Marketing is a high-priority concern for businesses of all shapes, sizes, and varieties. To get noticed, they need to optimize everything from the content they produce to the brand images they present — but they also need to target the right audiences (and know them completely). Because this can’t be achieved immediately, it must be worked on over time.
You send out some types of content and see how they perform. How do the recipients react? How much interest do they show? By tracking the actions they subsequently take, you can glean insight into the quality of your content and the suitability of the target group. It’s all about patiently refining your audience until you’re confident that you have a solid selection of interested people, then keeping it going as a secondary concern (no targets are perfect).
There are many ways to build an audience for your brand, but have you considered embracing new technological possibilities and bringing AR/VR content into your campaign? It’s a solid idea, but don’t just take my word for it — here’s why it’s worth your attention.
VR and AR Are Perfect for Event Marketing
Hosting events, or simply appearing at them, is an effective audience-expanding tactic that is becoming increasingly popular for two big reasons: firstly, the rise of rich social media has made it much easier to document events; and secondly, it’s now important that a given brand be seen as accessible, personable, and ethically-responsible (many events are charitable in nature).
VR marketing at events can work incredibly well. The execution is simple enough: you have a VR headset (or several VR headsets) somewhere on the premise, and you use it to display custom-made footage. The creative direction is up to you. You could show a tour of your studio, or take people through how your products are made, or even provide a product demo.
What’s more, you can record your events (or event appearances) in 360-degree video and share it for free online. If someone spots one of your videos on YouTube, they might choose to visit your website and start to learn about what your brand does, giving you a fresh prospect.
People Are Curious About New Content Formats
Even though VR and AR have been around in the mainstream world for quite some time, they’re still considered somewhat new and exciting. This is partially due to the slow rate of adoption, and partially due to the still-progressing technological standards.
360-degree content doesn’t just get attention because it’s immersive in a way that regular content isn’t. It also gets attention because it’s unusual. In a time when the online world is absolutely packed with digital content, being able to stand out purely through your chosen format is a remarkable gift.
This gift is likely to endure for quite a while, because these technologies are unlikely to become ultra-popular for some years yet. We also know, on a related note, that VR/AR ads outperform their 2D counterparts by significant margins. Curiosity and engagement make a potent combination that mustn’t be ignored.
An AR Tool Can Earn Easy Recognition
AR isn’t just great for entertainment. It’s also excellent for creating practical tools: they can do things such as preview how certain products will interact with real environments or measure distances using set items for scale. If you’ve never used such an app, you’re likely in the minority, because they’re highly popular.
The great thing about these apps is that they don’t require the users to know or care about the brands that produced them. That might sound bad because ROI is important, but as long as someone understands that the tool they’re using was made by your brand, they’ll inevitably view your company in a more positive way.
And since the function of your app doesn’t need to relate to your regular corporate functions, you can get very creative and try to fill almost any clear gap in the market. This also fits neatly with the idea of audience expansion: the more you move away from your core audience, the more you’ll build your brand with those previously unfamiliar with it.
Overall, then, VR and AR are great additions to an audience-building campaign because they get a lot of attention, suit event marketing in particular very well, and give you options for publicizing your brand name to people who might otherwise never learn anything about you. Give them a try — they might suit your brand perfectly.
Guest PostAbout the Guest Author(s)
Rodney Laws
Rodney Laws has more than a decade of experience providing marketing advice to online entrepreneurs and businesses. He’s set up and marketed his own businesses and consulted on crafting campaigns for established companies.
