Effective ways of Marketing a Virtual Tour
So you now have a virtual tour of your business location, the next question becomes “How do you get potential customers to see it online and offline”?
There is no doubt that virtual tours are now catching on within a lot of Industries, especially Real Estate adding them to their marketing budgets. The thing that still seems to be challenging for many is finding a good way to use virtual tours as an effective marketing tool.
Where to Market
For online marketing, the very first thing to consider is where people are likely to notice what you’re offering. You should consider the platform mostly visited by your target audience. For most Education, Real Estate, Hospitality and Tourism businesses, the best online platforms for marketing are usually Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. For more corporate businesses such as Oil and Gas, Maritime and Data Security LinkedIn is usually the best option.
Offline marketing options include print media and out of home advertising. Some options under this category include magazines, newspapers, flyers, banners, LED boards and Billboards.
Blog Sites
Display Ads that are interactive can be very effective on blogs, especially blogs where you will find your target market. You should consider researching indepthly about your primary target audience’s online journey before going this route. For real Estate, putting display ads on listing sites has been proven to be very effective, provided the Ads are interactive and ultimately leads the audience to exactly where your virtual tour lives online which should be the landing page of your website.
Social Media
Social Media is a huge platform for marketing purposes. While Facebook is the only platform that allows viewing of 360 images, there are other smart ways any business can showcase their virtual tours through other platforms.
For Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn you can screen record the navigation through your virtual tour and include a web link in the narration of your post for customers to see more. For Instagram, the web link should be included in your ‘bio’. You can also use little planet images from your virtual tour, which have been proven to be quite enticing, leading customers to want to see more.
Email marketing is also a great way to drive traffic and interest in your virtual tour and business. You can include direct URLs of your virtual tours to newsletters with snippets or little planet images to entice the reader.
You can also include a GIF from a screen recorded virtual tour navigation, URL or QR Code to your virtual tour as part of your email signature with an image to evoke more interest.
Offline marketing
Print media in the form of flyers, relevant magazines and newspapers are an excellent way to market virtual tours offline. You can include a QR code to your virtual tour through these media for customers to scan and visit directly.
In recent times, brands can now advertise their businesses on LED boards at various touch points, indoor and outdoor. One can also include either a QR code or a memorable URL that takes the customer directly to any virtual tour of interest.
QR codes and URLs can also be included as part of your advertising on roll up banners or billboards. It is advisable to use memorable URLs; you can use a URL shortener that also allows you to customize your link.
SMS & Whatsapp
You can send out the customized URL as part of a message to potential customers through SMS and Whatsapp. Always remember to include an enticing image that will make your customers want to see more!
The only way to maximize your investment and marketing opportunities is to drive traffic to your virtual tour!
The only way you can guarantee sales is for people to see your virtual tour!
These are simple tips you can use to get more eyes on your business