So you’ve decided to get a virtual tour shot for your business. And then you start to wonder… what about that new paint job you were going to do in about 2 years, or the new signage you were going to put up in 6 months time? Can I upgrade or change my virtual tour? Should you just wait? Should you go ahead and then have the whole virtual tour shot over again?
Holding off?
Holding off on having a virtual tour created because of an impending upgrade in your premises is probably one of the most common reasons why I get people putting off getting a virtual tour shot. And that makes sense in many cases. But the decision of how long you should put it off for should really be based on working out both the gains and losses you’ll experience with either decision.
But the fact of the matter is, to answer the core question being asked here, is YES, you can get a virtual tour upgraded or updated in the future and it doesn’t have to be necessarily a completely new virtual tour if the only thing that’s changed is one area that is not necessarily visible into other parts of the premises.
Here’s an example
For example, one of my clients is an RSL club that has several meeting rooms, a couple of cafes, a couple of bars and some entertainment areas for both young and mature. When I first shot the virtual tour it was looking pretty good, but I could tell that some of the furniture in one of the cafes was looking a bit worn. Sure enough, it was going to be refurbished in about 18 months.
Even though it was part of an open area, I was able to return after the refurbishment and reshot the necessary virtual tour mages to showcase the wonderful refresh in furniture, counters and carpeting without having to redo the whole tour. In fact, in this virtual tour that was about 65 images to cover, only 12 images had to be recreated.
The new images were taken in virtually the same places as the old one, keeping the navigation consistent and when publishing the new virtual tour images, the old images were taken down. Any of the hotspots and information tags that changed location were updated to reflect the information on the menu board and voila… the tour stayed up the whole time and never missed a beat.
When you should wait
So you can see that when it comes to asking yourself, can I upgrade or change my virtual tour, the answer is generally, yes. The only time I recommend holding off on investing on a virtual tour is if your changes are imminent such as in the next 3-5 months. Then it makes sense to wait. But otherwise, the lost exposure in that time may not really be worth it.
Besides, you can even use the early virtual tour before upgrades as a means to promote that you’re about to do the upgrade. I even have one client who used the virtual tour as a means to get input from his past clients on what they’d like to see in the upgrade and in the end, saved a lot of money on things that he’d intended to do that was really not going to matter that much to his clients.
So before you make a decision to hold off, feel free to have me come in and look around and discuss what will suit you best. I have no desire to have you spend any of your hard-earned money on a digital media asset that won’t do what you want it to do, which is to showcase your business in a way that allows prospective customers to get a really good sense of what what you’re all about.
Virtual tours do that best because of how your viewers become the directors of the experience. The time it takes to upgrade is generally so quick that it’s likely worth going ahead now.