How to Script a Neighborhood Tour That Converts Leads into Buyers on Autopilot

Watch an example of an interactive neighborhood tour of Hawaii now →

Real estate agents and teams use virtual neighborhood tours in their marketing efforts to establish themselves as experts in the areas where they live and sell, or to farm areas where they would like to generate new business. Virtual neighborhood tours give prospective clients a chance to get to know agents and directly experience the depth of their knowledge of the housing market (especially if those leads are actively looking for an agent to help them find their dream home). 

A simple search on YouTube for “neighborhood tour” brings up thousands of examples. That makes perfect sense, since YouTube is the second-largest search engine after Google. 

However, although it is where most real estate videos live online, YouTube has limitations: 

1. There’s no lead capture, so you can’t follow-up with prospects and use the video you’ve invested in to build your contact database. 
2. There’s also no two-way engagement; there’s no way for you to collect data about what leads are looking for, and no way for them to contact you directly right then and there. This means that even if your viewers are interested, you risk them bouncing if they’re distracted or if they just don’t want to go through the trouble of finding your contact info! 

Many real estate brokers have long understood YouTube’s limitations but accepted them because there wasn’t a better alternative – until now. 

Here’s what we’ll cover in this post:

• Hosting interactive neighborhood tours through eWebinar
• Benefits of delivering neighborhood tours through eWebinar
• A perfect example of an interactive virtual neighborhood tour
• RESOURCES: Free script & webinar templates
• How to script a neighborhood tour to convert leads without talking to them
• Ways to market your virtual neighborhood tour

Hosting interactive neighborhood tours through eWebinar

eWebinar is a far better way to deliver neighborhood tours. It’s a solution that offers lead capture, data collection through interactive elements (polls, questions, downloads, links), and chat that goes directly to the agent. 

When neighborhood tours are put on autopilot via eWebinar, they can convert viewers to customers with little to no effort from the agent! 

If you are a real estate agent and choose to host a neighborhood tour in eWebinar, it doesn’t mean you should ditch YouTube altogether! 

YouTube is great for views, and it’s where a lot of new prospects will find you, so it’s a good idea to keep using it. Upload your tour to YouTube and then link to the full interactive experience in eWebinar from the description.

In a nutshell, eWebinar is an automated webinar platform that combines pre-recorded video with real-time interactions and live chat to deliver a delightful experience to viewers — every single time. It lets you turn any video into an interactive webinar that can be set on autopilot and made available 24/7.

The best way to get a brief overview of what eWebinar is and how it works is to watch this two-minute video:

If you want a deeper understanding of eWebinar’s capabilities, join our 20-minute on-demand demo. We use eWebinar to demo eWebinar, so you’ll also get to experience eWebinar as an attendee!

Benefits of delivering neighborhood tours through eWebinar

There are many reasons why agents are turning to eWebinar for their neighborhood tours. Here are some:

Lead capture & data capture

• Much more engaging & interactive
• Two-way experience for leads to participate in (not just watch)
• Flex schedule (recurring & on-demand) 
• 65% average attendance rate (46% higher than industry standard for webinars)
• Reminders & follow-ups for lead nurture 
• Ability to send leads to your CRM to add to your database
• Easy to share & easy for clients to share to their network
• Professional & differentiated to set you apart from the competition
• Analytics to help you make your tour even better

A perfect example of an interactive virtual neighborhood tour

If you are struggling to envision an interactive, virtual neighborhood tour delivered through eWebinar, watch this 12-minute neighborhood tour created by Alethea Lai, a top-producing agent with Venture Sotheby’s International Realty Hawai’i

During her tour, Alethea not only provides valuable information about three areas of the Big Island of which she is an expert, she also solicits information from potential customers.

Alethea does a great job of engaging her viewers by asking them questions (using eWebinar’s Question and Poll interactions). She asks where viewers currently live, why they’re looking to move to the Big Island, where they are in their buying journey, and if they’re already working with an agent. 

Alethea also encourages her viewers to ask her questions in chat and makes clear that if she doesn’t respond to them immediately, she will do so as soon as she can via email (another great feature which is unique to eWebinar).

This kind of interactive experience not only increases the chances of viewers staying until the end of the webinar for your CTA, it lets Alethea qualify the potential buyer. 

Finally, Alethea includes a link to current and new listings in each of the three neighborhoods she discusses, as well as her recent sales to build credibility. 

RESOURCES: Free script & webinar templates

If you are a real estate agent or team and can see the possibilities of interactive video marketing like this, download this script template, which follows the same engaging presentation structure she did, to create a neighborhood tour of your own.

eWebinar also offers an excellent automated webinar template, which makes it easy to quickly create and launch your own neighborhood tour experience, once you’ve recorded your video presentation.

The template includes:

• Suggested copy for your registration and registration thank you pages
• Preset interactions to ask qualifying questions and keep attendees engaged
• Pre-written email notifications like reminders and follow-ups
• An example video and script template to follow and emulate

Explore our virtual neighborhood tour template now →

How to script a neighborhood tour to convert leads without talking to them

Traditionally, getting buyers or home sellers to work with you is something that happens in person, allowing you to build credibility, respond to their questions, and react to whatever comes up in the moment. However, if you're using a virtual tour for lead generation and you don't get to be there, then you need to make sure that your message is strong and well-structured enough to get them to reach out to you.

73% of buyers interview only one realtor during their home buying search, which is why it’s important to market yourself in a creative and effective way to stand out in the real estate industry. Digital first impressions are extremely important, as it could be the thing that gets your potential client to reach out and take a meeting with you so you can impress them in person.

Virtual neighborhood tours are a great way to impress prospective clients, but it’s vital your messaging is capable of converting these leads without you talking to them by clearly communicating you’re the right agent for them, demonstrating expertise about the real estate market, and sharing enough information to compel them to reach out. 

If the end goal of your neighborhood tour is to get leads to ask you to work with them, the question becomes, "How can I get that to happen without actually talking to them first?”

To help you accomplish this, we created a virtual neighborhood tour script template that follows the same presentation structure Alethea uses in her neighborhood tour and which we describe in detail below.

DOWNLOAD NEIGHBORHOOD TOUR SCRIPT TEMPLATE NOW →

1. Set the agenda - Let them know what to expect from the webinar
2. Introduce yourself – This is your chance to build credibility and showcase your expertise and experience
3. Share why you’re the best person and brokerage for the area – How are you different from your competitors? Have you lived there for many years? Do you have more sales there than anyone else? Does your brokerage offer programs that no other firm has?
4. Ask qualifying questions – Ask the client to interact by answering questions which will provide information about what they’re looking for and where they are in their home search. This will help you prioritize leads as they come in. Some examples are: What is their timeframe for buying? Are they already pre-approved for a mortgage? Are they already working with an agent? And what are the must haves of their perfect home?
5. Give your neighborhood tour – Talk about each neighborhood. Explain what it’s like, who lives there, what you like about it, and who is typically drawn to it. Remember, a great presentation is also great storytelling. Think about what you would want to know if you were making a decision on whether or not this was a good area for you. Share insider tips that people could never find on Google. Don’t be afraid to share your opinions, because choosing an agent is about connecting with you.
6. Share current listings – Now that the viewers have learned about the neighborhoods, there’s a good chance they’re excited and ready to start searching for a new home! Providing an easy link to current listings will be greatly appreciated. Ideally, the links would be to an IDX website that only includes your contact information. Many brokerages support these now on behalf of their agents.
7. Share recent sales – This is an excellent chance to show viewers the kinds of properties you have previously sold and establish your credibility. 
8. Encourage interaction – Ask the viewers to interact by telling you what they liked and didn’t like about the information you provided. 
9. Close and ask for questions – When the tour is over, let the viewers know that you can help them with their needs. Sharing testimonials from buyers and homeowners you’ve worked with is a great idea, as social proof helps people make decisions. Ask them if they have any questions and let them know that you will help answer them.
10. Make your CTA – Don’t forget to close without a specific call to action. Do you want the viewers to fill in a contact form? Or email you? Communicate your CTA clearly. 

You may want to share a summary article of what you talked about during your tour, so there’s something for people to refer to later. A blog post on Medium is great, or a page on your agent website. (Alethea posted a summary of her neighborhood tour, if you want to see an example.)

Ways to market your virtual neighborhood tour

Once your neighborhood tour is scripted, recorded, and published as an automated webinar, it’s time to market it. You can do things like include it in your email marketing (like your newsletter), post it to social media, and add it to your agent profile on your brokerage’s website.

If you want more ideas for how to promote your neighborhood tour, check out our blog post dedicated to the topic:

25 Ways to Promote An On-Demand, Evergreen Webinar

So whether you live and work in New York City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, or somewhere else, now that you’ve read all about scripting a great neighborhood tour and converting viewers to customers without ever talking to them, download our free script template and start working on creating one of your own neighborhood tour today! 

And finally, if you haven’t already, watch this example of an interactive neighborhood tour from Alethea Lai of Venture Sotheby’s International in Hawaii. Because seeing is believing!