Virtual multiple input multiple output (MIMO) technology has been widely researched in the aspect of energy conservation for wireless sensor network (WSN) communication. In this this paper, data transmission for the entire network based on virtual MIMO WSN structure is studied, combined with clustering and multi-hop transmission mode. Each cluster head (CH) is formed according to the clustering algorithm, and the data is transmitted to the adjacent CH by cooperative communication mode. The circuit energy consumption and the transmission energy consumption are both considered in our model, so the minimum inter-cluster transmission energy consumption is obtained, and the optimal path to the sink node is obtained. The proposed strategy does not need the receiver’s collaboration to avoid the complexity of the receiver; meanwhile more energy consumption of the network is saved from the perspective of the network life cycle. The simulation results show that the proposed strategy can reduce more energy consumption and prolong the network life cycle.