With so much pressure on independent schools to boost their revenue, generating an income through means other than new student admissions is often essential. With the nature of your school setting in mind, many independent schools have a wealth of assets at their fingertips that can be utilised to increase their site’s profitability. From sports facilities to theatres, spacious halls to outside spaces – all have the potential to generate additional income for your school – particularly outside of peak school hours.
The value of virtual tours
Virtual tours make a valuable tool for attracting new students and boosting your school admissions figures but the value of a 3D virtual tour doesn’t stop there. The ability to showcase any given space for any potential use, in a variety of set-ups, means that you can effectively market your school site for enterprise purposes as well as its educational merits, with minimal inconvenience or disruption to the day-to-day running of your school.
Virtual tours offer your potential customers the opportunity to view your school venue in their own time and reduce the need for in-person visits – leaving you and your team available to carry out other aspects of your role. That said it is also possible to provide ‘guided’ virtual tours via video conferencing platforms if you prefer.
What is a multi-room set up?
Utilising your school virtual tour’s interactive information points, we embed alternative views of spaces that have the potential to be used in a variety of ways. On the day of filming your virtual school tour, we take any combination of 3D footage, videos, 360 or still photos of each set-up to include within your virtual tour. In a school hall setting this might include theatre style seating, cabaret set up, formal dining or a boardroom layout for example. This allows your prospective customers to see the potential of the space and imagine their event taking place, without even setting foot through your doors.
How can I showcase outside spaces?
360 photography is ideal for capturing all your outside space to showcase sports facilities, the extent of your grounds and your stunning setting within your virtual school tour. These spaces are often particularly attractive to clubs and groups for use during the summer months, as well as making great locations for siting marquees for weddings, and other private and corporate functions. For wedding and event photographers, they are also a valuable tool for scoping out locations to capture the perfect set of photos, so this is a great angle to cover off in your enterprise strategy.
Hiring for hospitality
When hiring your school venue out for hospitality purposes, a virtual tour can also come in very handy for showing the facilities and utilities you have available for third-party use. For example, your kitchen facilities for outside caterers or power supply for entertainment. All of which can save huge amounts of time and inconvenience on the day of hire when addressed in advance.
How do I use a virtual tour in my school’s marketing efforts?
Your virtual school tour should be embedded in a prominent position on your school’s website. You can then direct each audience to relevant parts or versions of your tour.
All School Viewer virtual school tours include a pack of high resolution still photos, 360 photos and video that can be used to showcase your school site. Utilising these assets on your social media channels is proven to increase engagement and awareness of your school’s offering. They can also be used in any other digital and print promotional materials with great effect.
Additionally, you can use your virtual tour to target the various segments of your audience through social media advertising and reaching out through locally active social media groups and communities.
Making the most of your school’s merits
A virtual school tour can go a long way to helping you make the most of your school’s multiple merits, both from a new student admissions perspective and an enterprise point of view.
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