Empty school grounds are one of the many reminders of how life-changing the COVID pandemic has been. However, like many other businesses, schools are brainstorming and coming up with ways to boost applications and admissions once normalcy sets in. And 360 virtual tours are one of the best digital marketing strategies for them in this context. These custom virtual tours are eye-catching, information-rich and allow both students and parents to explore a school’s length and breadth from the comfort and safety of their homes. Here are more reasons why custom virtual tours for schools will be essential in 2021: 

1. Connect better with website visitors or social media followers – Virtual tours are immersive and realistic in nature, and when created professionally, can be bright and attractive. So, when you add them to your school’s website or social media pages, you are likely to get more engagement from prospective students and their parents. They will tend to spend more time on your sites as well, which can lead to more queries or applications. In other words, the conversion rate will shoot up on adding custom virtual tours to school websites.
   
   Read – Using Virtual Reality in Education Has Many Benefits
   
   
   
2. Showcase what is unique about your school – 360 tours give you the unique opportunity to highlight all the best things about your school, be it a sunny cafeteria, vibrant playground, beautiful garden or sparkling white classrooms. In the wake of the pandemic, you might also want to showcase your health aid facilities and what measures you are taking to maintain social distancing and hygiene. So, one of the benefits of custom virtual tours for schools is that they help you to stand out from others and drive the decision-making process of potential students or their parents. 
   
   
3. Create more awareness and rank higher on Google – Apart from your website and social media pages, you can add virtual tours to your Google My Business listing as well giving it a bump in its SEO ranking. This will get you more clicks from students near you. And when Google spots that, it will rank you higher than others in local search results. Naturally, this will boost awareness about your school and your site will get more traffic. Plus, 360 virtual tours are easy to share, which means students can easily let their peers know about your school if they like what they see. 
   
   Read – Why Visual Marketing is the Future for Businesses
   
   
4. Give easy access to information – The need of custom virtual tours for schools becomes especially evident when students and parents want to gather all the information they can, but cannot step outside or travel. So, in the middle of this pandemic, you can do your bit by offering them informative virtual tours that are easy to navigate and combine images, videos and text. This way, they can zoom in and take a closer look wherever they want, jump to different areas of the school without having to follow any particular sequence, and even get in touch with admission authorities to get their doubts cleared. You can also embed a VR button in the tour for those who want to enjoy a more live experience with their VR headsets.  
   
   
5. Earn trust and make them comfortable – Using custom virtual tours for schools in COVID is agreat way to earn the trust of potential students, their families, and maintain transparency. It will help them visualize how your school environment will feel like, in reality. Moreover, these tours can lend a professional and progressive touch to your online presence, thereby building credibility. Even before students or parents pay an actual visit, they will know what to expect or enquire about.

To wrap up, the benefits of custom virtual tours for schools are many and extremely relevant in the wake of COVID. By adding these to your website, you can show how much you care about the student community and want to make their lives easier. What better way to market your institution than by leveraging goodwill, while you let digital technology take care of engagement and conversions? So, to create a virtual tour that steals the show, shoot us an email at info@massinteract.com.  

Read Also – Tips To Get More Applications During COVID With Your College Virtual Tour