The pandemic has altered the way we have to approach things that were, at one time, routine. Businesses must continually have one eye on the news to ensure they’re abiding by the latest restrictions and some have been forced to adapt more than others. 

This has created a unique situation in the property market in particular. One thing that the pandemic can’t really dictate is peoples need to move house or find a new property. With this in mind, real estate companies and property owners have had to develop new, and safer, ways to market their properties. 

Could this be the time when virtual property tours become the new normal?

The Advantages of Virtual Property Tours During a Pandemic

The rise of the virtual property tour has been a steep one. For real estate companies and letting agencies, virtual property tours have always been of particular use to those looking to move somewhere far away. Whether that’s a three or four-hour drive away, or a long-haul flight away – virtual tours give these companies a wider net to cast. 

But now, with national and regional lockdowns in place, arranging a house viewing is becoming increasingly difficult – even if you’re looking to move just round the corner. Virtual property tours provide the perfect solution. 

Showcase your space with high resolution imagery

Once you’ve put your contracts through, you can revisit your new home virtually and fall in love with it over and over again. It also gives you a chance to check things through and spot any features that you might not have noticed first time round. 

If you’re not using virtual property tours to showcase your property, then you could, potentially, be limiting your reach. People deemed to be ‘vulnerable’ due to their age or health conditions might be hesitant to attend an in-person house viewing. So, providing a clean, detailed and accurately represented virtual tour of a property would give such people the next best thing. 

Having a Matterport3D tour available on your property listings is a massive time saver for you and your business.

Virtual Property Tours for Students

So let’s say you’re a student. Your tenancy is due to end in a couple of weeks and you’ve found a property you’re interested in. You’re desperate to show your housemates, but you’re all living in different corners of the country and you can’t visit a house together due to Covid restrictions. Luckily, there’s a Matterport 3D tour available.

Instead of just changing it and signing contracts without ever seeing the property, a Matterport 3D tour gives you a chance to see if the property will work for you and your friends. Choose your rooms, plan the layout of the living room – all of this can be done virtually.

Spare time can be hard to come by as a student with a hectic schedule of lectures, seminar prep and essays to plan. So spending time viewing houses in-person is just another thing to try and squeeze in. Virtual house tours provide flexibility and efficiency, giving you the chance to make big decisions about your future living situation, from the comfort of your current one.

Image taken from one of our student property tours in Sheffield

How can Virtual Property Tours Help Estate Agents & Property Sellers?

Virtual house tours aren’t only for prospective buyers and renters – they’re an equally important tool for agents and sellers. From independent sellers to established property developers, the benefits of showcasing your assets virtually are huge. 

As an estate agent, having a Matterport3D tour available on your property listings is a massive time saver for you and your business. Virtual property tours will allow buyers a closer look at a property before coming for an in-person viewing. 

This might not seem like a big win, but just think about how many viewings a house with no virtual tour could take to sell. There could be multiple uninterested buyers who are simply browsing what’s available in their area. 

A virtual property tour gives buyers a chance to pick out properties they’re seriously interested in. As a result, this will reduce the overall time a property spends on the market. Downsides? There aren’t any.

As a property seller, a Matterport 3D tour of your house means less disruption to your personal life. In-person viewings can be stressful and mean that you won’t have your home to yourself whilst it’s on the market. However, if you’re open to accepting in-person viewings, having a virtual tour of your home means that potential buyers will only need to visit once. If they want to check certain details, or simply take a closer look at certain rooms, a virtual tour is the best and most COVID-secure way to do so.  

Explore a 3D virtual tour:

Keep Each Other Safe with Virtual Property Tours

All businesses have been adjusting. The safety of employees has and always must be a priority but now, it’s something more than just we ‘should’ be doing. There are government guidelines to adhere to and full national lockdowns, too. 

But how can you keep business coming in if your workplace is to shut? With real estate agents closing their offices under the strictest restrictions, the need for virtual tours becomes more apparent. As we’ve already told you, 3D house tours will bring you consistent enquiries from prospective buyers whilst also reducing the need for in-person viewings, keeping your property sellers and potential buyers safe. 

This way you’ll be keeping employees safe whilst still receiving quality leads. 

If you have any questions about any of the content in this blog or you have any questions about 3D virtual tours or would like more information on virtual tour production, we’d absolutely love to hear from you.

Get in touch with us today to find out what a 3D virtual tour could do for you and event space.

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The post Virtual Property Tours – The Real New Normal? appeared first on Scene3D.

When you own or work for an event space, marketing it to the world can sometimes feel like a mammoth task. With so much competition out there in every city, finding a way to stand out from the crowd can be really tough. Read on to find out how you can use 3D virtual tours to take your event space marketing to the next level. By the way, if you’re wondering what a 3D virtual tour is think Google Street View, but inside your event space, sometimes called Google indoor maps.

Showcase the potential of your space 

When you walk into an empty house or room, even for the most creative minds amongst us it can be hard to envision the potential of the space. Half of the battle when it comes to convincing someone to hire an event space is being able to show them exactly what can be done with what’s in front of their eyes. Of course, any marketer will know that having a portfolio of professional photos taken at different events will help infinitely when it comes to marketing the space. But it’s always a challenge to really do the size of the space justice in photographs alone. Digital marketing can often be one dimensional, the user can’t explore or get a real sense of depth or scale – and that’s where we come in!

Virtual tours give visitors a “god’s eye” view of an events space

A 3D virtual tour is often the next best experience to being able to view any space in person. But in the case of event spaces, we believe 3D virtual tours to actually be even better. Why? Because a  virtual tour can show a viewer how the event space looks in a multitude of different styles in just a few minutes. Our virtual tour software gives viewers what we like to call a “God’s eye” view – you’re able to zoom in on the space from above, making the process of planning the decoration so much easier than having to rely on simply memory alone as you can use the tour as a point of reference.  Better still, you can embed virtual tours on your website and on your Google Business listing. It’s those kinds of touches that are going to really make your event stand out.

Event spaces that have embraced this technology have found virtual tours to be a powerful influence on their customer journey. Wyboston Lakes, a resort located on Cambridgeshire border that offers a range of leisure and business facilities, made virtual tours a cornerstone of their digital marketing strategy. Louisa Watson, Director of Marketing found benefits in the increased engagement from visitors to their website and in the data they gain from the 3D virtual tour:

The addition of the virtual tour experience, machine learning chat bots and online booking tools give the customers an awesome online experience and gives us unique data driven insight that will enable us to enhance the customer’s booking experience further still.

Though an “in-person” viewing is important, a 3D virtual tour that showcases the space is collectively so much more powerful than standing in an empty room and relying on peoples’ imaginations alone.

Highlight your space’s USPs using data points

Every event space has its own unique selling points and with a 3D virtual tour, you are able to capture these for the viewers using something we call “data points”. Data points are interactive points throughout the tour that viewers can click on to get more information about any aspect of the tour. For example, you can add text data points that let the viewer know what the event space’s maximum capacity is, or if you are able to offer in-house catering, or what time your licence allows music to be played until. But they don’t stop at just text – if you wanted to showcase the impressive acoustics of say, a concert hall, you would also be able to attach audio clips to a data point to show what past concerts have sounded like in the space. 

Data tags can contain images, audio, video and links to external sources of info

Lastly, you also have the option of add pictures and videos to data points to your virtual tour. These are both incredibly helpful when it comes to showing viewers photos and videos of the space at past events and how the space looks with different styles of decoration depending on the occasion. So a 360 tour really does become just that, your potential customer can really get a tangible feel of your space and how it works for their needs. Data points are an engaging way to showcase information to people without bombarding them with lots of text on a website – something that the majority of people.in this day and age just don’t end up reading.

Explore a 3D virtual tour:

Take advantage of this new, engaging way to showcase your space

It’s no secret that videos are becoming an increasingly popular form of content as peoples’ attention spans for large blocks of text are becoming ever-shorter. We believe that 3D virtual tours offer a fantastic return on investment when it comes to marketing your event space. They’re something that gives you a tangible advantage over your competitors who don’t have an engaging, immersive way to showcase their space. 

If you have any questions about any of the content in this blog or you have any questions about 3D virtual tours or would like more information on virtual tour production, we’d absolutely love to hear from you.

Get in touch with us today to find out what a 3D virtual tour could do for you and event space.

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The post Looking for ways to market an event space? A virtual tour can help. appeared first on Scene3D.

In today’s blog post we’d like to take you through a recent case study we undertook on behalf of London North Investments, London’s authority on UK property.

The Client

London North Investments specialise in connecting clients in London with investment properties in the north of the UK that require a lower initial investment and therefore higher potential profit. 

The team is made up of property development experts with over 25 years’ experience, who can advise both individuals and businesses on how to start or improve their property portfolio.

London North Investments’ property prior to refurbishment

The Project

London North Investments came to us as all of their clients are London based, however the properties they are renovating are in the North of England and Scotland. As a Virtual Tour company we can cover the whole of the UK.

The great thing about our 3D virtual tours and 360 photography is that it allow investors to see the progress of each property without making the long journey across the UK every time they want to check on the properties’ progress – something that would cost both money and time. A virtual tour production is a cost effective and time effective means of keeping up to date with improvements, and ultimately, can be a superb sales tools that makes an investor truly stand clear from the crowd.

Take a look at the Matterport virtual tour software below, to get an idea of how this ‘Google Indoor Maps’ style technology can work for you.

As we’re sure you’ll agree, the results are impressive! This particular property was in desperate need of some TLC before the London North Investments team set to work.

In the first 3D virtual tour, you can see that parts of the walls are missing, old wallpaper is hanging off and the property was dated and in dire need of significant work before it would be habitable.

When we set to work doing any 3D virtual tour, we make sure that we take as many individual scans of each room as possible to ensure the small details aren’t missed and the viewer gets a 3D, full 360 photography, immersive experience of the space – second only to being there in person. 

In the case of this particular project, we wanted to showcase the outstanding work done by the London North Investments team – not only to refurbish the property but to transform it into every inch the luxury apartment. 

We also made sure to edit the 3D virtual tour in a seamless way and one that showed the dramatic difference between the start of the property refurbishment and the end result. That’s an imporant part of hiring a virtual tour company in the UK that understands the commercial goals of your project.

What we do 

Our 3D virtual tours are not just something that’s nice to look at – they’re designed to engage and impress your audience.

In the case of any renovation project, we can use our expertise to create a 3D virtual tour that seamlessly integrates any “before” and “after” scan – and these needn’t be exclusive to properties.

If you have an events space, for example, we would be able to showcase how the space looks before and after it’s been decorated for a specific event. We could even integrate multiple scans to show the space as a wedding venue, a corporate event or a children’s party venue, for example.

The sky really is the limit and we work with many different industries every week to showcase their spaces in a more immersive way – and a way that stands out from the competition.

If you’re reading this thinking that all sounds amazing, but ‘how do I create a virtual tour’, then we have the answers and we’d absolutely love to hear from you. 

Get in touch with us today to find out what a 3D virtual tour could do for you and your business.

The post Ways to showcase a property renovation with the aid of a virtual tour. appeared first on Scene3D.

In today’s blog post we’re excited to share with you the answer to marketing your restaurant with a 3D virtual tour and 360 photography.

Show off your USPs

Think about your restaurant – what are the unique selling points that make you stand out from the competition? Why do people visit your restaurant as opposed to another? Why do repeat customers keep coming back?

Within any 3D virtual tour you get the option to add something that called “data points”. Data points are a small circle within each section of the tour that viewers can click on to find out more information about a specific object or section within the tour. This takes a one dimensional experience, and makes it three dimensional and engaging. Our virtual tour software really can deliver a wonderful experience for people visiting your site (you can embed your virtual tour on your website) and on your Google Business Listing, again you can add your tour there, like Google Indoor Maps.

Use data points to communicate key info to your customers

For example, in this 3D virtual tour of Cubanas Tapas Bar in Sheffield, data points have been used to give viewers more information on certain aspects of the venue. For example, one has been set on the bar that reads “Cubanas boasts the most extensive selection of rums outside of London. With over 220 rums available, we are sure to have one for every taste!”

Data points give you the opportunity to market your restaurant’s USPs with viewers in an easy, aesthetically pleasing way. Showcase your gluten-free menu, share photos of your most exciting dishes and explain the history behind the interior design of the restaurant – the options are unlimited.

Data points aren’t just limited to text either – you can add photos, videos and audio to them too. Explore the many ways in which you can really make the most out of your 3D virtual tour in this blog post.

They help people with anxiety and disabilities

It’s estimated that over 8.2 million people suffer from anxiety and there are around 13.9 million people living with disabilities in the UK . One of the biggest benefits of 3D virtual tours is that they provide the next-best experience to visiting a restaurant in person. 

For people who suffer from anxiety, especially around visiting new places, 3D virtual tours provide the reassurance they need that when they arrive, they already know what to expect. This will, in turn, reduce any potential anxiety triggers when they visit your restaurant in person.

Let people see your restaurant before they visit

Similarly, it’s extremely important to make the dining experience as inclusive and comfortable as possible for people with disabilities and additional health needs. If disabled people to be able to see your restaurant before they visit, it will undoubtedly reduce their anxieties around the entire experience. 

By viewing a 3D virtual tour, they can see where the accessible entrances and exits are as well as the disabled toilets and any other areas where accessibility might be an issue.

They help you to stand out from the competition

3D scanning for commercial businesses is an exciting, new way to market your business to an unlimited amount of people online. Therefore having a 3D virtual tour of your restaurant helps you to stand out from the competition. From utilising the 360 virtual tour photography to adding those data points that create interest, you can head straight to the top of the food chain (so sorry) in the world of digital marketing for a restaurant business.

For customers who are making a decision between a few new restaurants, being able to see a 3D virtual tour of one of them could be exactly what they need to make the final decision in your favour.

Equally, if someone was on the fence about visiting a new restaurant because it required them to travel outside of their local area, a 3D virtual tour could act as a key element in their decision making as you’re able to understand the ambience and charm of a place from a 3D virtual tour.

If you have any questions about any of the content in this blog or you have any questions about 3D virtual tours, we’d absolutely love to hear from you.

Get in touch with us today to find out more.

The post How to market a restaurant business? A 3D virtual tour, of course. appeared first on Scene3D.

One of the biggest misconceptions around a property virtual tour is that a 3D virtual tour is just that –  a simple, virtual walk-through of a space. 360 tours can be so much more than that, and with the right virtual tour software can become top marketing tools for your property sales portfolio. 

A 3D virtual tour can actually be as simple, or as complex as you need them to be. Many still don’t realise it’s possible to add data points to different areas of our 3D virtual tours and these data points can contain text, audio, links or video to really illustrate any information you’d like to share. When used correctly, multimedia data points can elevate a 3D virtual tour from a simple walk-through to an immersive and engaging experience. 

If you’re considering investing in a 3D virtual tour, it’s important to know the ways in which you can really make the most of such a fantastic and multi-functional digital medium. 

In today’s blog post, we’re going to take you through 3 ways you can make the most out of your 3D virtual tour.

1) Adding additional text

Adding additional text to different data points within your virtual tour allows you to convey important information to potential customers. 

When selling a home for example, there are a lot of USPs that a property virtual tour can capture but by using additional text within data points, you can quickly communicate other information that may not be immediately obvious from the tour.

For example, you could give potential home buyers ideas about what each room could be used for, add in the square ft diameter and share additional information about the area such as local schools and crime rates.

Text used to highlight features that wouldn’t be visible in pictures or video

Similarly, if you are marketing a wedding venue for example, little tips and tricks on how best to use the space can really help potential customers to imagine their wedding there. Using additional text also gives you the opportunity to add in important information such as venue capacity, wheelchair accessibility, or typical menus for the reception meal.

In this virtual tour we created of Sheffield boutique hotel: Brocco On The Park, data points with text were added to share additional information about the restaurant, terrace and guest rooms.

For example, a data point was added to one of the heaters in the outside area of the restaurant that says “Thanks to heaters and cosy blankets, guests can enjoy our landscaped terrace all year round.” and another on the ground floor shared how all cakes are freshly baked each morning on the premises.

The possibilities really are endless when it comes to the amount of text you can add to your virtual tour, but it’s best to keep entries short and engaging to keep the viewers’ attention.

2) Showcasing the potential of a space using pictures and video

You also have the option of adding images and video to data points around your virtual tour. 

For example, an estate agent could record videos of themselves talking about the kitchen or living room and add these into the data points. This would create an immersive, in-depth experience, similar to that of a physical viewing – but from the ease and comfort of a viewer’s own home.

Use pictures to show features in more detail

Similarly, when it comes to virtual tours of venues, it can be difficult for people to envision what they can do with an empty space. Adding photos or a video completely changes the dynamic – imagine if you were able to see how other people have used the space, from baby showers to engagement parties, comedy club shows and more?

When using a property virtual tour as a sales tool, the ability to add photos and video becomes an incredibly important asset and one that many industries can benefit from. 3D virtual tours could even become a “digital hub” when potential customers can view your video and photos in one place.

3) Adding audio for that extra twist

If you want to try something a little different, why not add an audio clip or podcast to a data point within your 3D virtual tour? 

Audio is becoming an increasingly popular form of content and it’s a great way to be able to speak directly to your audience within your virtual tour. For example, a museum or art gallery could use audio to explain the history of a piece of particular piece of art or exhibition.

As a bar or restaurant, why not add a spotify playlist of your favourite songs? This will give potential customers a flavour of the ambience and vibe of your venue.

Upload a playlist to give potential customers a feel for your venue

The sky really is the limit when it comes to your virtual tour. Remember, we’re the 3D scanning experts and are here to help, support and advise you on how you can really make the most from your tour.

If you have any questions about any of the content in this blog or you have any questions about 3D virtual tours, we’d absolutely love to hear from you.

Get in touch with us today to find out more.

The post 3 Easy ways to use a property virtual tour and get sales. appeared first on Scene3D.

We believe so and for a number of good reasons. In today’s blog post we will outline some of the ways in which having a 3D virtual tour can provide a fantastic return on investment to smaller, local businesses.

Local SEO, Behavioral Signaling & The 3D Virtual Tour Effect

Search Engine Optimization (SEO), as the name suggests, involves optimizing your businesses digital footprint, so that search engines such as Google, display and prioritize your business to people searching relevant terms.  Most business owners, be they smaller or larger enterprises, understand the importance of being visible to their customers online but a large number still employ no local SEO strategy. This is reasonably unsurprising, as SEO sometimes seems something of a “dark art” with actual results being not black and white, and taking a minimum of three months to show. However, recent updates in Google’s analytic tools, such as Google My Business (GMB) pages, are making ‘understanding how your business is performing’ in SEO terms, much simpler and easier. Businesses who have embraced these tools have been able to gain real insight and valuable knowledge, as to how to be more’ visible’ (and therefore accessible) than their competitors.

Local SEO is an effective way to market your business online. It helps businesses promote their products and services to local customers at the exact time they’re looking for them.

Google determines a business’s search ranking through a variety of factors – one of the more important of these factors are behavioral signals. Behavioral signals produce data that help Google understand what characteristics of a business to focus on, and how to better match them to users searching online. For example, through information gathered via click through rates (CTR), mobile searches, online check-ins and other data, Google will understand that someone searching ‘where can I get a coffee?’ will want to see the closer proximity coffee shops at the top of their search results.

So, how does a 3D virtual tour impact behavioural signals to improve local SEO?

As with all things SEO, the answer is a complex one. To help explain how 3D virtual tours impact behavioral signaling, I will continue with the coffee shop scenario:

When someone searches in Google for a place to get a coffee, they are presented with search results consisting of the Google My Business (GMB) pages of cafés in the local area. If a local café has a virtual tour linked to it’s GMB page, the person searching will be able to click on an image & explore the Café. As virtual tours are proven to triple the amount of time someone interacts with a business, Google will understand that people are spending longer looking at this Café compared with the competitors, so will then improve the Café’s local SEO ranking. This has also proven to have a direct effect on increasing bookings, as Google offers a ‘contact now’ button, and so those interacting with the virtual tour are able to express interest directly, without having to go to a different page and are more likely to do so, as they have spent time looking around the tour and immersing themselves within the premises.

This is an overly simplified example as to how, by having a 3D virtual tour, it will help a business provide behavioural signalling data, and is by no means the only way of using a 3D virtual tour to improve local SEO. Google’s algorithms are complex and intelligent and having this type of interactive and engaging content benefits local SEO rankings in a variety of ways

3D Virtual Tours Encourage Interaction And Engagement

Providing digital content that generates high levels of engagement is one of the most important and cost effective ways that a business of any size can connect with it’s customers, with each new comment, like and share, opening the possibility of a new network of potential consumers being exposed to your brand. This is especially vital for local businesses, who may not have large budgets to churn out a huge amount of hit or miss media, and instead must focus on key pieces of impactful content that ensure a high return on investment.

3D virtual tours are a perfect tool to display other media

As mentioned at the start of this post, 3D virtual tours are a new technology that provide an interactive experience for the end user. Due to the interactive nature of the content, having a 3D virtual tour embedded on a website has proven to triple the amount of time a user spends on that page, and the longer a visitor interacts with a businesses website, the more likely they are to connect with that business and convert into a new customer.

3D virtual tours can also act as a hub for a business’s other multimedia and sales content, with interactive data-points offering the opportunity to embed video, text, images, music and hyperlinks into the 3D space, creating a 3D “virtual library” of content that an end user can explore.

They’re a completely new form of immersive 3D media that invites you to explore a place as if you were really there.

Besides being embedded on a website and acting as a hub for other media, 3D virtual tours also offer the opportunity to create a potentially limitless amount of content with hi resolution snapshots taken of, or in the space that can be shared across social media or added into print media designs. A range of impressive video content can also be created using the 3D virtual tour, from video walkthroughs that would usually require a videographer to visit the business to “God’s eye” overviews of the 3D model, this level of impressive video content can be a powerful way to generate traffic and showcase a brand when distributed across platforms such as Facebook and Youtube.

To find out more about how a 3D virtual tour can provide a good return on investment for your business, and how much they cost, the process & how we can support you, send us a message here

Quote 01 – Bright Local

Quote 02 – Matterport

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