. You’ll be truly amazed at the traffic you’re getting when your weekly hit reports come in.

Hal Holubik
Tours D’ ForceSouthern Michigan Virtual Tours  
www.Toursdforce.com
Order a virtual tour today: 517-486-4209

Powered by http://www.ToursDForce.com. Your Southern Michigan Property Marketing Experts!

QR Code Sign Riders

In response to consumer trends, Toursdforce, a Lenawee County virtual tour company, is offering QR (Quick Response) Code signage.  QR Codes are a great way to do on-site advertising, they deliver on the customer pulling up in front of the house and get immediately information on that home.  They’ll also be able to see photographs and a virtual tour of the home simply by sitting in front of the house.  Now that’s a powerful tool when you consider that very often when someone pulls in front of the house today, less than half actually speak to the agent when they first try to call.  While if their using QR codes, their able to see information about the house, their able to find information frankly about you the realtor.

 

“This would be the most obvious usage in my opinion” says Hal Holubik at Toursdforce. Consumers like to get as much information as humanly possible before calling any kind of sales person.  By placing a QR Code on your sign you will be providing potentially the hottest leads, those driving around looking for homes to buy, with all of the information needed about that property instantly, price, home details, community info, and even the agent’s contact info, typically things that a lawn sign does not provide and by leveraging a QR Code you are really giving the consumer what they want when they want it.  It’s that tech savvyness, it’s the fact that I have a mobile web site so a person pulling up in front of the house on their iPhone they can view your home, and from the realtor’s perspective view ALL the of the different listings.  That’s a powerful tool for the realtor to utilize but it’s also a powerful selling tool for the realtor to be able to differentiate themselves on a listing appointment from other realtors too.

QR coded sign riders will absolutely help you the realtor push the envelope in being able to have a broader net, you want to have a broad net to be able to catch more fish or in this case more prospects to view your home and be able to sell that home faster.    


Hal Holubik
Owner / Operator
ToursDForce.com
Order a Lenawee virtual tour: 517-486-4209

Read more: http://halholubik.blogspot.com/

Virtual Tours are here!! More people choose http://www.realtourvision.com virtual tour company than any other virtual tour provider on the market. We encourage you to research the 360 virtual tour industry before making a decision. We are by far the most established virtual tour company in the industry. Our virtual tour customers, and their clients get only the best and most experienced advice and help from our staff. Thank you and enjoy our virtual tours.
Powered by http://www.ToursDForce.com. Your Southern Michigan Property Marketing Experts!

What Size Should I Make My QR Code?

QR Code Scan Distance

What’s size should I make my QR code?  The BIGGER the BETTER, not always says Lenawee County virtual tour company, Toursdforce.  They all work as long as they are of high quality, although when publishing them you will want to consider a size that’s appropriate for the scanning environment there being put into and here’s a good rule of thumb.

For most smartphones the relationship between scan distance and minimum QR code size is approximately 10:1 for printed material such as in a magazine, newspaper, direct mailing, business cards, flyer, etc. There’s a bit of play here depending on the sort of smartphone but 10:1 is a good rule of thumb for a well-lit black and white QR code being scanned front-on.

Simple Formula:
Minimum QR Code Size = Scanning Distance  / 10

If you have a poorly lit or obliquely positioned QR code, or a colored one where the foreground/background color contrast might not be optimal, you should probably reduce this ratio to 8:1 or less (ie; the QR code size should 1/8th or less of the scan distance).

Simple Formula:
Minimum QR Code Size = Scanning Distance  / 8

QR Code Approximate Scan Distance for Outdoor Scanning

*Scan distance will vary depending on the complexity of the QR Code and lighting.
The proper size to make your QR code depends on the medium being used.

Hal Holubik
Owner / OperatorToursDForce.com
Order a Lenawee virtual tour: 517-486-4209

Read more: http://halholubik.blogspot.com/

Virtual Tours are here!! More people choose http://www.realtourvision.com/virtual tour company than any other virtual tour provider on the market. We encourage you to research the 360 virtual tour industry before making a decision. We are by far the most established virtual tour company in the industry. Our virtual tour customers, and their clients get only the best and most experienced advice and help from our staff. Thank you and enjoy our virtual tours.

Powered by http://www.ToursDForce.com. Your Southern Michigan Property Marketing Experts!

Pitching New Services to Clients

What should you do when your industry is changing rapidly and your clients are not aware of the new services they should be asking for?

It’s a challenge for many service firms because yesterday’s state-of-the-art practices are becoming outdated in a business environment increasingly dominated by the Internet. One company that has faced this challenge is Tours D’ Force an online virtual tour company that specializes in property marketing and digital media between Southern Michigan and the rest of the world.

   Small Businesses Need Innovation -  Tours D’ Force Is There To Help!

 

   Target Your Market and…                           Track Results

 
                            
Become a leader in your field

TDF local clients were accustomed to paying for conventional marketing services, and they found it hard to understand the value of online tools such as search engine optimization, digital marketing solutions, and social networking to truly become visible. “We can’t only provide them with what has worked well in the past,” says Hal Holubik founder and organizer of Tours D’ Force. “For our clients to be successful, we have to give them tools for the future.”

How do you convince your clients to use something new from you?

THE BACKGROUND

Hal Holubik founded TDF online virtual tours in 2008 to provide property marketing services to Southern Michigan companies, mostly real estate agents/brokers and  small/medium-sized businesses interested in expanding presents to online prospects. Hal Holubik’s background spans Lenawee County and Southern Michigan, so he is ideally suited for this role. Born and educated in Lenawee County, he is a best virtual tour provider there with powerful property marketing tools targeted to Southern Michigan managers who want to increase traffic to their web sites, create better SEO, and of course encourage small business growth in Lenawee County and around the world.

He started TDF online virtual tours after completing training as a certified RTV (RealTourVision.com) full service dealer, a Blissfield-based property marketing firm. His company is offering their clients and customers expert advice on internet marketing.  Tours D' Force exceeds competitors in photographic quality and clarity, technological enhancements and most importantly unsurpassed personalized services that will make certain your online endeavors are a success.

In the past few years, as mobile marketing has become more important, RTV developed new mobile tour, including customized QR codes. A challenge was getting customers to try them.

THE SOLUTION

“In order to change client perceptions, you have to target both the influencers and your target market,” Hal Holubik.

Influencers are the organizations that have impact on client perceptions, such as local MLS and trade associations, and business/real estate agencies. Since their mandate is to educate their members, they are interested in learning about new ways to do things and passing them on. Hal Holubik helps them fulfill this mandate by offering to put on seminars about online digital marketing. The presentation is very informative and will be well received giving him credibility and subsequent invitations to other speaking events.

In order to influence his target market directly, Hal Holubik started by getting an endorsement from clients in Lenawee County. He deliberately picked a highly reputable, long-standing client, and offered to provide with a free customized all weather proof QR sticker to place on their yard sign, in addition to the property marketing services they were paying for.

“We worked with them for two years, so they trusted us,” Hal Holubik explains. “As well, our offer was risk free. They didn’t have to pay anything and they didn’t have to use the QR sticker if they didn’t want to.”

The client loved it as their hit states came in and gave TDF’s online marketing services a strong endorsement. Because the client was so well-regarded, that endorsement was influential in encouraging other clients to ask for the property marketing services TDF could provide.

To get prestigious speaking engagements and great endorsements, however, you have to be sure the novel services you’re offering actually make a difference. Since practice in the online marketing world is changing so rapidly, achieving high quality requires paying considerable attention to monitoring and assessing these changes. Hal Holubik says that he will continue to spend more of the firm’s resources on this.

THE RESULT

Hal Holubik’s new mobile online service offerings and his two-pronged strategy of educating his client base will prove to be successful. The Southern Michigan clients will be happy because the new online digital marketing tools will help to increase their sales revenue.

Not only will this increased and diversified the company’s revenue stream, it will also given Hal Holubik and his team a better understanding of client needs.

Use Technology to Your Advantage and Capture Interest Immediately!!!

It is time to connect with all potential buyers, provide them immediate, detailed information, demonstrate your leadership in the industry and capture leads around the clock.  Not only are QR codes simple to use, and effective.  They are also extremely cost efficient and the return will be immediate.


Tours D’ Force is a digital marketing and virtual tour provider. Offering property marketing services throughout Lenawee and Monroe Counties. Tours D’ Force is a privately held virtual tour company specializing promotional media services. Our mission is to give outstanding customer support and powerful marketing tools with many features at an affordable price. For more small business information and to learn about Tours D’ Force portfolio and property marketing services, visit http://www.toursdforce.com




Hal Holubik
Owner / Operator
ToursDForce.com
Order a Lenawee virtual tour: 517-486-4209

Read more: http://halholubik.blogspot.com/

Virtual Tours are here!! More people choose www.realtourvision.com virtual tour company than any other virtual tour provider on the market. We encourage you to research the 360 virtual tour industry before making a decision. We are by far the most established virtual tour company in the industry. Our virtual tour customers, and their clients get only the best and most experienced advice and help from our staff. Thank you and enjoy our virtual tours.

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Toursdforce Announces Mobile Marketing Service

Blissfield, MI April 5, 2011 — Toursdforce, a provider of Lenawee County virtual tours and property marketing services is pleased to announce our new mobile virtual tour for iPad, iPhone, iPod, BlackBerry, Android, and other web enabled portable devices. This new virtual tour is specially formatted for mobile devices so users of our virtual tour software can offer their customers maximum exposure.  Being that it has been programmed with JavaScript and HTML 5, the mobile tour remains interactive. Those with touch screens can actually scroll through the 360 panoramas and still images while enjoying an elegant fade from image to image. The technology has been enabled on both core products, the HD V-Slide and HD V-Tour so all users on the TDF platform can enjoy these new developments. 

Hal Holubik, Owner of Toursdforce stated: “This mobile exposure provides the perfect opportunity for our customers to start using QR Codes in their marketing packages. Because of the customization and flexibility of the TDF hit reporting system users will be able to track the number of times virtual tours are accessed by the scanning of a QR Code! An amazing feature that has TDF clients in Lenawee County and the surrounding region are cheering about and will certainly turn heads as our clients marketing campaigns get underway. ”

If you will like to see how this product looks in your phone just type this URL http://rtvpix.com/RE-7155-A3U2UE-01 on your smart phone right now and check it out!

Since late 2008, Toursdforce has continually led the way in the Southern Michigan area with marketing implementations such as interactive HD virtual tours, virtual staging, panoramic listing sign riders, single property websites, listing syndication, mobile TXT marketing, virtual tour traffic reporting, interactive floor plans, elevated photography, home staging, and social networking training. For more information call 517-486-4209 email Hal@Toursdforce.com or visit their website at http://www.ToursDForce.com . Those interested in sampling this new technology or business opportunities with Toursdforce are encouraged to visit their website for more information.

About Toursdforce
Toursdforce, a division of Tours D’ Force online virtual tours, LLC is a locally owned LC virtual tour company with team members Hal Holubik and partner Real Tour Vision. We’re a Michigan company and are proud to use software developed by a Michigan company, Real Tour Vision in Traverse City. Together we use cutting edge technology to produce razor sharp images with the highest caliber customer service. All MADE IN MICHIGAN!                                                                                                     

Contact:
Toursdforce.com, a division of Tours D’ Force online virtual tours, LLC
Hal Holubik
Owner / Organizer
517-486-4209
Hal AT ToursDForce.com

Powered by http://www.ToursDForce.com. Your Southern Michigan Property Marketing Experts!

Mobile 360 Virtual Tours

 Tours D’ Force Lenawee County Virtual Tour Company did it again. The development of the mobile HTML software that allows our 360 virtual tours to run on iPhones makes realtor’s mobile websites even more efficient for our customers.

Right now the realtor can place a rider sign on his listings that will not only show the listing with the map and only a photo of the listing now the customer will be able to see the whole tour of the property on his/her smart phone. If you will like to see how this product looks in your phone just type this URL http://rtvpix.com/RE-4305-0UTQ6D-01 on your smart phone right now and check it out!

Just place a rider with your mobile website address on each of your listings and you will not only be giving an astonishing service to your clients but you will be there  to contact the prospect that just saw your listing and help him/her become a proud owner of a new home.

This technological breakthrough places our company once again as the best virtual tour and Internet marketing provider in the market. This technology is also available on our newest product, the HD slide shows.

For all your Internet marketing and virtual tour needs just call 517 486 4209 or contact us on the web.

Thank you,

Hal Holubik
Team ToursdForce
LC Virtual Tours
http://www.Toursdforce.com
Order a virtual tour today- 517-486-4209

Virtual Tours are here!! More people choose www.realtourvision.com virtual tour company than any other virtual tour provider on the market. We encourage you to research the 360 virtual tour industry before making a decision. We are by far the most established virtual tour company in the industry. Our virtual tour customers, and their clients get only the best and most experienced advice and help from our staff. Thank you and enjoy our virtual tours.

Powered by http://www.ToursDForce.com. Your Southern Michigan Property Marketing Experts!

Pump Up Your Digital Marketing

Part IV

Think Big and Play BIGGER!

 

Blissfield, MI, March, 2011 – Hal Holubik, owner of Tours D’ Force, a Southern Michigan Virtual Tour provider says; “What good is getting a virtual tour from anyone if it is not seen by the largest audience possible?  The bottom line with real estate as with many other kinds of sales, it’s a numbers game, the more people that see it the higher the ability of it being sold quickly.” Business Professionals in every field are in need of more exposure and a better way to capture and maintain the interest of online shoppers especially on the web; they must be aware and possess the flexibility to market their virtual tours in many places.


In part III of this IV part series (see part III here:  http://halholubik.blogspot.com/2011/03/pump-up-your-digital-marketing.html) we talked about syndication and social networking, meaning increased visibility, increased business. Then we talked about social network and how you the realtor can tap into that, and how you can get your customers to tap into that also.

Now let’s dig a little deeper into what that means to you, the realtor.  First of all as part of the syndication we put together an e-mail flyer for you and the e-mail flyer in this case fits all the requirement of our local association.  It has to be within a certain size you can’t have; you know 2 megabyte pictures in it so we work with the local MLS to make sure our flyer fit their rules so that we can actually send it out to their MLS postings.  The flyer itself also is something that the realtors frankly print.  It’s a two page flyer so you have a front and back, the front has all the information on the property the back has six photos for being able to look at the home.  You would not believe how many clients I have that we do these flyers for and I’m not even sure if they realize that we put it on Craigslist and every were else because they’re so excited to have a duplicate flyer that they didn’t have to go ahead and take their time to do.

 The You Tube link is really important as well, most people realize that if you have an iPad you cannot see a virtual tour today, and the reason for that is Apple has for many years had fights with the company that has flash and it doesn’t play on an iPad.  However we put an iPad button on your virtual tour that allows your clients to click there and be able to see the video version of your virtual tours.  So it’s an important piece of our over-all marketing plan, you never know where your clients going to be or your prospects going to be, you never know what tools their going to be using to look at it so let’s make sure we’re covering as much ground as we can.  Most common denominator, whether be it a droid, a blackberry, an iPhone, an iPad, what have you, is video so let’s take advantage of that.  So that’s why we promote as part of our media exposure the fact that this is out there on You Tube.

 So here you have what I call the Google juice.  This is a look by the realtors name and number one ranking is the Southern Michigan Real Estate Blog every virtual tour that we do gets blogged to this portal site TourLenaweeCounty.com.  Second and third is the virtual tour link but going down just a little further you’ll see just searching by the realtor two of their You Tube Videos both published by Toursdforce came up on the first page.  

 Looking at it by address, 432 State St., number two is the You Tube. You also as you look down through here you’ll see Realtor.com, you’ll see Trulia, Hotpads.com, the E-Flyer, and Homes.com all there on page 1.  So if someone is Googling the address, they’re that interested in the house they want to learn more about the house here is an awful lot that they can find out about the house and by the way most of them points them right back to the listing agent and that’s pretty cool, it really reinforces that listing agent.  Also, a lot of times, you got to keep in mind, those people that are searching for a home and looking up additional information about a home are also selling a home and if their selling a home their going to turn around and naturally ask the question, why doesn’t my address have this kind of exposure and all the while in the side lines your seeing Edward Surovell, Edward Surovell, Joel Posner, Joel Posner, and you’re going to find that a lot more people are starting to ask.

So the summary of virtual tours; first make sure that you are using clear panoramic and still images to show the property in the most complimentary way. Your tour window should be viewed as if it were a single property web site with all the attributes included. Your single property website should be Search Engine Optimized (SEO). Your single property web site should include weekly statistical reporting on all of your property virtual tours. Your listings should be professionally marketed through multiple distribution channels, you don’t know where your clients or potential customers might be or what tools that they may be using. And lastly your property listings should be exposed on traditional outlets as well as non-traditional outlet such as You Tube, Craigslist, and Smart Phones.

You may be asking yourself, what’s in it for me the realtor?  Well this is what’s in it for you, its search engine optimization, it’s reporting, it’s making me look more like a professional as a realtor, and its exposure to a larger portion of the public that I can do myself.

Social Networking let’s talk a little bit about that, it should be part of everyone of your conversations and activities.  It’s a great tool for realtors who what to involve their clients.  What I mean by that is a lot of times property isn’t selling very quickly today so the realtors client is calling them up and saying you know, what can I do, well one of the things that they can do is they can use the buttons on the bottom of your virtual tour and put the virtual tour so that way all of their friend and their friends friends see it on Face Book, Tweeter, You Tube, what have you, so you really want to reinforce the fact that the virtual tours are very friendly they have button on the bottom that your client can utilize to help publicize their own property as well.  So that’s just another way of involving that nervous home seller in feeling like their doing something that has some control over their own destiny.

Also it works well for content for social sites; you know a lot of real estate agents that I come across don’t feel comfortable blogging, if they do their putting up some generic thing that their corporate wrote for them that has cookie cutter recipes on how to make pumpkin seeds and instead of doing that, look this is relevant, pumpkin seeds are not relevant especially in a real estate blog so instead of doing that take your virtual tours post them to social sites, blog about them on Activerain, talk about the property and while you’re talking about that virtual tour, embed the tour, talk about whether listings in that area are up or down that gives you a great opportunity to get social.

Virtual Staging, virtual staging quite frankly is not for everyone nor is it something that you would want to use for all of your vacant home listings but it does reinforce that you are a partner and you’re willing to explore new technologies to help your client sell their home.  One of the most difficult things for me personally is when I walk into a vacant house to real be able to tell whether my furniture fit in there, you know, what would this room look like if I had my sofa over here, if I had my big screen TV on the wall, I’m just really bad at visualizing stuff in an empty room, now a lot of other people are also.  So as part of our virtual tour packages we do offer virtual tour staging and there are several advantages to virtual tour staging one of them is what you see here.  The left photo is the way the room looks the right photo if you will, the artist rendering of the way the room could look and most people are really taken a back when they realize what I’m saying, the fact that this room is vacant, there is nothing in this room, it is the same photograph on the left side and on the right side the difference is we have had an illustrator go through on the right side and put in furniture, and a part of this is being able to take these photographs, print them out frame them and display them in that room of the house.  So it’s not just putting it on a virtual tour, it’s taking the photograph, putting it where people are going to see it looking at the home and being able to go, OH WOW, this is what this house or this room could look like.  It’s not for the faint of heart; you’re talking a fairly sizable investment on a pro-room basis however you’re not going to do every room in the house, you’re going to do two or three rooms of the house, and it’s a whole lot less expensive than going over to Rent it all City, renting furniture, staging it and keeping that furniture in place for a couple of weeks.  It’s a whole lot less than doing that and certainly still has a lot of the same attributes when you print it, frame it and display it in the home.  

When we talked earlier, in the first part of Pump-Up Your Digital Marketing we talked about the X and Y generation text messaging and how many people text in the United States, that the median age is not 12, the median age is actually 38.  So there are a lot of older Americans that are using texting in fact 36% percent of seniors that owned a cell phone where texting messaging, and why, well that how they stay in contact with their grandkids, their grandkids text and that how they communicate with them.  So today 50% of all age groups text, it’s a powerful, powerful tool that you want to harness as far as your overall property marketing effort.

So text, the fact that it delivers on that customer pulling up in front of the house, in a moment I show you what the sign rider looks like, (you can put a sign rider in front of the house) and be able to text and be able to see immediately information on that home.  Also be able to see photographs and a virtual tour of the home simply by sitting in front of the house.  Now that a powerful tool when you consider that very often that when someone pulls in front of the house today, less than half actually speak to the agent when they first try to call.  While if their using text, their able to see information about the house, their able to find information frankly about you the realtor and also you the realtor will receive a text message back that tells you who that client is and it also tells you what that prospects cell phone number is as well which leads to lead generation.

Here is what the sign look like, so they would Text this number (there would be a number in the place of the word HOME) to phone number 43766.  It’s something like “Dancing with the Stars”, the fact that people vote that way, or NASCAR racing, if you what to find out more about your favorite driver text a certain number to this phone number.  So look at how diverse it is today in marketing these texts are and the fact that many many people know how to utilize this.  Now you still have your phone number, you still have your URL but this is additional sign rider to your existing sign that people can tap into to find out more information about that property. It is lead generation to you the realtor. 

So, the prospective buyer sees the sign in the front yard or in an ad and sends a text message to the display code.

They then receive immediate, detailed information about the property delivered directly to their cell phone.
                                                                  

Believe it or not, not everyone is going to have a Smart Phone and there huge group of people out there and there probably will be for several more years.  So anyone who doesn’t have a Smart Phone this is what you would see as a client.  You’re going to see pictures, you’re going to see information about the property, and you’re able to pull the You Tube video tour.

And once again it’s lead generation for you the realtor to follow up on.

Now, mobile web sites for realtors with internet connections. 
                                                               



Here’s why you want a mobile web site, two great screen captures here at the top.  So when you’re on your Smart Phone, whether it be your Blackberry, your iPhone what you see is that picture on the left, you see a portion of the website.  If you’re seeing the whole website you’re seeing it so tiny that you can’t read a thing on it.  So what you’re seeing is really very difficult on a phone to be able to accurate what the information is and what’s important there, and the navagation, you have to keep on zooming in and out scrolling up and down standing on your head, it’s really just too small to be useful on a mobile device. That’s most people’s regular websites, and by the way that’s OK because your regular website is just that, it’s for PC’s and MAC users to be able to find you on the web.  So you want to have both, I’m not saying ditch your web site, what I am saying is that you really want to have both.  You want to keep in mind that today’s mobile users are not a large audience buy they will be in five years or less.  Now let’s roll back, when you the realtor pitch your version of what I’m telling you right now, you will be pitching it to people who want to list their homes.  It’s that tech savvyness, it’s that fact that you have a mobile web site so a person pulling up in front of the house so their iPhone can view your home, and from the realtor’s perspective view ALL their different listings.  That’s a powerful tool for the realtor to utilize but it’s also a powerful selling tool for the realtor to be able to differentiate themselves on a listing appointment from outer realtors.
                                                               

OK, so we talk a little bit about the mobile web site, the importance’s here is that picture from the right hand side above.  The first one I highlight the fact that they can see multiple real estate listings that realtor has on the right it’s that I can take the phone and bring that house live an in person to that person who has an interest in the home, and I can do it by texting so in this case I’m showing you can have BUYIDI6 to 43766 will take you to all of my real estate listings, or I can have something like WWW.BUY MOBILEWEB.MOBI for people to just go straight there without texting.  So, it’s really kind of cool, you can get to your mobile web site any number of different ways including texting and going straight to your ULR for that mobile web site and it’s really inexpensive. 

QR Code (Quick Response Code). Now for those of you whose budget doesn’t fit into the test connect program or for those who just want to avoid having another monthly bill, we’re still able to give you a QR code, you’re not paying money for it, the QR Code included in our digital marketing package is free but keep in mind that QR Codes are not lead generating.  Just as with text connect and mobile web sites, the buyer drives by a home that looks appealing, and on the yard sign is a QR Code.  A QR Code is a two-dimensional code readable by QR scanners available as a fee app on Smart Phones. The information encoded can be text, a ULR, or even a video.  When the buyer snaps a picture/scans the code, they are directed to a mobile optimized site that includes ALL of the information about the home, or even a video tour of the home.

Pulling all of the pieces together. A successful marketing plan must include all of these things:

-             
 -    A well written property summary

-    Good photography, you want to have good photography on your homes

-    Print advertising, tie it to your virtual tours, tie it to your web site, don’t have a print ad that doesn’t say www.YourWebSite.com on it, if you are you’re wasting  your money

-    Good high quality virtual tours, you want to make sure that you have your Google Juice.  You also want to make sure that the property looks nice.  You don’t want to use virtual tours that are fish-eye-lenses, they can be in and out of a house really quick but when you look at the distortion, when you look at the poor photography that often time happens with this type tour.  Is all about crisp clear virtual tours.

-    Virtual staging, we can help you there, a low cost way of staging a home.

-    Social networking, not only from you but also from your client’s perspective, let them share in some of that social networking responsibility. 

-    Text marking and mobile web site’s, absolutely help you push the envelope in being able to have a broader net, you want to have a broad net to be able to catch more fish or in this case more prospects to view your home and be able to sell that home.   

                                                                                            
                                                                                              
Related Posts:
 Building a Bigger Tomorrow!
Pump Up Your Digital Marketing Part I
Pump Up Your Digital Marketing Part II
Pump Up Your Digital Marketing Part III


Hal Holubik
Owner/OrganizerTours D’ Force
Order a Virtual Tour: 517-486-4209mailto:hal@toursdforce.com
http://www.toursdforce.com

Virtual Tours are here!! More people choose http://www.realtourvision.com/virtual tour company than any other virtual tour provider on the market. We encourage you to research the 360 virtual tour industry before making a decision. We are by far the most established virtual tour company in the industry. Our virtual tour customers and their clients get only the best and most experienced advice and help from our staff. Thank you and enjoy our virtual tours.

Powered by http://www.ToursDForce.com. Your Southern Michigan Property Marketing Experts!