5 Reasons Why Your Care Home Needs a Virtual Tour
It’s hard to forget just how challenging it was to keep care home residents safe during the peaks of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Care home owners had to find innovative ways to balance the welfare of residents while keeping occupancy rates stable and their businesses going.
How do you show a potential new resident around your care home without them actually being there?
360 virtual tours helped to solve this problem, but why do they continue to be the fastest-growing sales and marketing tool in the sector?
Here we take a look at why it’s a good idea to invest in virtual tours for all your nursing homes.
Reason 1
Care seekers now expect a virtual tour when they visit your website
Virtual tours have made such an impact over the last few years that care seekers have become accustomed to being able to view a care home when they visit a website.
It can be a very time-consuming process to arrange time slots and visit all the care homes that might be suitable.
And a frustrating one, if, after a long journey, the care home doesn’t make a positive impression.
Giving people the opportunity to take a tour of your care home on your website means you will be more likely to make it onto their final shortlist.
Reason 2
Don’t lose out to your competitors
Whether it’s a car, house or a care home, UK consumers are more confident making major purchasing decisions online than ever before.
While this was born out of necessity during COVID-19 lockdowns, the trend continues.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy to sell online.
As online consumer confidence has grown so too have expectations for better, more helpful digital experiences.
And the competition for clicks and people’s time online is such that if you don’t meet or exceed these expectations it’s really easy to lose out to a competitor who does.
Simply put, 360 virtual tours have become the norm in the care home sector, because now care seekers want to be able to take a good look at a care home before they commit to a visit.
Can you afford to ignore virtual tours any longer?
Reason 3
Showcase your care home at its very best
To website users, a virtual tour is the most realistic representation of a place or building that can be achieved online.
A really effective, impactful 360 virtual tour goes a step further than this, it’s a unique experience of your care home at its very best.
Imagine being able to control what you want your care home to look like, ideally, for every prospect that you encounter?
That’s a powerful thought as most marketing experts would agree, first impressions are lasting impressions.
Reason 4
Virtual tours have long shelf-lives and can be added to or amended
If you’re only looking to invest in marketing assets that’ll provide long-term business value and ROI then 360 virtual tours are worth considering.
Much like your actual website they can be continuously optimised, amended, and added to.
Maybe you want to embed the new welcome video you’ve just created or add a whole new outdoors section for people to explore.
As your care home business grows, so too can your virtual tour.
Reason 5
They help make a difficult decision just a little easier
Whether you’re seeking care for yourself or you’re looking for a much-loved parent, making decisions about long-term care can be really tough.
And even when you’ve made the decision to go ahead, finding the perfect care home can be overwhelming.
As we’ve already touched upon, on a practical level, taking time out from busy schedules to visit all possible care homes might not be feasible.
The tendency is toward greater prioritisation, with care seekers frequently drawing up short lists of potential care homes based on the information they’ve been able to gather about them online – whether it’s a care home directory site or the actual website.
Virtual tours provide an immersive digital experience for visitors to your website, are incredibly helpful in an often difficult decision-making process, and also provide exceptional ROI.
