On platforms like Google Places / Google My Business (GMB), a virtual tour has a direct correlation to sales enquiries making it a ‘direct response’ mechanism.

If you’re a brand who wants more Google reviews per store location, you should start with uploading a (good) virtual tour video to each store’s GMB panel.

To illustrate what we mean, here are some great virtual tours (including the Pyramids), for those of you currently stuck at home or trying to entertain/educate children.

London UK. National Portrait Gallery Virtual Tour

Click on the above image for our links to their virtual tour cameras and walk around the first portrait gallery in the world (1856).

You’ll see English Kings from the Tudor period, from 1485 through the reign of Henry VIII to his successors. Examples of 17th century and 18th century England await you in two separate virtual tours. Queen Victoria’s reign is along a corridor flanked by amazing sculptures of marble heads depicting the portraits behind them. And the Weldon Gallery of King George IV up to the death of King William IV in 1837 with its eerie centrepiece of marble heads forms the final virtual tour.

N.B. move the mouse slowly because they’re ultra-responsive.

Madrid, Spain. Virtual Tour of Man

Click on the above image for our links to virtual tour videos of Man (the Museo Arqueologico Nacional) in Madrid, Spain. Another old museum (1867), MAN displays pieces from the Iberian Peninsula with smaller collections from Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt.

Different to the National Portrait Gallery of London, UK, this museum has created one single tour experience allowing you to walk through the entire museum (or use the scroll bar on the left to ‘jump’ to an exhibit of interest).

It is also advisable to move the mouse slowly for their virtual tour and look for the orange arrows to move ahead.

Paris, France. Virtual Tour of The Louvre

Click on the above image for our links to one of the oldest museums, officially opening in 1793 it was a former royal residence first built in approx. 1300AD.

You can see the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo just like 2.7million other visitors did in 2020. The entire collection is divided into eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; and the Decorative Arts.

This virtual tour is far less sensitive to navigation making it in our opinion more enjoyable to operate. A good example to brands wishing to offer a similar brand promoting customer experience.

New York, USA. Virtual Tour of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Click on the above image for our links to the 1870 fifth avenue collection of art and sculpture.

Unlike our other virtual tour examples, this American museum has created videos of the tours. The objective is the same; to give customers the experience of their services and products before visiting.

From that perspective brands could do likewise. However YouCom has monitored response rates from both versions and would steer brands towards the virtual tour style of the European museums.

These ‘videos’ give a good experience of; Neoclassical architecture; views over the Hudson river; and the fabled Temple of Dendur (15 BC) donated from Egypt to America in 1968.

Berlin, Germany. Virtual Tour of Museum Island

Click on the above image for our links to a series of Museums referred to as ‘Museum Island’. This has been collated by Google’s Arts and Culture project.

After clicking on the above image, click on the menu option ‘Explore’ and discover who was history’s most beautiful woman.

Click further on ‘What is Museum Island Berlin’ to see the many virtual tours. These include the beautiful baroque building of the Bode Museum, designed by Emperor Frederick III’s court architect Ernst von Ihne (Kim Kardashian and Kanye West only wish they could have a staircase and entrance hall as spectacular as this..).

Also incuding The Pergamon Museum that has the legendary Ishtar Gate of Babylon. Click on the white arrows of each virtual tour to move around (the mouse allows you to pan left and right but the arrows let you move forward).

Amsterdam, Holland Virtual Tour of The Rijksmuseum

Click on the above image for our links to The Rijksmuseum that houses many beautiful pieces by Vermeer as well as the famous Night Watch, painted by Rembrandt in 1642.

The Night Watch painting when viewed in-person mysteriously draws you in and the hand of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq (dressed in black, with a red sash) appears to be 3D in what must be the first example of such techniques (you feel you could shake hands!).

Take their virtual tour to see if it has the same effect for you ‘on-screen’.

Giza, Egypt. Virtual Tour of The Pyramids

Click on the above image for our links to the most impressive museum of all. The last remaining ancient wonder of the world has been captured by Google with their Google Maps technology but the result really is a life experience.

When taking the tour, imagine how capturing just a little of what you feel viewing it could transform the awareness of your brand. Contact our Direct Response team to learn more.

Follow the YouCom Media news posts to see the next developments.

• Our Facebook news
• Our Twitter news
• Our Pinterest news
• Our LinkedIn news

Required reference:
YouCom Media News, Dec 2021, London, ‘Virtual Tour.’

The post Virtual Tour appeared first on YouCom.

Marks & Spencer’s once had a property portfolio of £1.2bn where 96 percent were freehold assets.  Inevitably when a new CEO takes over and seeks a quick fix to problems of poor sales, they consider selling assets, so it was no surprise when in 2016 M&S sold 76 stores to a private equity firm for half a billion pounds.

However, a clear example where such brands are not just focused on retail marketing but also property marketing.

Each brand location is therefore a long-term financial commitment that will either become a balance sheet asset or liability.

Store location is however, an important part of the marketing mix.  New store openings often assigned to the brand’s marketing agency to build PR around and ultimately increase footfall to a self-sustainable level to recover investment.  But everything begins with brand location assessment.

Each brand has its own factors on a check list developed over time spent understanding their business.  Trade area mapping is performed to assess demand.  A good agency will employ mathematical modelling techniques, multiple regression analysis and spatial interaction models.

Basic checklist factoring can be used in nearly all cases without such assistance however.

Brand location checklist factors often already used by media agencies include: Local population size for customer base; Age profile; household size of local populace; income levels; disposable income; home ownership levels; life-style measures; cultural and ethnic groupings (are they more disposed to your brand or less?); general economic stability; occupation classifications; ‘Pedestrian flow’; Pedestrian entry routes to the location; What is the public transport like?  What types of public transport are there?

Other factors include; Car ownership levels in the area and in the increased store radius that car travel facilitates; Will the location allow for your own parking?  If you build a carpark on the location, will the reduced square footage of land used for the store recover the investment for the land effectively ‘lost’ to parking cars? ‘Signage’, what is the visibility like for that brand location?

And now the interesting part of retail location marketing – What are the competitors doing in that area?  Are there anchor stores?  Is there cumulative attraction? What turnover do you estimate gaining and how long before you break-even?  What is the saturation index?

Other aspects include cost control; How does the purchase price compare to your plans? What are the leasing terms? Are there any building restrictions? Have the building costs been factored into the break-even analysis? What does your marketing agency plan for building your footfall up from zero to the required annual amount the brand needs to meet investment targets?

As you can see, there are many factors on a brand’s checklist that make expansion less than straight-forward.  It’s important that all business partners are aligned and not just specialists in their niche field.

An agency aware of what’s involved with brand location analysis will understand how they fit into the overall picture.

Follow the YouCom Media news posts to see the next developments.

• Our Facebook news
• Our Twitter news
• Our Pinterest news
• Our LinkedIn news

Required reference:

YouCom Media News, Sept 2019, London, ‘Brand Location.’

The post Brand Location appeared first on YouCom.

So, a product with a larger market share will deliver better ROI than a product with a smaller market share.

There are exceptions when a small brand can generate higher ROI than those with greater brand presence, but it is not the average.  The stronger the brand, the better it performs.

This of course means brands who have reached the top and are the market leader, will need to become very aggressive, very quickly if they see a competitor eroding that market share.

One strategy to eliminate the competition is loss-leading.  A large brand will have several key product brands underneath it and the deep pockets that higher advertising ROI brings.

This allows the brand to run one of its lines as a loss leader, under-cutting the new competitor to price it out of the market.  Once the competition has been eliminated, it can then raise its price again to a profitable level.

Brand Marketing managers need to give thought to ‘analysis of competitor response’.  A good example is the brand Filofax.  It dominated the market for years and the short-term retaliatory plans it probably once had, became forgotten.  Consequently, when other products suddenly appeared, they lost rapid share.

Brand marketing needs to communicate a brand’s core values.  BMW drivers aren’t buying a car, they are buying ‘the ultimate driving machine’.

Mars eaters are not buying a confectionary snack, they are buying something to energise for work. Rest and play’.

The IT manager buying an IBM data system is not buying a tool to store the company’s servers, he is buying the added-values of size, reputation, recognition, awareness, reliability and support.

Many companies offer cut-price unknown equivalents.  Supermarkets now offer their ‘basics’ range of similar products at lower prices.  Yet consumers still go for the brands.

That is the result of the brand marketing manager’s strategy and long-term vision.

Consumers also recognise something they need from the company’s brand marketing.  A man does not buy a box of unbranded basics chocolate for a woman to satisfy her hunger.  He buys a brand that communicates something about him to her.

Often, he hopes she will remember something about the advertising of the brand and associate it with him (one reason why a woman will receive a box of Milk Tray on a first date than a pack of Kinder).

Perhaps there is also the brand perception of value leading to her playfully telling him off for spending too much on it.

Or perhaps it’s known to be sold in only a few retailers meaning praise is given for making such an effort towards their relationship.

There are many brands which have failed to make a profit or win shelf space.  These are a result of the brand marketing manager failing to integrate all elements of the marketing mix.

“The brand marketing manager needs to use multi-channel marketing strategy to ensure the target audience receives the message that communicates the added-values unique to that product.”

But the purpose of brand marketing is to gain and maintain a loyal customer base in the most cost-effective way that delivers the highest ROI.  That will lead to longevity and longevity leads to power.

Power of course is not just the preserve of consumer products and therefore neither is brand marketing.  People can be marketed and develop a brand.  Celebrities or politicians, business leaders or athletes, they all can become their own brand.

Rap artist Jay-Z famously said he is not a businessman, he is a business, man.  When a person develops their own brand to such an extent that they are representing known attributes just by their appearance or name, they become a business in themselves, just like the consumer brand that becomes a market leader.

Successful brand marketing communicates to satisfy the consumers emotional and rational needs.  A consumer may evaluate several brands of whisky in a supermarket on a rational basis looking at pricing, whether it’s a blend or a malt, the age of the whisky etc.

But they will also be measuring emotional needs such as social acceptance, the prestige of the brand, the opinions of friends towards a brand, how the advertising made them feel when they saw a brand in a media channel, etc.

The successful brand marketing manager will research and understand the extent their brand satisfies those two needs and develop a marketing approach around them.

The right agency then amplifies that approach.

Follow the YouCom Media news posts to see the next developments.

• Our Facebook news
• Our Twitter news
• Our Pinterest news
• Our LinkedIn news

Glossary:

ROI – Return on Investment

Required reference:

YouCom Media News, Mar 2018, London, ‘Brand Marketing.’

The post Brand Marketing appeared first on YouCom.