What exactly is the metaverse? And how can metaverse marketing strategies be effective for your company? This article aims to cover these topics.
Put simply, the metaverse is where reality and digital worlds come together. It allows digital representations of people, as avatars, to interact with one another. This could be at work, concerts, sports events, or even shopping. The metaverse provides an endless space to virtually connect and create interconnected virtual communities using virtual reality (VR) headsets, smartphone apps, augmented reality (AR) glasses, and other devices. The metaverse market is expected to grow exponentially and reach $800 billion by 2024. In fact, the future looks so bright for the metaverse that it’s suggested that 23 million jobs will be done using AR or VR technology by 2030. With that in mind, let's dig into this topic in more detail:
Metaverse Marketing Strategies
Keeping up with the latest technological developments could be essential to your business's strategy - and few things are more technologically advanced than the metaverse. However, the metaverse isn't just suitable for metaverse marketing companies. But also for a wide range of industries willing to branch out into new territories.
Digital usage is at an all-time high, with 91% of Australia’s population using the internet at the start of 2022. The Australian government advocates that digital technology is the way forward for many industries.
Marketing has always been a driving force in business. This can now be extended into the digital world via the metaverse. Using the metaverse for marketing, your business can utilise endless space and reach gamers and/or avatar users via advertising or digital shops. With this in mind, let’s explore four ways the metaverse can be used in marketing.
Insert Your Business Natively Within the Platform
We all know from experience that ads can be annoying and interrupt what we want to see or read. This means that ads can turn people off from viewing something and stop them in their tracks. Inserting your business natively into a platform allows you to engage with users without annoying or interrupting their experience. Utilising in-game advertising is one way of doing this. This could mean that your product is used within that platform, for example, as an in-game billboard advertisement. For example, Samsung, Coco-Cola, and Volkswagen have virtual billboards within video games.
When inserting yourself natively within the platform, consider the following:
- Who is your audience?
- Are they casual, medium, or hardcore gamers?
Knowing this will help the impact of your in-game marketing.
Choose the right platform.
You need to choose a platform that aligns with your brand, whether mobile, console, streaming, or desktop. Mobile games, for example, are generally for more casual gamers. In contrast, PC and console gamers could be medium or hardcore gamers.
Format.
You need to choose the format of your digital marketing campaign, whether that's the virtual billboards in a digital stadium or videos, music, or banner ads in an app.
Parallel Real-Life Marketing With the Virtual Environment
Replicating what your company offers in real life is a good place to start in the metaverse. This will make your marketing campaign more authentic and recognisable and maintain brand consistency. An example is Deliveroo’s marketing campaign on Animal Crossing. In this game, Deliveroo deploys virtual riders for multiple island-wide deliveries. Players receive not only a surprise delivery on their virtual island but also a promo code they can use in real-life. This move created over three million interactions in the first hour of gameplay. Pretty impressive!
Market Virtual Goods
Online identity, in the form of avatars, is essential to the metaverse. Fashion is entering the metaverse, and people spend a lot of money customising their virtual avatars. This means that if your company is fashion-related, you can sell virtual, digital products to avatars on the metaverse. An example of this was Gucci, who sold a digital version of their Dionysus Bag with Bee on Roblox for over $4,000. Yes, you read that figure correctly.
Here are some tips for marketing virtual goods:
Partner-up.
Team up with online games, choosing ones that naturally fit your branding. You can also use 3D and AR platforms with open marketplaces to create tradeable and wearable digital garments.
NFT.
NFTs or non-fungible tokens can trace the distribution of production of your virtual goods. It can help you prove authenticity, which will lead to building consumer confidence.
Experiment with AR.
AR technology can allow users to virtually visualise a clothing product in real-time.
Gucci did this by creating digital shoes that avatar users can purchase and wear, much like a face filter, allowing them to take photos and videos with them on.
Create Your Own Virtual Venue
You can open up a venue digitally, where you can offer tours, interaction with 3D products, and virtual try-ons. To do this, you need to team up with a VR/AR platform and designer to help you define and create your digital environment. Making your virtual store interactive is important as it increases the chances of meeting customer needs. This means creating an immersive experience that drives customer engagement and hooks users to your brand.
Using platforms like Roblox or Animal Crossing is a great way to launch your digital shop in the metaverse space. They already have huge, engaged audiences. However, launching on your own virtual site space means you can have more of a unique branding strategy.
Are You Ready to Use a Metaverse Marketing Company?
The metaverse offers exciting new opportunities for brands that are forward-thinking. Though it does come with its own challenges, metaverse marketing can provide an innovative and immersive way of marketing.
This article has looked at four effective metaverse marketing strategies to help you kickstart your digital journey. If you’d like to know more about our metaverse marketing services, click here. We’d love to hear from you.
