Benefits
Interest - Illustrations - Less of a Luxury, more of a Necessity - Providing Media Rich Web Content - Impact - Q&A
Which is your area of interest?
| Holiday Homes, Property Lettings, Bed & Breakfast, Hotels, Pubs & Restaurants. | Your property is your product! Show it interactively online. Provide customer reassurance that your facilities match expectations before booking. |
| Architects, Designers, Installers, House Builders & Property Developers. Boat Builders, Marinas & Yacht Cabin Interiors. | Showcase your flagship projects interactively. Ask prospective clients on the telephone if they have Internet access whilst you speak. If so, take advantage of this to talk them around a Virtual Tour of your best work - using your website as a powerful marketing tool. |
| Wedding Venues, Function Rooms & Conference Centres. Studio Rental & Gallery/Exhibition Spaces for Hire. | Showcase your space to new customers! A function venue or studio may be required for hire from some distance away. A Virtual Tour allows prospective clients to ensure that the facilities on offer will meet their requirements, without the need for a visit. If a visit is out of the question, a choice may be made from your website presentation. |
| Leisure & Sports Centres, Children's Play Centres. Veterinary Practices, Treatment Rooms & Residential Care Homes. Heritage Sites, Museums & Tourist Attractions. | Reassure prospective customers that your facilities will meet their expectations and needs before they arrange a visit. |
| Schools & Colleges. | Attract prospective students (and their parents) by showing your best facilities interactively before a visit has been arranged. |
| Website Developers & Graphic Designers. | Embed Virtual Tours into your client projects on an as-and-when basis, thereby offering your customers additional services with maximum flexibility and minimal in-house costs. |
Scenario 1: Holiday Accommodation.
Consider potential customers of Holiday Accommodation, planning to spend a week in Suffolk. They search the internet and discover many matches - in fact rather too many - some private and other though Agencies. They decide to click on the first five suggestions to consider each on its merits - one of these is yours. They have two questions:
(a) "How can we tell what the accommodation is really like from these photographs?"
(b) "How can we see what we will we be getting in return for our money?"They notice that your Listing features a 'Virtual Tour'. They click on the link (this link opens in a new window) and WOW! They are immediately transported into a full-screen interactive version of the beautiful surroundings that your accommodation offers. (Did you try the link?) Their confidence levels in your property and knowledge of it have received an enormous boost. The Virtual Tour has immediately answered both questions.
Interactivity shows your establishment to its full potential. Your establishment and its presentation is your product and is exactly the thing that potential customers need to see.
If, according to the adage, a picture is worth 1000 words, what is an interactive picture worth? It's the next best thing to actually making a visit!
Scenario 2: Using your website as a Sales & Marketing Tool.
A bride-to-be (or Conference Planner) telephones your hotel for information.
Caller: "I'm interested in finding out more about your Function Room for my Wedding Reception (or Conference)."
Sales Person: Asks for relevent information, such as dates and numbers to cater for etc.
Then the Sales Person asks: "Can you get on the Internet while we're on the phone?"
Caller: "Yes". (In December 2008 in the UK, broadband connections accounted for 95.1% of all Internet connections.) Source: Office for National Statistics.
Sales Person: "Now let me show you our Function Room. Please go to YourBusiness.co.uk and click on the Virtual Tour Button."
Your Sales Person is now able to guide the Caller around an Online Property Tour - showing them the relevant facilities on the first contact.
After the telephone enquiry is over, your Caller is looking at the rest of the Virtual Tour and telling their friends and colleagues about it.
Your website now doubles-up as Marketing Tool for your Sales Staff to use.
Less of a Luxury, more of a Necessity.
Extract from 'Making the Most of a Virtual Presence'.
"According to a recent study by the National Association of Realtors, three out of four home buyers use the Internet when searching for their homes. As more and more home buyers make use of the Internet, the newest technologies and online capabilities become less of a luxury and more of a necessity. In this regard, lenders, real estate firms, moving companies & all businesses that touch the home buyer stand to profit from freshening up their online faces."
"One enhancement that seems likely to pay dividends is virtual tour technology. Of the NAR survey respondents who used the Internet in their home search, 47% said virtual tours were very important to a listing. In addition, statistics from Realtor.com show that listings with virtual tours get clicked on 40% more than listings without virtual tours."
"Because virtual tours allow buyers to better evaluate homes before contacting a real estate agency, this online capability reduces the number of unproductive showings, which makes for happier clients and happier agents. Since lenders can add their links to these enhanced listings, buyers may be offered virtual one-stop shopping."
Source: Commentary: By Susan Barber - RISMedia. 2006 JPMorgan Chase & Co. All Rights Reserved.
Providing Media Rich Web Content.
Although strictly reporting on retailing, the following extracts from 'The Content Dilemma' highlight the customer desire for media rich web content at the point of sale.
The Customer Speaks - Quality of Content Paramount.
"Over three-quarters (77%) of the 650 women and 350 men surveyed in August 2007 state that their interest in buying from a particular merchant is "very to somewhat" influenced by the quality of content (descriptions, copy, images, and tools) on a particular website."
"It is apparent that everyone wants more information. In fact 91% of those who completed our online questionnaire responded that they "almost always to frequently" click to learn more when they find a product of interest, going beyond the initial product page."
The Customer Speaks - Lacking Content = Lost Sales
"Yet 76% of those surveyed report that content is insufficient to complete research or purchase online "always, most often or some of the time."
"Incomplete content is also a factor as 79% "rarely or never" purchase a product without complete product information. Resulting actions for 72% are to abandon the site and go to a competitor or research further online, typically finding what they want elsewhere."
The Customer Speaks - Image
"There's an old expression, a picture is worth a 1,000 words. First and foremost, the quality of the image has been found to very important to shoppers as it facilitates choice."
"Supporting rich media tactics, shoppers have come to expect alternative views ..."
Source: The Content Dilemma - Consumer Insights and Merchant Execution. Onsite Product Content: A Pipeline to Profitability by Lauren Freedman. The e-tailing group, inc. May 2009. National Retail Federation, May 2009.
Extracts from 'Virtual Space is the Place.'
"As of August 2006, just over half of American adult internet users (51%) have taken virtual tours of another location online, up from 45% in a previous Pew Internet & American Life Project survey in November 2004. That translates to about 72 million people who have taken advantage of the internet to explore other areas, a 33% increase over 2004 when an estimated 54 million did so."
"On a typical day, more than five million people are taking virtual tours in cyberspace, up from roughly two million in 2004."
"Virtual tours allow people to view an environment without having to physically travel to their location of interest. Through virtual tours, people can get information and experience which may not otherwise be available to them, preview a location before an actual visit, and make more informed plans and selections. And most virtual venues are far from exotic; virtual tours often fulfil practical, everyday queries about a potential destination. With the quality and accessibility of virtual tours improving and broadband penetration rising, people are increasingly turning to the internet to get a feel for such areas of personal interest as colleges and universities, tourist and vacation locales, historical sites, museums, real estate, and hotels."
Q: What can a Virtual Tour do for my business?
A: It saves you time. Time is money. Instead of explaining in detail about your facilities over the telephone to a new customer, they can be efficiently guided around by your staff remotely using a Virtual Tour. Staff will then be free to get on with other enquiries.Q: What about my advertising?
A: Be sure to mention your Virtual Tour in all advertising. If your normal website address line is 'Visit us at YourBusiness.co.uk' you can replace it at no extra cost with 'Take a Virtual Tour at YourBusiness.co.uk'.Q: What format will the Virtual Tour be supplied in?
A: We recommend Adobe® Flash® Format files. This ensures that over 98% of website visitors will be able to view the tour without having to install any software. Please see the Adobe® Flash® Player Statistics for more information. As an alternative, JavaTM files may be supplied - please enquire.Q: Where is the Virtual Tour hosted?
A: If you have web design capabilities, we can supply the self-contained Adobe® Flash® Format files for integration into your own website design. Hosting will then be alongside your current website.
