A virtual tour can be a great way to engage your prospective students.

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
Questions?
1.514.312.3968
info@higher-education-marketing.com
Visit our Website: Higher Education Marketing
FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK
FOLLOW US ON LINKEDIN
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
FOLLOW US ON PINTEREST
FOLLOW US ON GOOGLE+