Virtual Tour Case Study: Sydney Australia Down Under

Leading up to April Fools Day, we were planning a virtual experience /April Fools prank. During the creation of this experience, the more work that went into it felt that this idea could be more. What was to be a prank slowly evolved into a concept for an “Anti-Aprils Fools day experience“. Instead of pranking people, we would teach people about Australia. We also thought to record the results from Google Analytics and showcase the positive impact of these results as a case study and share the findings with you.

Double click in the virtual tour to make it go fullscreen, or click here

The Concept

Using a virtual tour as the basis for our project, we can create something truly unique. The original idea was to take our classic Sydney Harbour 360 photo and flip it upside down and say this is “Australia Down Under“. This was a joke based on people outside of Australia calling this country “Down Under” as we are on the other side of the world.

But then Dimitri had an idea to add factoids about this great nation in a fun and informative way. All this while showcasing the advantages of a 360 virtual tour, its extreme customizability for promotions/marketing concepts, the positive impact they have on a business and the boost they give to SEO. Additionally, we also intended to create a blog based on this case study to showcase our findings.

The Design

We wanted this experience to appeal to as many people as possible and showcase the features that businesses can implement. Here are some of the feature implemented across this virtual tour/experience:

When  You First Enter

When someone enters the virtual experience, an intuitive and simplified tutorial for navigation and exploration appears. This is especially helpful for people who have never experienced a virtual tour. This was all designed with our style guides fonts, colours and logo.

Branding Implementation

We designed the tour with our style guidelines in mind. Everything from our fonts, colours and additional design elements are all “Simply 360” by design.

Myths to Debunk

We chose eight myths to debunk as information hotspots with text and images. We felt it was enough myths to find before it became a bore. These eight myths were placed throughout the experience. The myths were also placed up high and down low to showcase that a tour is not just about what is on the horizon directly in front of you. Additionally, we advised people there were 8 to find to give them the opportunity to locate all of them, without missing any.

Clickable Logo / Present Branding

On the top of the 360 image (or bottom, depending on your perspective), we have the circular version of our logo. It is designed with our bright, bold orange, clickable to our website. It also interacts with movement giving a fun little experience when looking around.

Minimalist Side Panel

We did not want to take away from the experience with too many options or flashy features and kept to the basics. On the side panel, you can see the original photo (upright), Facebook and LinkedIn share buttons for social, as well as a link directly back to our site (the same icon as the clickable, interactive logo).

Additionally, if you view this virtual tour on a mobile or VR headset/Google Cardboard, you can view this virtual tour in VR. A little VR icon will appear for VR enabled devices and smartphones. All features on the side panel are designed to explore the primary website and make it easy to share on social media.

The Execution

This Sydney Down Under virtual tour case study was promoted in two ways. Firstly an EDM (email campaign) targeted local businesses in Sydney, Australia, who have never used our services before. Secondly, through our social channels organically and unpaid.

It All Comes Together / The Result

Over the period of a week till Tuesday 6th April 2021, data was collected in Google Analytics. The results speak for themselves and are among the best examples of virtual tour experiences I could have hoped for. Let’s break it down.

PagePage ViewsAvg. Time on PageBounce Rate/virtual-tours/down-under-australia/325231.61 seconds9.24%

Average Time On Page

The experience is a single 360 panoramic image with embedded hotspot information (8 spots in total). We achieved an average time on page of 231.61 seconds or 3 minutes and 52 seconds. This result shows the power of a small and minimalistic virtual tour able to hold peoples attention for almost 4 minutes (imagine if we added more).

Bounce Rate

A bounce rate is the percentage of visitors on a website who close/navigate away from the site after only visiting a single page. Traditionally a bounce rate on a traditional website is considered excellent between 26%-40%. Still, our single page tour had a fantastic result of 9.24%. This means that people enjoyed spending time on the page and with the options available; they were curious and interested in clicking to see what else was on our website.

Behaviour Flow

As you can see from this behaviour flow from this virtual tour case study, people explored all aspects of the website. Sure there were drop-offs along the way, yet they went beyond the index page or the regular 360 of Sydney Harbour. As you can see, they went on to explore the various services we offer, other examples of virtual tours and more.

A Global Experience

While the original group was based in Australia, this virtual experience had its own global experience. The tour was shared all over the world predominantly in the US, UK, Canada and throughout Europe.  This goes to show the power of virtual experiences and how people naturally want to share them. Here is a pie chart of where everyone in the world viewed the tour.

Conclusion

Virtual tours / virtual experiences are a genuinely unique digital marketing solution that is unlike any other. It is the only medium that allows the user to explore content at their own pace on any device. The list of supported devices also includes experiencing the virtual experience content with a VR headset. You can create immersive, informative and entertaining experiences that you can design to bring and keep people on your website and immerse themselves in your brand.

If you are looking to create a virtual experience for your business, organisation, or educational institution, feel free to contact us by filling out the form on this page or call us on 02 9674 9090.

Are you looking to create a virtual tour/virtual experience for your business/organisation? What myths did you like debunking the most in this virtual tour case study? What did you think of this virtual tour case study? Join the discussion today and comment down below :)

Dimitri Cassimatis( Founder )

Dimitri is the founder of Simply 360, which specialises in creating immersive, interactive and engaging 360 / VR virtual tours, AR integration and marketing consultancy. He has worked in the digital marketing industry for over 15 years and has a passion for creating virtual tours with a key focus in strategic implementation.