Today, 94% of people start their consumer journey online. When the lockdown happened all over the world due to the pandemic, we are all forced to go online to get the things and services we need – that is if we can find them online. The biggest breakthrough though is that both individual sellers and businesses who were quick enough to evolve and offer virtual tours or experiences for their products had clients more engaged and brought more money home.
Yes, now more than ever, virtual tours or experiences are the way to go for anyone who wants to sell anything. Why? Because the consumer world has gone mostly online. And now that more people are forced to become digitally literate, it’s time to incorporate virtual experiences into your marketing plan. But first, let us answer this question:
What are virtual experiences/tours?
Virtual experiences/tours enable anyone with a product or service to sell to showcase what they are offering digitally. A virtual presentation makes it possible for prospective clients to take an online walkthrough, get a feel of the product or experience with a few clicks of the mouse especially now that travel and personal meetings are still very limited. This experience is definitely better than looking at photos and watching videos because it is more realistic.
Providing virtual experiences guarantees better customer engagement, better brand awareness, and better customer service result in better business. And you can start with these very simple steps:
- A free, short video (not more than 3 minutes) telling the story of an individual site, delivered live or recorded and uploaded to YouTube.
- Use Zoom to your advantage. Host a 45-minute webinar where participants come and listen and ask questions/interact with you.
- A live “tour” of you walking around an area and talking, using Instagram or Facebook Live, or recorded and posted to YouTube.
- Or do a 10-minute video recording of yourself talking about your product or service, including videos and images that have been edited into the recording.
Benefits of having virtual tours
- You can engage with clients where they spend most of their time – online
- You provide a realistic experience to remote clients
- It cuts costs
- You generate more website traffic
- Your social media accounts get more likes and followers
- Your brand has more chances to stand out
- It is more convenient for the company and the client
- You get high-quality, organic backlinks
Quick Tips to Create Virtual Tours/Experiences
1. Most important: Get inspired!
If you are decided that you want to use your precious time and effort to create virtual tours, then it is time to get some inspiration from those who are experts already.
- One great example is from First Crush Tour Experiences by Melissa and Marcey. They also have created a Facebook group called Travel From Your Couch. Not only do they post daily about live Facebook Events and more, they also host their own on the page.
- You can also check out AirBnB Experiences for some fun virtual tours created by local guides.
2. Then choose the experience you wish to offer.
The choices are limitless for the kinds of experiences you can offer but of course, it will largely depend on what is related to the product or service you are offering and on the technical know-how available to you, the amount of content you want to share, and whether you want to share it live or as a recorded content.
3. Time to create you Presentation
If you want to try what many people have used in creating their presentations, then you can use live narration over a series of slides with images. It’s just like your good old reporting in school, only that now you are in front of the camera!
- Some very reliable and user-friendly softwares to try are Microsoft Powerpoint, Keynote (Mac only) or Google Slides (free, available to anyone with a free Google account) to create individual slides filled with text, images and illustrations to offer visual interest during your talk.
- Sites like Unsplash, Pixabay, Pexels offer royalty-free images for your use.
- Actually presenting your presentation is done using a streaming service like Zoom or Facebook
- Quick tip: playing recorded video as part of your live presentation doesn’t stream very well
3.1. Live Presentation
The most popular form of content delivery online is live presentation. This is quick and easy, all you need is an account with a live streaming service like Zoom or Facebook, and a way to invite people, such as an email list or a post on Facebook. A special link that connects them to your presentation is sent through your invite. The most used platforms are:
- Zoom –This is the most favourite of all. Zoom has a free 40-minute limit version, and then paid subscriptions to allow longer presentations with more features and more participants. Note that Zoom could broadcast simultaneously to FB and YT too!
- Facebook Live Producer allows you to present live video from your phone or computer.
- Instagram Live works similar to Facebook, but is produced on your phone.
- YouTube Live is taking wings too and will be a very big player for live presentations surely
3.2. The Video
Don’t fret that you need to have the best of tech to start a live presentation. You simply need is a webcam that’s built into your laptop, and a decent high-speed internet connection or a mobile phone with a really good video capture.
If you are not ready to present live, then you can record your videos Just take note, keep the presentations shorter if you are recording. Participating live for 1 hour is more engaging than watching a 1-hour video.
Some ready tools you can use:
- Your phone.
Remember, for videos, always set on landscape (portrait) mode if you’re uploading to YouTube. The front-facing camera has often a lower capability than the back facing camera. If possible, use the back camera, get a simple tripod, make sure it’s at least eye-level and at least have an arm’s length distance from your phone for great shots.
- Use your webcam.
If you have good webcam, download easy softwares like Quicktime for Mac; load the program, go to File…New… and start recording directly from your computer’s webcam.
- Edit with software like iMovie or Filmora
Don’t worry too much about editing. You will learn this as you go, but you need to start and do this over and over again to get the feel of it.
There are many different free or low-cost video editing programs out there, and they almost all do the basics in a similar way, so don’t get too caught up in which one is the “right” one.
- Screen recording software like ScreenFlow for Mac allows you to get a little fancier, and add higher production value. There are expensive programs like Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere that are overkill for getting started; you don’t need to spend $300 to begin doing this. Start simple, but start!
4. Don’t forget, the microphone is very important!
Your audience will appreciate if they can clearly hear what you are saying. And a dependable microphone is a must. It does not have to be the latest and most expensive mic, but one that can do its job properly without breaking the bank.
If shooting outdoors, a lapel mic will be your best friend! Make sure that the one you’ll get is compatible and plugs into your phone.
If you’re indoors, you can use your laptop mic too but a separate microphone always raises the quality of your video presentations.
So many are interested in creating virtual experiences and that is the way to go because this pandemic has changed the consumer world forever. If you are selling something it is not enough to be just virtually present. Now you have to engage your prospective clients with videos that gives them the opportunity to get to know you and your brand better. To sell something nowadays mean that you have to provide an effective virtual experience to would-be consumers, wherever they are and whenever they choose to. And there so many videos out there in the world wide web, so if you wish to create and deliver engaging videos and virtual experiences but don’t know how and where to start, we have just the perfect solution for you: