Image Amblin Entertainment
It’s been nearly a decade since Yelp introduced the first augmented reality application for the iPhone called Monocle. A lot has changed since then. We’re home-bound, teams are displaced, conferences are transitioning online and video chatting is the norm. Devices are also more powerful, making augmented reality more accessible than ever.
Augmented reality and virtual reality are powerful marketing tools to integrate into any brand’s future tool kit. Cuz let’s face it, there’s only so much we can take of Zoom Meetings and boring webinars. Now’s the time to be planning your go-to-market strategy of how to integrate the future now! But how can you do that?
1. Have the destination in mind for mixed reality.
In order to develop the content and technology needed for mixed reality, you need to keep clear goals in mind. Are you looking to increase audience engagement? Do you want to create moments of delight that engender positive reinforcement around your brand? Would you like to uncover key insights into how your message connects with your target audience? Great! These are the kinds of goals that you can start with identifying to build the right experience and analytics. The key is to set your success for mixed reality similar to metrics you would for any other campaign and work to exceed those expectations.
2. Create a content journey.
Mixed-reality marketing is both a strategy and a tactic. It requires the ability to integrate multiple types of content along with the refinement of marketing goals and analytics. As a content type, virtual reality requires development resources and the ability to support the back-end technology that powers the content displayed on the headset. Mixed-reality content is also not the only content that people will get exposed to during your marketing campaign, so it needs to be cohesive and frictionless across the platforms they consume it on. Build a content strategy that aligns the entire campaign and optimizes it for the appropriate channels.
3. Think beyond headsets.
Mixed reality means voice, visual search, virtual reality, immersive experiences, and more. If you are a CPG company, you can use packaging or retail displays to create tactile experiences or experiences consumers can take away. Right now, with digital togetherness, there’s tons of room to build upon the adoption of video technology and sharing mixed reality experiences in the home. By building a marketing program that incorporates different mediums and connects with consumers on their terms, you can deliver experiential stories that capture their attention and directly impacts their perception of a product beyond the product itself.
4. Optimize for new types of search.
As voice assistants continue to grow in popularity (Alexa and Google home combined to sell 44 million units last holiday season and Apple HomePod debuted by selling more than 600,000 units in its first quarter) and visual search becomes more pervasive, brands need to ensure they’re optimized for those new search technologies. Our brains are conditioned to identify an image nearly instantly. Being able to process an image and have it show brands or products included is a new feature that search engines now include. Bing introduced visual search in late 2017 and other social networks such as Pinterest support it also.
We’ve seen industries disrupted on a scale never seen before. Everyone is looking for new approaches to solve for the “new normal” and mixed reality may be it. The time is now for marketers to consider how this technology could accelerate their marketing effectiveness.
