Bringing like-minded people together in luxurious settings.

Enterprise Retirement Living (ERL) builds and manages luxury retirement villages in the UK. The company specialises in reviving and restoring historic buildings such as Grade I and II listed countryside mansions.

ERL provides its residents with an affordable way to live in luxury properties without the hassle or cost of maintaining them. Every ERL property gives its residents personal space, supreme comfort, and easy connections to local towns and cities.

Understanding ERL’s aims and objectives

Throughout 2019, the ERL team had been restoring a new property in Worcester called Mount Battenhall. The Grade II listed mansion was nearing completion and needed an impactful way to showcase the property.

In the past, ERL had relied on photos, videos and in-person tours to market its properties. Although they could continue using photos and videos, these media didn’t give interested customers an immersive experience of a property as if they were in the room.

There was also the possibility that potential buyers might also be put off from viewing ERL’s properties in person because they had a long way to travel. ERL needed a way to showcase their properties to potential customers across the UK without them having to make an in-person visit.

Creating the virtual tour

Our initial meeting with ERL involved identifying and agreeing on key areas that needed photographing. Some areas were of more importance than others, so we divided the shoot into areas needing 360 photos and regular photos. It was vital to ERL that we showcase Mount Battenhall’s stunning communal areas so that potential buyers could imagine themselves being in the room.

Some parts of the property were still under renovation, so we agreed to split the assignment into two trips. During the first trip, we captured the most important images of the main areas of the tour. This enabled us to build the bulk of the tour while the remaining renovation work was finished.

During our second visit to Mount Battenhall, we captured the remaining areas that had since been renovated.

We then ran all the 360 images through our meticulous editing process. This involved finding and removing errors in reflections and shadows and removing the camera tripod shadows. After assembling the 360 images into the tour format, we agreed on the principal information points with the ERL team.

Information points are the interactive elements of our tours. They can be text, photos, or video. They contain valuable and insightful information that viewers might otherwise overlook. The ERL team advised us they wanted to give their Mount Battenhall tour viewers some historical information about the property. The tour’s information points included many interesting property details, such as the history of the recently renovated Allsop’s bar, which was built in 1892 and will be open to residents.

Finally, we assembled the tour and created a bespoke ERL tour skin. This involved tailoring the colour scheme and fonts to ERL’s branding, ensuring it complemented their existing marketing materials.

A solution to socially distanced real estate viewings.

Marketing photos alone can result in passive or uninterested viewers. Whereas virtual tours provide viewers with a way to get a feel for a property without leaving their home.

ERL can now promote their charming and desirable properties through an interactive medium. It is a medium that engages potential customers by letting them feel as if they are standing in the property, not just looking in.

ERL’s finished tour is a valuable marketing resource that is helping the company sell its retirement properties. Buyers who might otherwise need to travel long distances to view the property can now do so with ease.