How to Promote a Virtual Tour

You need to promote your virtual tour or it will not get the views and engagement that it deserves!

Virtual Tours are the most interactive forms of media you can use for business or organization today. They allow viewers to learn and engage with your brand and/or business in ways that other pieces of media simply can’t. 

Yet most virtual tours are not getting the views and engagement they deserve, due to poor placement on the website and overall lack of awareness. We have a full article that talks about the mistakes you may be making with your virtual tours.To be completely honest, most viewers are not familiar with virtual tours or how they work. However, with the proper exposure, virtual tours can be a very powerful asset for your company.  

The best way to showcase a virtual tour is with the “Three P’s” which are: Promote it, Premiere it, and Properly Place it. By doing this you will raise awareness, viewership, and engagement for your virtual tour and thus your overall website and business. 

Promote the Virtual Tour

I know this sounds like more work, but trust me it will be well worth it. Nobody is going to know about the virtual tour unless you let them know about it. Because most virtual tours are going to live on your website (more on that later), marketing the virtual tour will naturally bring people directly to your website. 

If you already have an established audience or customer base, you can promote the virtual tour for free! Here is how:

Social Media: When you promote the virtual tour on social media, it gives viewers a great reason to get off of the social media platform and go to your website. In addition, you can take highlights of the virtual tour and turn it into short form vertical video. 

Email: Sending an email blast to your subscribers about the virtual tour is a great and free way to promote it and give your subscribers a reason to open it. With some email providers you can embed the virtual tour directly into the email! 

Have a Premiere 

This will sound crazy but yes, you need to have a “premiere” for your virtual tour. This is important for a couple of reasons, including it building hype, creating urgency, and encouraging real-time engagement.

As we stated earlier, virtual tours are not a familiar form of media for most people. However, by having a premiere for your virtual tour, you immediately give people a reason to try it out and break the knowledge barrier. 

If you really want to take your premiere to the next level, we highly recommend using VR (virtual reality). VR is without a doubt the best experience a viewer can have with a virtual tour, as it provides a level of immersion that you cannot get with other devices. Companies such as Maverick VR allow you to rent out multiple headsets for your premiere. 

Prominent Placing on Website

Now that you have promoted and premiered the virtual tour, the most important thing you can do now is to make sure the virtual tour is prominently placed on your website. 

What do we mean by that? Your virtual tour should be on the home page and/or have its own tab on the header section of your website. 

I have seen way too many virtual tours that are impossible to find on the website’s navigation. Some of them can only be found from a Google search inquiry. Do not let this be you, the easier people can find your virtual tour, the more they can engage with it, which means the more time they get to spend on your website and with your brand.

Conclusion

Once your virtual tour is produced and completed, the next part will be making sure people know about it so that they can interact. And while virtual tours are not the most familiar media format right now, who's to say that won’t change. When it comes to some industries, virtual tours may become a necessity, the way websites and social media have become. Being an early adopter will provide great benefits for you.