Diffusion of Innovation Theory

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Or, is this thing most excellent or what?

So this really smart guy, Everett Rogers, wrote a paper in 1962 that still proves true today. It places people into 5 categories for the purpose of understanding how we behave in response to an introduction of new technology. It’s illustrated in many ways but I like this one.

Where are you on this curve?

This curve has been studied and verified by marketers for over half a century and the ones who fully understand how this affects purchasing tend to guide their company to success. They don’t have to be purveyors of the technology; they can be consumers of available, applicable innovations.

Without getting into the weeds about this subject, suffice to say that while someone might be an innovator in their personal life, they could be a laggard in business; or vice versa.

I attended a marketing workshop last week and I could not believe that some of the other attendees were resistant to the idea that people make buying decisions based on emotion. While there’s proof that facts do come into play, it takes a back seat to emotion in decision making. This holds true with both business and consumers.

So where do you think you land on the diffusion of innovation scale? Give that some thought. Come back for more next week.

Control Will Be Relinquished And Given To The Customer

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The innovative marketer uses technology to drive opportunity

If you’re the innovative marketer at your company, you may wonder how to use new technology to make you stand out. Peter Drucker has said, “business has only two functions-marketing and innovation”. Thus marketing and innovation are the basis for a company’s success. For this reason, you must consider using innovation within your marketing.

New technology can uncover ideas that lead to new strategy, so let’s use it. The prospect and client are the focus. Your challenge becomes how to align products, services and processes with their needs. Your audience expects to see things that interest them online before they make their buying decision. The digital consumer uses their control to seek a digital landscape that is more immersive and personalized than ever before.

With that in mind, what does the innovative marketer do to answer this demand? Marketers must create content that feels natural, authentic and as interactive as a conversation. If it’s conversational, the content must be shareable. One technology a forward marketer uses is immersive visuals such as a virtual tour. While these tours hit all the marks, not all virtual tours are equal. Not all VR technology is compatible across all social media and digital collateral such as PDFs. The functionality needs be worthy of your brand. For example:

  • Can the tour provide opportunity to generate prospects from within the tour?
  • Can the tour integrate video, imagery or have voice-over?
  • Is the tour branded with your colors and logo?
  • And finally, is there local support if you need attention?

Select a VR technology that at least, meets this test. Moreover, does the VR company have marketing and graphic skills beyond photography? When you select VPiX technology, engagement and sales will increase. We’ll make you look brilliant!

Is Virtual Reality Right for My Business?

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Which direction should you take?

Most people under 30 have the best understanding of the many types of VR. Businesses that target this demographic make the best uses of the different versions. However, these early adopter businesses are in the minority; most businesses are not even close to climbing the curve to be in the early majority.

This can be best explained because, like all new technologies, it’s hard to conceptualize the need when “we’ve done it like this forever” is repeated. “Or, we’d love to use it, but heard it’s really expensive,” and my personal fav, “we don’t need that”.  Can your business model withstand the shift in buying behavior that has touched almost all business?

Perhaps you heard about how e-commerce has affected the closing of traditional brick and mortar retail locations? This is mostly because consumers, not only B2C but B2B, want to find what they need and explore and inspect purchases online at their own pace before they buy. This critical notion is at the heart of that question, “is VR right for my business”.

The early adopters of immersive 360 virtual tours has been variations on real estate; either marketing the property for sale or exposing a location as an attraction. With creative application of this concept, your business can benefit from these VR tours too. Perhaps you have a manufacturing process that sets your product apart or you manufacture capital equipment. Not only can a VR tour shorten yours sales cycle, but your prospects can save time and money on their purchasing journey by visiting your facility without the expense of loading key decision-makers onto a plane and into a hotel. Think of how much you’d saved if you didn’t need to go to Houston or Portland to help decide that last purchase you made. You only needed to go to Portland!

It’s our technology that separates us from anything else offered in the Chicago market. If you’re a creative business person who needs a competitive edge, then we’d like to have a conversation with you. We’ll show you the value of being able to integrate your existing marketing assets into our tours. Nobody else can make that claim.

4 Reasons to use Virtual Reality in your Business

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Camera in a room

Successful marketing is fun and accessible with virtual tours. Not only are virtual tours simple, immersive story telling, but here are 4 reasons why virtual tours should be used as part of a healthy sales & marketing strategy:

#1 — Increases revenue. People buy what they understand.

#2 — Shortens the sales cycle. Again, people buy what they understand and virtual tours tell the full story online to more people in less time.

#3 — Reduces costs. Using virtual tours decreases the time & resources spent on developing & updating printed sales collateral. The tours can be used in PDF brochures, pitch decks, email signatures, press releases and so much more!

#4 — Increased customer satisfaction. Customer can see what they are buying and have confidence in their decisions. Product returns will decrease as well.

And there it is! What are your reasons for not letting VRProPix make you look brilliant yet?

Does Google own your online search branding?

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Have you seen your public facing google search page listing?

It’s my business to search these pages and I’m going to tell you something that you’re not going to want to hear; a majority of images on your business page are not ideal for your branding. Yet, you have absolutely no control over this aspect of a Google search on your company.

Hand drawing the word Control

If you have a business, large or small, and have set up a Google My Business account, Google shows the outside of your company via “street view” and allows pictures of the interior space if you own a business with public access.

Google tells its business clients that having more pictures and other media on your search page will increase SEO. How’s that working out for you? Can you quantify this data? Did you know; anyone with “access” can upload pictures, videos or even VR tours on your public-facing search page? They don’t need your permission; people that want to make images only need Google’s permission. I almost forgot a key point here; you don’t own the images unless you buy them. For marketing types like me, that’s frightening.

I tell you this because most business owners and marketing people are not aware that there is an alternative to this monopoly. I’d love to tell you about how to bring your branded images and VR tours onto your marketing segments and platforms. Are you happy with only one option that you don’t control? We’ll make you look brilliant.

Increase event bookings

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Fill the room

Q. “Is more advertising the answer”?

A.  It can be, yes. If you increase your advertising spend, how do you showcase your space? Spending more on advertising can be a waste of resources if the ad lacks engagement. Marketing experts know that increased time spent on ads and web-pages equals more interest and opportunity. Rates of engagement that are at 3 seconds or less cost too much. You can increase that engagement rate by including visuals that make your customers “stick around”. HDR pictures and video alone will have customers clicking through at a faster rate than an immersive 360 experience:

  • 5 times the rate of engagement than pictures or video
  • Increased sales conversations and close rates
  • Double onsite visits
  • Increased organic sharing
  • Advertise on social media platforms without changing the tour

“We make our customers look brilliant”

VR ProPix Chicago

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You can see what we do; why does it matter to you? Most businesses understand that virtual reality is here and will only grow in use. Until now, the cost of integrating a virtual tour or spin photography prevents attaching VR to your digital marketing. We are here to put virtual reality into your digital marketing space; webpage, and all social media!

Your products will capture more revenue with less marketing spend. We apply virtual tours and spin photography that captures a larger audience and keeps prospects engaged.  Statistics show how immersive content increases onsite visits, engagement, sharing and closed sales rates. Here, we will share information with you and provide tools you can use to grow your business. Contact us and we’ll show you how…..

“We make our customers look brilliant”