If you’ve stepped out onto your local high street any time in the past five years or so, you’ve probably seen some significant changes in the business landscape. Small, independent high street companies are closing down by the handfuls, mainly due to greater consumer interest in online shopping. Technology has impacted physical businesses in ways we couldn’t fathom before, forcing entrepreneurs to either embrace the transition to the “cloud” or find innovative ways to keep customers coming through the door – literally.
Online shopping is a great way to make your life easier and more convenient, but it can have huge disadvantages for companies who depend on personal experiences and buying satisfaction to keep customers returning. Beauty shops, small eateries, bookshops and DIY stores are especially good examples.
Since first impressions are so important, how can these businesses wow both first-time and returning customers – and in a time where technology is making highstreet sales challenging?
The key is to create an amazing, virtual experience of your real life store, using technology.
Pictures are worth a thousand words, and 360 virtual tours are worth millions. The experience is entirely immersive, and allows potential customers to get an outstanding idea of what your store feels like and stands for without even leaving their couches. In fact, virtual tours are such a powerful and customer oriented tool that they’re used not only to retain sales, but to grow businesses.
With a virtual tour, you can give your customers a realistic demonstration of your store and how your products look like in real life. This can not be done nearly as effectively with product photography or videos, no matter how high resolution they are.
When your customer steps into a beautiful, panoramic view of your store, they can experience it as they would have done if they walked in from the highstreet. Virtual tours are so effective in this that they encourage customers to step out of their homes and physically visit you.
Marketing-wise, 360 virtual tours are super easy to distribute and share with your online business audience, and have far higher interaction rates and views than your plain, run-of-the-mill video.
Production of a brilliant 360 virtual tour can be done super quickly and at an affordable cost, without any hassle and without needing an entire camera crew. The cost to benefit ratio blows every other marketing tactic, like posters, billboards or social media videos, out of the water. You can see some examples of my stunning 360 tour work for highstreet companies here.
Featured image by Dimitris Vetsikas from Pixabay
