We are a real estate team that also operates our own iguide cameras.
We have recently made quite a significant decision to no longer have our virtual tours available online for each of our listings. We are still shooting the iGuide and using it for measurements and floorplans, but we aren’t providing public access to our iGuides on Realtor.ca or other forums. The principle reason for this is that we want to talk to the clients and have the opportunity to assist them without them “deciding the house isn’t for them” just by viewing the virtual tour which is almost as good as an in-person tour! The difference being that if they just check out the virtual tour, me and our team members don’t have their contact info, nor the opportunity to build a relationship with them as potential future clients!
Our decision means that each of our iGuides are now “Locked”. We do create a private link version that we share with our agents to use for virtual showings, and our agents can use to share with potentially interested buyers they are working with or who inquire. But it isn’t publicly available.
All this leads to my suggestion/request: On the default iGuide Locked Screen, could a “lead capture” form be added, whereby when someone finds the locked and indexed iGuide tour page, they are given the opportunity to “Request Access and More Information” and provide their email address and phone number for it to be sent to, or more information provided. It would make every sold/previously indexed iGuide a potential lead generation tool.
Leads are huge business, and hugely important to each of our businesses…especially in a market like this one is right now. I am thinking as a Broker of Record and as an iGuide operator, this would be a relatively simple idea to implement into the viewer, and likely hugely valuable to all of our clients and team members.