What is your opinion of using 360 degree panorama virtual tours to promote?

[Russ in Vancouver]

They have been around for over a decade now, they have been used a lot for marketing real estate in the past and present, they are now becoming more interactive with embeddable images, iframes and video.

Institutions, factories, small to large size businesses are now using them to showcase their products and services.

What is your opinion?

Would you / could you use this type of marketing for your business?

Here is a pretty cool site that showcases the 360 http://www.sphericalimages.com/videos

[Freelancier]

It's going to depend on the product.

I have a couple of furnished vacation homes for rent and I chose not to use it, because I wanted to have the flexibility to position the camera where it best showed off the features I wanted the potential guests to see. With a 360 view, you're limited to a fixed location to see everything in your line of sight.

But I like the tours when I've been looking to purchase a home, because it allows me to get a feel for the dimensions and general sizes without having to walk through the home. I also like the flip side, which is the ability to 360 a single product by spinning the product instead of the spinning the room. But I don't have those types of products, so I wouldn't need those features for my businesses.

[nealrm]

We just started offering that product to RE agents in the area. We use a combination of the 360 with still photos.

[Russ in Vancouver]

Wow, not many comments. I am kind of surprised, it would seem to me that most people seek information online and that information can motivate the person to click further and possibly generate an email or call.

It is a no brainer for real estate, these days with 50 different apartments all between $450-500K in the same neigborhood.....how to choose which ones to visit? A 360 tour says a lot more than "2br, 2bath, granite counters, view, close to shopping and transit"
Hey nealrm, what software and equipment are you using? PM me if you prefer, Id love to talk about this more with you.

How about in a retail store like a vitamin/supplement shop. The 360 shows their fully stocked shelves and when you hover over a section that is titled Vitamin C and click, it brings up a pop up photo slideshow of the products with front and back info label of all the different brands they stock. Right beside the Vitamin C there is a flashing ( i ) icon for more info, you click this and it pops up a scrolling text box that has a bunch of info about all the different benefits of using vitamin C. You like thye price, you like what you see and click the link to order and it takes you to the order page. All inside the 360 interface.

A sushi restaurant? A map that pops up when the page is first opened showing the exact location with a google streetview capability. It show cases the eating area, the ambiance, the feeling, clickable menus, clickable food for hi res shots of the popular items. You want sushi now!!! click the link to order for pick up.

Fashion and clothing, you could have 5-6 models all in the same 360 wearing and posing in a cool way. Click them and you get a pop up with photos of the outfit, sizes, colors, order if you like.

[Brian Altenhofel]

It really depends.

Retail store? Probably not.

Restaurant? Maybe if it's upscale casual. Truly high-end restaurants will speak for themselves, while those on the lower end most likely don't need the extra jazz.

Clothing? Depends on the target market. I could see that for prom dresses, wedding gowns, and other formal wear where certain people feel compelled to "one-up" their peers, but not for general clothing.

Education? Having been there at a school that did that, I'd say definitely no.

Bar or lounge? Only if it's a truly niche bar.

[Freelancier]

I am kind of surprised, it would seem to me that most people seek information online

I'm not surprised at all. This kind of activity competes with other marketing activities for money, so it's not going to ever be a "slam dunk" choice for a lot of companies. Doesn't matter how much "potential" a marketing activity has... what matters is that the bucket of money is not unlimited, so you have to pick and choose the activities that are going to improve your revenue... while simultaneously understanding that by selecting one activity, you're not going to be able to do another activity. So you pick the activities that are going to have the most bang for your limited money. Panoramic video is a "nice to have", not a "have to have". So you prioritize and find out that some activities fall to the bottom of the stack.

To use one of your examples, go walk into the CEO of a restaurant and try to sell him on panoramic video. He's going to ask you "how many more sales will it make me?" and you have to try to justify whatever number you make up. But if you were to go in and sell him on a mobile version of his web site, he'll ask the same question and you won't have to make up numbers, because you can get numbers on the number of mobile users searching for his site, and the number of click-throughs to place a call or online reservation, so making that activity easier has a clear payback for the CEO. It's all about the numbers and not about "coolness".

[Russ in Vancouver]

I think I have a problem of mixing my personal hobbies into ideas of enjoying myself while making money.

Ideas thats all they are, none of them are making me any money :P

[Freelancier]

There's nothing wrong with the idea... it's just that it's not a slam dunk idea for every situation. For some situations -- real estate listings -- it's becoming nearly a "have to have"; with retail, it's still a "nice to have". So if you want to make this viable, you need to understand the headwinds and have a good response to their concerns during your pitch. And the big wins will come when you focus on the entire marketing strategy and not one tactic.