10 Virtual Tour Mistakes You Are Making!
In this day and age virtual tours are a powerful asset for your marketing needs. When used correctly, they can increase engagement, improve decision making, and lead to an increase in sales. Despite this potential, a number of key virtual tour mistakes can upend their power. For a company this can lead to wasted time and money.
Whether you are a business, marketing executive, or virtual tour/VR creator, below are 10 virtual tour mistakes that you need to avoid to create the experience possible.
1. Poor Visual Quality
This one is a given yet we see many virtual tours online where the quality of the 360-degree image lacks sharpness and is low quality. If the image quality is poor, not only will it degrade the user experience but it could present your brand negatively.
However, with the rise and accessibility of 360 cameras, this should be less of an issue in the future. 360 cameras allow you to take full panoramic pictures and/or videos with one click of a button! Where before you could only make 360- degree panoramic pictures by stitching the photos together. So if your current virtual tour is lacking in image quality it may be time for an upgrade
2. Made on a Cloudy Day
Sticking with the technical side, capturing the 360-degree imagery on a cloudy day could seriously degrade the look and feel of your virtual tour. For some industries this may not be a big deal like construction or residential real estate, this may not be a big deal.
However, for industries like tourism and hospitality, it is a paramount that the virtual tour takes place in sunny weather. This is because with sunny weather it presents a more welcoming vibe, and it greatly improves the overall visual quality of the virtual tour. When scheduling virtual tour production, we recommend aiming for a day that has a minimum “mostly sunny” on the forecast.
Cloudy weather just does not create an inviting and appealing look.
3. Too Many Clicks
This is a mistake we see all the time, and it can be very frustrating! Spoiler alert, the virtual tour does not have to cover every single square centimeter of a property. Having people click non-stop just to go ten feet in the tour will seriously degrade the user experience.
Instead we want to “Reward the Click” to the user. Meaning that (almost) every time a user clicks on and moves through the virtual tour, they are rewarded with a different or a new sight, sound, piece of information, etc. Not only will this help the overall user experience, but it will lead to increased engagement.
In addition you want the user to be able to find the most valuable highlights of the tour quickly. For example, a hotel might want to get viewers to view the room as quickly as possible, before they see the rest of the property.
4. Poor Navigation
Due to the interactivity of virtual tours it is important that they are able to move around easily. A good mindset when crafting a virtual tour is to not make the user “think”. The more they have to “think” the more frustrated they may get, the more likely they are to bounce the virtual tour. We won’t go into full on detail with virtual tour navigation, but the key components are they are able to go forward, backward, and return to home or start the tour from the beginning.
5. Not Using Aerial Panoramas
Not using aerial panoramas in your virtual tour is a major missed opportunity for a variety of reasons. For starters, industries where virtual tours make sense (tourism, hospitality, education institutions, real estate, construction, etc.) aerial panoramas provide the best overall view of the subject.
In addition, starting your tour off with an aerial panorama will greatly aid in the overall navigation of the tour. Check out our example below where the aerial panorama allows you to select and learn about different areas of Los Angeles.
6. Overuse of Imagery and Hotspots
In the virtual tour world a Hotspot clickable or interactive point that reveals additional content—like text, images, videos, or links (the yellow pinpoints in the above panorama are an example of a hotspot). While hotspots can be a great and often necessary addition to a virtual tour, they still need to be used sparingly.
The reason being that an overuse of hotspots and other 2D imagery in the tour, is that the more you include, the more likely it is to take the viewer out of the immersive element that makes virtual tours so impactful. At AirWorthy Tours, when crafting our virtual tours, our motto is “less is more”. Check out our virtual tour library to see how we utilize hotspots.
7. Does Not Have Sound
The overwhelming majority of virtual tours online do not include sound as a part of their experience. This is a mistake for a number of reasons. For starters in today’s digital content consumption age, viewers expect sound and it is a key component to the overall viewer experience.
The three types of sound elements you can include are music, sound effects, and voice overs/narration. Adding narration will make your virtual tour feel like an actual in person tour!
8. It Loads too Slow
We’ve encountered a number of virtual tours online where it just feels like it takes forever for the virtual tour to load. Not only does this present a bad user experience, but a slow virtual tour load can lead to a slow overall web page thus greatly impacting your SEO. This is often software dependent, we usually use a software called Kuula.co, that has pretty quick load times for the virtual tours.
9. Bad Placement on Website
There are a good amount of companies that have virtual tours. The problem is that it is hard to find them! By having a virtual tour on a website, it will automatically lead to higher engagement and interactivity directly on your site. So why have it tucked away, or at the bottom in the footer section?
Your virtual tour needs to be either on the home page, and/or has its own tab in the header sections of your website. This is potential the worst virtual tour mistakes you can make. As it can almost make it completely useless for your marketing needs.
10. Neglecting VR Compatibility
Last, but not least you want to make sure your virtual tour is compatible with virtual reality (VR). VR provides the best overall way to experience a virtual tour and it will make your brand look modern and forward thinking. With the rise of cheaper yet more efficient VR headsets, this is a device that you do not want to miss out on.
Conclusion
Virtual tours are and remain a very powerful asset for your digital marketing needs. By avoiding these virtual tour mistakes, your virtual tour will be an automatic gift that keeps on giving.
