Working with Disc Tours


Most real estate agents are used to marketing with paper: newspaper ads, flyers and handouts, market comp worksheets, disclosure packages, and so on. After all, paper requires no special equipment for the recipient, and the tools to create paper documentsparticularly, a word processorare available and understood by most agents.

The volume of paper can be overwhelming. Plus, today's younger buyers and sellers have been weaned on videogames, the Internet, iPods, and other multimedia gadgets. So why not provide potential buyers with your marketing materials in a richer visual medium?

The disc tour is a great way to deliver those materials. Recordable CDs (called CD-Rs) cost less than a dollar eachoften even cheaper when on sale or bought in bulkso providing a CD is inexpensive. They also hold a lot of information, so you can include a dozen photos, a complete disclosure package, market comps, and a flyer, and still have plenty of room for fancy materials such as narrated virtual tours and community resource Web pages.

You could also use DVD-Rs, which hold about four times as much as a CD, since most new computers now come with DVD drives. Just be sure the recipients know they're getting a DVD rather than a CDthey look alikeand that they know it won't play on the DVD player connected to their TV.

In other words, a disc tour is simply a disc containing whatever combination of marketing materials you want to provide.

The iLife Option

For creating virtual toursboth slide show and videoMacintosh users can use Apple's iLife 06, which lets you create slide shows and movies from digital photos and movies. iLife is powerful yet easy to use, but it has one major issue: It's not compatible with the vast world of Windows computers.

You need a Mac to use iLife. And its slide shows are viewable only on other Macs and Apple iPod Photo handhelds. So chances are iLife isn't a tool you can rely on to develop virtual tours for the public at large.

But you can create DVDs with iLife that work with most DVD players, so recipients can see your virtual tour on their TV sets or on their DVD-equipped computers. They won't be able to open disclosure packages and other files, but if you don't want to include those files on the disc any how, that's not a problem.


Content Options for Disc Tours

In some cases, you can provide your paper documents in electronic form as a set of PDF files. With PDF files, you won't kill as many trees giving prospective buyers the data they need to make a preliminary decision on whether to make an offer. They'll have to printor you willthe final documents that need all the initials and signatures if they do want to make an offer, but you won't have to make copies of the multiple-hundred-page materials to give to all the other people who decided not to make an offer. If you're paying for the photocopy expenses, a CD is actually a cheaper way to distribute these materials. (DVDs are more expensive, about a dollar each, even on sale.)

Often you'll want the disc to contain more than just a set of documents. After all, why not take advantage of the multimedia capabilities of today's computers? If you offer a disc tour that has several kinds of elements in it, your recipients will appreciate having all the pieces clearly organized. They'll also want some way to know all the items that the CD contains. There are two basic ways to satisfy this need:

  • Treat the disc as a virtual Web site, with all the files on the disc rather than on (or in addition to) your actual Web server.

  • Treat the disc as a collection of files organized by folder, such as a Virtual Tour folder, a Photos folder, and a Disclosures folder.

In practice, you should do both so a recipient who opens the disc's HTML files will see a familiar interface, while recipients who treat the disc like a hard drive can open the organized set of folders and easily identify the content. (You might also put a text file on the disc that simply lists the contents of each folder.)

Think of interesting materials to include beyond the basic marketing and disclosure materials. For example, you might include an audio narration that would play in a car stereo, or a virtual tour converted to a movie playable on a TV through a DVD player.

You can create discs that work in multiple environments: such as on a computer and in a car stereo, or on a computer and in a DVD player connected to a TV. But be careful: The process for creating such multipurpose discs can be involved, and every program does it differently. So be prepared to spend some time figuring out the software the first time you make an audio CD or video DVD. And always test the disc in all the devices your recipients might useCD player, DVD player, Windows PC, and/or Macintoshbefore distributing it.

Checklist Disc Tours

While the contents of a CD or DVD disc tour can vary based on the materials you want to provide, I recommend the following elements as standard components:

  • An assortment of photos that at minimum duplicates what you make available on the MLS. Be sure the filenames are self-explanatory, such as LivingRoom1.gif. Perhaps include the street address as part of the filename, such as 123Main_Living1.gif.

  • A PDF version of the property flyer.

  • A PDF version of recent sales comps.

  • A PDF version of the disclosure package if appropriate. (In some regions, disclosures are provided before offers are accepted to speed up the process, while in others they are provided only when offers are accepted.)

Other good materials could include:

  • A PDF or HTML version of local amenities and resources, such as local grocery and other shops, schools, houses of worship, and so onespecially if many of your potential buyers aren't from the immediate area. (Be careful you don't inadvertently violate antidiscrimination laws by including, for example, only listings of Protestant churches in your list of houses of worship or only singles bars in your entertainment section.)

  • A slide show or video virtual tour, perhaps with musical accompaniment, or a photo gallery. If you include any of these, you won't need separate photos.

  • A spoken narrative in CD audio format so your verbal "tour" can be played on a car stereo. (This narration will not work on DVDs.)


Creating Audio Narrations

To create an audio narration for a CD, use the audio recording features that come with your computer. Or you can use the audio recording features in a CD-burning program like the SoundTrax program included with Nero's Nero or the Sound Editor program included with Roxio's Easy Media Creator in Windows, or the CD Spin Doctor software included with Roxio's Toast on the Mac.

You'll need a microphone connected to the microphone connector on your computer, of course. (It's best to use a headset microphone to maintain a consistent audio level. With a headset microphone the distance between your mouth and the recording part doesn't move even if you move your head, ensuring a steady volume.) And be sure your recording software is set to receive audio from the microphone rather than from the computer's CD drive.

Record the audio file and edit or adjust anything you want to change in your software. (Be sure to write a script first, rehearse it several times, and speak in a clear, enunciated voice with a smile, steady volume, and clear tone.) In Windows, you'd record the audio typically as a WAV file, then convert it to the CD audio format using programs like Nero and Easy Media Creator; on a Mac you'd record it as an AIFF file and then convert it to CD audio using programs like Toast. Often, the conversion is automatic as part of burning the disc.

Maintaining Platform Compatibility

About 90 percent of all computer users have Windows PCs. So it's tempting to forget about the other 10 percent that use Apple Macintosh systems. Most electronic materials can be produced for both sets of users, so why exclude anyone?

CDs created for PCsthese use a format called ISO 9660are readable by Macs. DVDs are also readable on both platforms, because they share a common standard (UDF).

Common file formats can be opened by programs on both Windows and Mac OS X. For example, PDF, Flash, QuickTime, and Web (HTML) files can all be opened on both platforms. And Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are widely used on both systems, so most recipients can open these files on either platform as well.

But avoid using proprietary formats for photo collections, virtual tours, and other materialsunless you're confident that the recipients all have Windows PCs or all have Macs. If you're making a disc for just one client, you can ask her if she uses a Mac, but if you're making a stack of discs to give out at an open house, you don't have that chance.

If you do use proprietary formats, even for all-Windows or all-Macintosh recipients, remember that they might not have the right software to open these special formats. So make sure you include the appropriate viewer programs on any discs you hand out. And try to stick with viewer programs that have both Windows and Mac versions.

Additionally, if you provide both Mac and Windows versions of software on a disc, you should create a hybrid disc that both platforms can read. Although Macs can read PC-formatted discs, Mac applications written to a PC disc often don't run on a Mac. (Test this first, because you might luck out.) So, when you create hybrid discs, you usually need to create the disc on a Mac and choose the hybrid disc option in a program like Roxio Toast. (You might want to invest in a low-cost Mac Mini for such disc creation.) You need to copy the PC recipients' files to one partitionthe portion of the disc for one platformand the Mac recipients' files to another partition.

When you're finished with your cross-platform disc, be sure to test the disc to make sure it works on both platforms.


You can create discs that hold multiple kinds of datasuch as CD audio to play on a stereo and various files that open on a computerin programs such as Nero's Nero (shown here) and Roxio's Easy Media Creator and Toast. Each set of data is kept on a separate "partition," as shown on the left.

Be sure to save the final audio file in audio CD format, not in a computer format like MP3 or WAV. When you create your CD, place the audio file in its own partition, formatted as CD audio, so a standard CD player will be able to play it. Note that a CD player requires the CD audio partition to be the first partition on the disk; most modern CD burning programs handle that partition order automatically.

CD Resources: For audio CD creation, links to Apple, Nero, and Roxio.

Creating DVDs for TV Display

To create a DVD video that plays on a standard DVD player, you can also use software such as Nero's Nero or Roxio's Easy MediaCreator. You can use this software to open the source video files, edit them, and then save them in the DVD formatcomplete with a DVD menu, if you want.

As with audio files on an audio CD, you need to place the DVD files in a separate partition on the disc (the partition is formatted as UDF, which the software might simply label as "DVD").

Whether you are creating a CD with a separate CD audio partition or a DVD with a separate DVD video partition, your data files will be in a separate partition (or in two, one for Windows and one for Mac). When you burn the disc, be sure that all partitions are burned onto itthe partitions should appear in the software's list of items to burn.

CD Resources: For DVD creation, links to Nero and Roxio.



The Tech-Savvy Real Estate Agent
The Tech-Savvy Real Estate Agent
ISBN: 0321413660
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 100
Authors: Galen Gruman

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