As multifamily leasing professionals, you’re constantly looking for new and different ways to engage with your residents. Well, if you know how to make a virtual tour video, you can open up a whole new arena of ideas.

Video is by far the best way to engage with residents, and if you have the right virtual tour software, you’re halfway there! Whether you’re sending announcements, community updates or trying to engage with your residents, video is your best bet. Here are a few ideas of how to make a virtual tour video to engage with residents.

Announcement and News

When we say video works, we aren’t making that up. By 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic — 15 times higher than it was in 2017. Video keeps your residents’ attention, and it helps communicate whatever news or updates you need for them to hear. Video is also much more likely to get residents to pay attention than flyers under doors or just text-based emails. When you slip a flyer under the door, you have no way of tracking if a resident reads it. With video, you’re able to track your engagement!

Email faces a similar struggle. Did the resident actually read the email or did they just click “marked as read” or just moved to junk? True, you can track if the email is open, but are residents reading it? Embedding video helps tremendously. Video can increase open rates by 19% and click rates by 65% while reducing unsubscribe rates by 26%. And it’s easy to do, provided you have the right virtual tour app or platform. 360 virtual tour software isn’t going to work well here. However, with a solid real estate virtual tour software platform, you can track if residents view and engage with the video. When knowing those videos are viewed, you can see the real resident engagement data.

Beyond news and announcements, video is the best way to portray human emotion. It makes the video much more engaging. Additionally, it’s better for the hard messages.

For example, send a video when:

• Sharing that the pool is closed for another two months for renovations
• Rent is increasing
• Residents need to clean up after their pets

Those are just a few examples of hard messages you need to emphasize. Video helps portray empathy, much more than a text-based email or flyer. That’s how you can connect with residents and make those tough situations a little easier.

Actual Engagement

Announcements and news updates aside, you’ll want to know how to make a virtual tour video that draws residents into the community. For example, use video to capture resident testimonials. Not only will they feel special for being asked, but they are now part of the story and marketing of the property. And let’s be honest… a gift card or other special gift for doing the video won’t hurt.

You can also use video for sending invitations to resident events. Whether it’s meals or toy drives, as you saw above, video gets people to pay attention. Again, video can express excitement and get people bought in on attending and participating. Then, use video to capture the resident event. After the event, send out a recap of the event, including the fun footage, to trigger a little FOMO for those who didn’t come.

If you’re looking for how to make a virtual tour video to engage with residents, the above examples are great tactics. But, you’re going to need a platform that allows for that. It should show you how to make a virtual tour with an iPhone, or tablet, for those quick shots of resident events or other real time video needs. With that, it needs to be do-it-yourself. With the cost of real estate virtual tour services, coming out again and again to film is likely not in the budget.

The best virtual tour software and virtual leasing platforms should work for you beyond initial top-of–funnel marketing. Also, it should work beyond guiding a prospect through the leasing process. It should work through the entire resident lifecycle – including, keeping those long term residents happy and engaged so they stay.