Best Practices for Virtual Tours in Higher Education
1. Best Practices for Virtual Tours in Higher Education
Slide 1
Best Practices for Virtual
Tours in Higher Education
2. Best Practices for Virtual Tours in Higher Education
Slide 2
1) Virtual Tours
2) In Higher Education Marketing
3) What Is Your Story?
4) Provide Action-Based Next Steps
5) Remember the Basics!
Overview
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Best Practices for Virtual Tours in Higher Education
3. Best Practices for Virtual Tours in Higher Education
Slide 3
Admissions teams have long known that visiting a campus is
the most important factor in solidifying a student's decision
to attend a university.
A virtual tour can't replace the physical interaction with a
college or university but it is an increasingly important
student recruitment tool, particularly for international
students and parents who lack the time and resources to
visit a campus prior to admittance.
In getting to know a campus better, 36 percent of students
said they would "really like" virtual tours, while 30 percent
called it a "must have."
1. Virtual Tours
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Best Practices for Virtual Tours in Higher Education
4. Best Practices for Virtual Tours in Higher Education
Slide 4
The cost of travel prevents most prospects to limit their
campus visits to a few colleges, if any.
For a student visiting 20 college websites, exploring the campus
virtually helps narrow down the list to the handful they can physically
visit.
Their experience of your school amounts to what they can find online
and virtual visits are a valuable method of bringing your school to
them.
While fast becoming an essential component of marketing,
limitations in time, budget and technology prevent many institutions
from making the leap.
A wide variety of slideshows, video presentations and even PDF files
have been labeled as "virtual tours," but today's youth are attracted
by sophisticated, informative, and, ideally, mobile-accessible virtual
tours that give a good sense of where they may be spending the
next two to four years of their lives.
2. In Higher Education Marketing
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Best Practices for Virtual Tours in Higher Education
5. Best Practices for Virtual Tours in Higher Education
Slide 5
There are no real limitations as to what constitutes a virtual
tour, except to ensure potential students get an accurate
portrayal of campus life.
The majority utilize an interactive map.
Many use the services of virtual tour specialists like nuCloud or
YouVisit to integrate interactive elements, such as 360-degree views.
"It comes down to one key aspect: what is your story?"
explains Kyle James, CEO and co-founder of nuCloud.
"What makes you special as an institution? Is it your gorgeous,
beautiful campus, because you're a national arboretum? Is it
because you've got those few majors that people are all into? Is it
your urban setting?
Key off those stories, because that's why people come to your
school instead of another one."
3. What Is Your Story?
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Best Practices for Virtual Tours in Higher Education
6. Best Practices for Virtual Tours in Higher Education
Slide 6
The virtual tour is the gateway but it should be leading
towards deeper engagement.
Encourage prospective students to take the next step by
providing links to schedule a visit, ask questions, find more
information, interact on social media, and even apply online.
McMaster University features an interactive map that visitors can
click on to analyze specific areas in the "free explore" option.
There are "guided tour" and "your tour" options to display narrated
videos with additional descriptions, and "Ask McMaster" is a clever
approach to a website search function.
Call-to-action buttons (Request Info, Schedule Visit, Apply
Online, Learn More) are always prominent on the left side.
4. Provide Action-Based Next Steps
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Best Practices for Virtual Tours in Higher Education
7. Best Practices for Virtual Tours in Higher Education
Slide 7
Virtual tours with broken images and links are a quick way to
deter further investigation.
Make your tour easy to find on the website, such as in the
"Admissions" menu or even the home page, and keep it easy to use.
Find a good balance between a compelling visual appearance and
the load times necessary for graphics to render.
Make the back-end text and visuals easily editable to integrate new
information without having to rebuild the whole tour.
Some colleges have built virtual tours into their social media
marketing, such as Facebook pages, in addition to their websites.
A virtual tour can be effective for lead generation as a simple
system of photographs and relevant information as long as it
is easy to navigate and provides a sufficiently appealing
vision of your school that prospects wish to visit the campus
physically.
5. Remember the Basics!
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Best Practices for Virtual Tours in Higher Education
8. Best Practices for Virtual Tours in Higher Education
Slide 8
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info@higher-education-marketing.com
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