Thanks to VR, visitors can spend minutes rather than seconds on sites, and the more time they spend, the longer you have to convert interest to a sale.
One Sydney- based virtual reality (VR) tours operator got on the bandwagon before most small businesses even knew VR was possible. He’s just been waiting for the rest of us to catch up.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, virtual reality is finally coming into its own. A slew of high profile VR console games were announced at gaming expo E3 this year, and even Hollywood is so interested that talent agents are appointing lackeys to look into it.
But what can this seemingly high tech (and expensive) field offer small businesses? Sydney-based VR tour builder Joseph Wall of Wow360 Virtual Tours is a longtime devotee, and has never seen as much action in the field as what’s happening now.
Wall uses the Google Virtual Tour platform, and the first benefit he mentions is that being in the Google services ecosystem means reaping the reward of inherent interconnectivity. “It’s really important because you can see where your customers are coming from. Everything is tracked, and virtual tours are a major component of it,” he says.
Deeper engagement
When it comes to making your online presence ‘sticky’, VR is a proven quantity. Research from the US real estate industry confirms listings with virtual tours get 40 per cent more clicks.
Visitors engage with VR content for longer and more deeply, according to Wall. “It just stops people in their tracks. People’s attention spans are short and in something like Instagram they just keep flicking through. In a virtual tour you don’t just click an image, you go into it.”
Visitors spend minutes rather than seconds on sites thanks to VR, and the more time they spend, the longer you have to convert interest to a sale. “It converts rather quickly into [a visitor] doing something,” Wall says.
The next generation will make VR even more compelling, with embeddable links just the beginning. “It’s going to enable people to walk through your premises and take action,” Wall says. “If you’re a hotel they’ll be able to book a room in the VR environment.”
Why now?
Wall says there’s been a huge upswing in interest in virtual tours in the last six months, with most of the businesses he’s spoken to considering it a matter of if – not when – they’ll jump on board.
One reason is because the Google ecosystem that contains virtual tours is getting far more promotion, and there are a lot more stats from peers across industries that prove its value. Plus of course, VR is a hot topic right now.
At only a few hundred dollars to get on board, Wall calls it the cheapest form of marketing a business can probably get. “The reason business owners are doing it is because it doubles their reach and it doubles their views,” he says. “We’ve had businesses go from zero to 1,000 views in the first week. Over 12 months and they’re in the tens of thousands.”