How Virtual Tours Can Elevate Your Marketing Strategy Virtual tours are an innovative marketing strategy businesses can use to attract more customers.
By Sean Boyle Edited by Micah Zimmerman
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
It's 2022; people thought we'd have flying cars and teleportation by now! Unfortunately, we don't have that quite yet, but we still have some incredible technology that you can use for your business.
Virtual tours have been around for some time, but they are just starting to catch on and create conversions for business owners. Videos, still photos, etc., are great for promoting your business, but that's what the average business owner does in your niche.
You don't want to be an average business…right? That's what we thought!
Let's discuss why virtual tours can elevate your marketing strategy to attract new prospects and seamlessly turn them into customers before your very eyes.
The stats to back it up
Like Chris Vasilakis talked about in his interview with Entrepreneur, virtual tours for businesses are more popular now than ever! Businesses of all kinds are resorting to virtual tours to show off their restaurant, retail store, Airbnb property, gym, schools, etc.
Here are some statistics to show just how popular these tours can be.
- Customers aged 18 to 34 are 130% more likely to book a place if there is a virtual tour.
- 50% of adult users on the internet rely on virtual tours in their research and decision-making process.
- Customers spend five to 10 times more on websites with virtual tours.
- 67% of people want more businesses to offer virtual tours.
It is undeniable: virtual tours are crushing it right now in the marketing space.
Best platforms to post your tour on
For many entrepreneurs, once you have your virtual tour already created, posting your virtual tour to the website seems like a no-brainer. But where else do you post this magical piece of content? Here are some other cool places to post this epic new lead machine:
- Social media. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok all allow you to embed and share your virtual tour on your social media platforms to elevate your brand consistently.
- Newsletters. Inform your most loyal followers about your new incredible marketing tool so they can spread the word to get you more referrals!
- Ads. Instead of boring text and mundane video, spice up your digital advertising by embedding your virtual tour as the advertisement itself.
- Google My Business. This is the most important platform to post the virtual tour besides your website. Google prioritizes these 360 tours to help you rank higher for your niche keywords to get you more calls and clicks!
High-quality content matters for your business, and virtual tours are guaranteed to optimize your business exposure, especially if you utilize the above platforms.
Related: Why Producing High-Quality Content Matters for Your Business
Tell your story to drive emotion
You create customers when they like and trust you and when they believe in your product. To do this, you need to let your future customers know who you are and where you come from — your story of how you came to be!
Believe it or not, people care more about the person they're doing business with than the product itself. Let that sink in. The best partnerships come from great products and even greater people!
You can showcase your story inside the virtual tour with the building, artwork, staff, etc. Use all available assets to your advantage to tell your story and build consumer trust immediately. If you can drive people to your website and social media and have them buy into your brand from the get-go, you're on your way to getting more hot leads from your virtual tour.
At the end of the day, we're dealing with human beings, not robots! Emotion will consistently build a deeper connection to people than statistics, albeit they're also important.
Related: 4 Reasons Why Entrepreneurs Should Tell Their Stories in Real Time
Pay once, earn unlimited leads
One of the best things about virtual tours for your business is that it only requires paying a one-time fee for the shooting, and that's it! Sure, maybe there's an annual hosting fee that gets paid once a year at the most, but other than that, it's a one-time cost.
You're saving time and money by getting a virtual tour to create an emotional trigger in people, so they like and trust you. This is better than spending your hard-earned money on things like Google ads that you'll have to pay for continually. You can also include descriptive tags and voiceovers to elevate your brand's story further, creating more of a presence that people will want to follow.
If you haven't gotten a virtual tour for your business yet, it's time to take a look at getting one. They'll only continue to get more popular as time goes on. So do your business a favor, research your nearest virtual tour company and invest in this digital asset today!
Related: Virtual Tours For Foreign Buyers and Support For Exporters: Moscow Leans Into Industry And Export
