How to Take your Business to your Customers Online? A Visual Tool to Break Barriers
Diego Fernando Peña
Need a video? 🎬 93% of brands get 1 new customer with every video. That's why I teach marketers how to achieve their goals with visual technology ✨ | CEO Perspektiva 360 | MediaTech 📲
This is undeniable:
In the vast digital world, every click represents a sales opportunity.
From anywhere and with any device connected to the internet, we all have the ability to explore, interact, and make decisions about products and services.
Straight to the point, I want to talk about the challenge of bringing your business closer to your customers and about a tool that, as a marketer or sales specialist, you should have on your radar: 360 photos.
In this article, I will share my professional insights into this tool and show you why it should be a part of your strategy. Let's get started.
The Challenge: Bringing your Business Closer to your Customers Online
The rule in today's digital marketing is clear:
Take your business directly to your customers and make discovering it easy, enjoyable, and full of insights (and even surprises!).
The importance of caring for the customer experience is increasingly emphasized, both in person and online, because a good experience generates the results that matter:
✔️ Achieving more sales.
✔️ Getting recommendations.
✔️ Building loyalty to your brand.
Moreover, it can result in significant growth of up to 150% in revenue for your company.
When does this become a challenge?
When having an online presence is only part of the equation, and your customers must physically travel to your spaces, facilities, or branches to acquire your products or services.
That was the key lesson of 2020 and it’s a logical one.
The farther your customers are from your touchpoints, the less likely they are to reach you, unless they have a compelling reason, which you must demonstrate.
Also, remember that your customers' decisions involve investing their time and money. This can be easy or difficult depending on the case:
Facing an obvious challenge, your task becomes equally clear:
Create tools that give your customers a glimpse of what your business is, how it looks, and how it feels to be there.
Here are some ideas that I consider essential and interesting:
Now, as I mentioned at the beginning, I will talk about this last point: 360 photo.
What is a 360 Photo?
You may already be familiar with the term "360 photo," and I understand. However, in my conversations with clients, I've noticed that many don't fully grasp this concept.
If you prefer to skip this section, I invite you to continue reading the next one. Otherwise, I'll briefly explain what a 360 photo is.
A 360 photo, also known as spherical photo, captures a complete 360-degree field of view, allowing us to visualize everything surrounding the point where the photo was shot.
To give you a better idea, click on the following image and you will see what I mean:
This type of photography is based on the same principle as the fun panoramic photos we often take with our phones on vacations or the popular videos from Insta360 cameras.
360 panoramic photos are one of the most advanced ways to capture images for the digital realm and is a simple yet effective tool for digital marketing and sales.
This technique allows us to depict the reality of an environment from a unique perspective, without overlooking any detail. And that, as I'll show you next, is highly valuable for bringing your business closer to your customers.
4 Good Reasons to Use 360 Photos in Digital Marketing Today
1. Because Everyone is Familiar with Them
Some clients ask me: Why should I use 360 photos instead of conventional ones? Or how common are 360 photos in the market?
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My answer is simple: Do you know Google Street View? According to Statista, we all use the Google Maps plugin at least once a week in the following ways:
✔️ Trip planning: 2.5 times per week.
✔️ Exploring new places: 1.7 times per week.
✔️ Virtually touring locations: 1.3 times per week.
We're already familiar with that technology!
And while we don't always know it by name, we use it constantly and there are ways to use it on platforms like Tripadvisor, Facebook and Instagram.
2. Because Trust in Their Effectiveness Exists Today
Don't just take my word for it. Virtual experience specialists like Matterport or digital marketing experts like FMB also support it.
According to their studies, by 2022, 7 out of 10 companies had already decided to use panoramic photography compared to 2020.
I've confirmed this in conversations where clients have told me how the use of 360 panoramic photos helped them quickly recover their businesses when nobody could visit them.
Moreover, today I see many companies (probably your competitors) implementing strategies to enhance their online experience. If you haven't done so yet, a simple way to show your customers why they should choose you is by using a 360 photo.
3. Because They Help in the Purchase Decision
As an entrepreneur and digital nomad, I often look for spaces like coworkings and hotels for events or meetings with my team. However, when requesting quotes, I always receive a PDF or medium-quality photos that raise questions like:
This leads to endless email or WhatsApp conversations with sales representatives who sometimes take a long time to respond or never do, resulting in lost sales.
However, that doesn't happen when they send me 360 photos.
It doesn't matter if I'm in Madrid and will meet my team in Bogotá; with a 360 photo, we can all see the place well and make quick decisions with greater confidence.
4. Because They are a Scalable Resource
A 360 photo is scalable?
Yes, because while a 360 photo is a basic piece, there are software solutions, like Pano2VR, that, when used well, allow us to connect groups of panoramic photos and create other tools:
✔️ Virtual tours.
✔️ Digital twins.
✔️ Interactive catalogs.
✔️ Virtual reality applications.
With a set of spherical photos, you can obtain a range of applications with many more benefits. However, I will discuss those other technologies in future posts.
Now, to conclude, let's see when it really benefits you to use 360 photography.
Is 360 Photography Right for my Business?
Like everything in marketing, the answer to this depends on factors such as your products or services and your value proposition.
From my perspective, I believe that using 360 photos is beneficial if you meet criteria such as:
Why do I say this? Because I've seen it firsthand.
With over 6 years of experience working with various businesses, from restaurants and hotels to large construction companies and BPOs, I've witnessed how they have brought their businesses directly to their customers.
I can confidently state that 360 photos have been their secret weapon to initiate interesting innovations in their digital marketing strategies, leading to significant growth.
You can start by incorporating a few attractive photographs on your website and evaluate their impact. If the result is positive, you can add more and then progress to a virtual tour or an interactive catalog.
The only certainty is that if you don't try, you won't know the benefits that this tool can offer you.
In a Nutshell
The fundamental challenge is to bring your business closer to your customers, and online experience plays an essential role in that.
Making your company easily accessible, enjoyable, and full of experiences for your online customers involves elements as simple as 360 panoramic photos.
If you want to learn more about technologies applicable in digital marketing, sales or business development and how to enhance your online presence, follow me on LinkedIn, and let's discuss the ideas that will drive your success!