After working with small, real-estate marketing teams for about six years Logan Ripley wanted to strike out on her own.
She was skilled and experienced—photography, video, 3D tours, web design, social media marketing, and some graphic design.
“But by far my biggest passion is photography, and that’s what I always loved,” says Logan.
In mid-2018, Logan set up her own real estate photography business in Nanaimo, B.C. in Canada. DIY-to-the core, she designed a website using WordPress for her new firm—Loftland Creative.
She was facing a big challenge—how to make her new business stand out from competitors. Logan was looking for technology that would immediately transform Loftland Creative into a one-stop shop for real photography, 3D tours, videos, and floor plans.
During her research, Logan found online articles about iGUIDE. She was intrigued right away. It was a product and service that nobody else was using on that part of Vancouver Island.
She discovered an online community of iGUIDE users around North America. She contacted some and asked about their experience with the technology. Everyone urged her to buy the camera. They told her about the excellent back-end support. They told her about the 24-hour turnaround times for the photos, the room dimensions, 3D tours, and floor plans.
“There is an online forum, so if there is a question you can ask it, and within a few hours I get a response. You are never alone with it, there is always someone else who can chip in with their experience, and I really like that,” says Logan.
Logan had lined up some clients and was getting ready to launch Loftland Creative. She was thinking hard about the iGUIDE camera, but was still undecided. Then her phone rang.
“I got a call from a realtor who is from a city over from me, but where I do business, and she told me that a client of hers saw iGUIDEs online and asked specifically to have that for marketing her home.’ So, the client told the realtor, and the realtor told me, and that was the beginning of this new business opportunity,” says Logan. “I think that sums up the power of this product.”
She bought the camera and had an iGUIDE package displayed on her website the day Loftland Creative opened for business.
“I think iGUIDE offered me a way to provide a service that was brand new that people had not seen in our area before. There were already floor plans and there were 3D tours, but there wasn’t the complete marketing package that had the same branding on Realtor.ca and the same user-friendly interface. That was all brand new,” says Logan.
Her business blossomed, and Logan’s had nothing but positive feedback from brokers, agents, buyers, and sellers.
A lot of home buyers on Vancouver Island are retired and don’t necessarily spend a lot of time on computers. With floor plans displayed on the left side of the screen and photographs, videos, and 3D tours on the right, shoppers just click on the desired room on the floor plan and are transported into an immersive digital version of the home or condo.
“That was one of the big selling features for me, how easy it is to use,” says Logan.
Easy for the real estate photographers, too.
“It is so perfect because you can upload the photos, you can put the videos on, the next day turnaround, everything is sent in one email, the iGUIDE Report, to the client,” says Logan.
“And I think that’s what makes it so appealing–in less than 24 hours they can have everything they need to get the listing launched. That’s really important too, because it’s a quick market, quick turnaround, you want to have everything ready as soon as possible,” she adds.
Online marketing is absolutely critical for success in real estate, Logan says, and generates multiple offers for properties. The iGUIDE gives home buyers a really good sense of the property. In most cases they spend more time online looking at a home or condo than they do walking through it during Open Houses, she says.
The actual visit to the property is to confirm what they saw and liked in the online iGUIDE package. And the positive online experiences lead to word-of-mouth referrals. The iGUIDE will be an important part of the targeted ads Loftland Creative will develop in the coming year.
Most importantly for Logan, iGUIDE helped turn her passion for photography into a successful business.
“I feel so lucky to be able to take photos for a living, it is honestly something I do in my spare time, so to be able to earn a living too is so fantastic,” she says. “Then it’s not work, you get to be inspired every day, and do something fun. It’s awesome. I think that’s the best way to go.”