Amazing Advantages Large Scale Virtual Tour Have That Normal Tours Do Not

When most people think of virtual tours, their first thoughts generally come to one of three things. Either a real-estate virtual tour, a traditional retail shopfront or a Google Street View Tour. Virtual tour technology has come very far in the past few years; the solutions are more comprehensive, accessible and scalable. As a result, organisations that have large facilities nowadays have the opportunity to create a large-scale virtual tour of their facility/facilities exactly how they want. When done right, combine this technology with a meaningful user interface, curated guiding experience, and focused marketing/sales strategy will create an immersive, sharable, meaningful and highly targeted virtual tour experience that puts your large scale facility in the palm of your client’s hands.

What Is A Large Scale Virtual Tour?

When people hear’ large-scale virtual tour’, they sometimes think of a big residential house or a warehouse. Virtual tours come in varying degrees of size/scale to cater for all needs, from small apartments to large corporate facilities. A large-scale virtual tour as defined by the Simply 360 team as:

Large Scale Virtual Tour: A virtual tour with 100+ 360 panoramic images and/or large area which can include a building, multiple facilities or the size of a city block.

– “This large scale virtual tour is the size of 3 city blocks and contains over 350 high-res panoramas”

To make things simpler, below is our breakdown of small to large virtual tours:

Small

• Apartment/Unit – Vasey
• Small Retail Space – Little Computer People

Standard

• Designer Home – Horizon Homes
• Retail space – Quizzic
• Child Care Facility – Kindalin
• Gymnasium – CityFitness

Big

• School – Chifley College Bidwell Campus
• College – Macleay College
• Multi-level Retail Space – Thynk Group
• Warehouse – Black Series Campers
• Entertainment Complex – Spitfire Paintball & Go Karts

Large Scale Virtual Tour

• Multi-site Businesses/organisations – TAFE NSW
• Council facilities
• Cemetery – InvoCare
• Resort – Rydges Resort Hunter Valley

Advantages Of Large Scale Virtual Tours

Large-scale virtual tours cater to a specific market, including governments/councils and organisations with large facilities and/or multiple facilities. These tours are different to your standard virtual tour. A traditional tour is generally designed as a general business overview showcasing the location with its specific benefits. Due to the advantage and nature of a large virtual tour, it may contain many inherent advantages that a standard virtual tour can not.

Creating Simplicity From Complexity In Understanding Your Location

As mentioned above, a large-scale virtual tour covers a wide area. Many of these places are so large that they often have their own maps/navigation/signage to help people get around while onsite. Even with the best of intentions, people can still get lost. A virtual tour will bridge the gap by physically showing people virtually but can also give them a new way to navigate around.

Through the use of dividing sections, people can go straight to the area in the tour they wish to visit. They do not have to focus on areas that are not of interest. Through the use of 360 aerial drone photography, we can see the location with a new perspective. Lastly, by integrating virtual reality (VR) functionality, people can walk through the location as though they are there first hand. This lets them walk through the tour any time, and when they are physically onsite, they feel as though they have been there already.

Case Study Example: In the virtual tour below, Invocare utilised all the techniques mentioned above. Taking a once overly complex area and segmenting it virtually into relevant, bite-sized chunks helped people understand the location much more easily. Additionally, while onsite, they are minimising their chances of getting lost.

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

Highly Targeted User Segments

In a tour of this scale, not everyone is interested in the same thing as the location can offer multiple services/facilities. A natural bi-product with a tour of this size that makes sense to naturally design content for a specific user/segment. Designing each section is very easy to do, and they can have their own colour branding integrated to keep things visually separate and on-brand. Additionally, Integrating existing content (text/photos/video) designed for a specific segment is very easy to do.

Case Study Example: Did you know that TAFE NSW manages over 130 metropolitan and regional campuses. Each campus offers a variety of courses, each with its own unique facilities. Not every student will be interested in the same course or campus. TAFE NSW approached us to create a virtual tour of their various facilities into one mega tour. It is broken down by course, then campus to offer a border appeal to those looking to study at one of TAFE NSW campuses.

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

Combining Multiple Sites Into A Larger Virtual Tour

In some cases, a company can have multiple physical locations and combining them into a single tour makes sense. The other location would have unique services/offerings but are still part of the overall brand/company.

Case Study Example: Kinross Wolaroi School is an agricultural boarding school with two separate campuses (boys boarding/girls boarding). By combining both campuses, all the school’s facilities and offerings are in one virtualised space. Each campus is equally accessible but is separate to help people navigate through the tour in the areas that are of interest to them.

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

Designed To Enhance Your Sales Funnel

Depending on how the virtual tour is designed, it can be refined to enhance your existing sales funnel and even fill gaps. At Simply 360, a tour is designed with the end goal in mind first. For some, it is to simply showcase a space. In contrast, others have specific focuses/ideas in mind, whereas others have a lot of nuanced detail implemented.

The virtual tour itself can easily align with the first few steps of the sales funnel by showcasing the location and integrating relevant and meaningful content. This can be done by sending it through as part of an info pack, designing the tour to be a point of contact on your website and more.

The later steps are achieved through the use of integrating Live Guided Tour technology to hold virtual meetings/presentations to answer clients questions and concerns. Your sales team can present inside the tour and help with the evaluation, negotiation, and even closing steps in the sales funnel. It will literally bridge the gap, especially with remote clients who are unable to visit a physical location.

We have consultations throughout the entire process to understand your requirements and what you want to achieve through the use of a virtual tour. As our Founder Dimitri Cassimatis once said:

“Technology for the sake of technology is meaningless… unless it is understood and implemented correctly for the desired outcome.”

– Dimitri Cassimatis

Works Alongside Your Existing Multi-Channel Marketing Strategy

A multi-channel marketing strategy means having a cohesive message across several channels (online/offline). A large scale virtual tour can add value to your existing channel in a number of ways. This ranges from your socials, EDM’s, print media and more. It just depends on how it is implemented. A lot of the points are discussed in great detail in our blog on how to promote and market your virtual tour.

What It Takes To Create A Large Scale Virtual Tour

A large scale virtual tour is a multi-team effort all focused on one vision. On Simply 360’s side, we not only require one of our Google Certified photographers but also our project manager, virtual mapping associates, editing and design team. From the client’s end, we often work with the marketing team and/or sales team. These various teams help design and refine the tour to become an effective marketing/sales tool that is meaningful and highly curated.

Often a marketing/sales team are involved in the process to help design the virtual tour to align with their sales funnel and alongside their multi-channel marketing strategy.

Conclusion

A large-scale virtual tour takes a lot of time, effort, planning and teamwork to create. The result is something impressive that integrated and flows with your existing marketing/sales process. It is also designed to be usable for many years to come and can be easily updated, whether there has been a brand change or new sections to add to the tour. With their sheer size, a lot more can be achieved to create a tool that is a highly refined pro-active asset for any organisation.

Contact us on 02 9674 9090, schedule a consultation or fill out the form on this page to start a conversation for your large sale virtual tour project.

Do you think we left anything out when it comes to a discussion about large-scale virtual tours and their unique advantages? Have you previously seen any large scale virtual tours, and what were they like? Do you feel your organisation/business could utilise a large-scale virtual tour? Join the discussion down below, let us know your thoughts and leave a comment :)

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.