We're living in a time of extreme technological growth, regardless of industry. And the advancements of technologies like augmented reality (AR) can provide a major opportunity to separate your brand from the rest of the pack.
AR allows users to experience an event, product or service without being physically present. It provides the ability to submerge into a brand new environment so prospective clients can visualize your offering with a virtual test drive. Our agency has successfully integrated AR as a marketing tool to create an optimal buying journey, which has led to higher conversion rates and incremental revenue for existing clients.
Here are seven tips to leverage AR for your business:
1. Don't use it as a standalone function.
Augmented reality alone cannot help to grow a business. The best potential for AR is to integrate it as part of a larger strategy. For example, a recent guest on my podcast uses AR alongside traditional ads and digital technology to bring her company’s print offerings to life.
Product-based brands looking to effectively implement augmented reality can provide customers with a virtual experience that offers key insights into products. That way, your customers will know what to expect. Your offering should literally "augment" what you're currently doing to enhance your overall client experience.
2. Take advantage of its flexibility.
A digital-first and customer-centric approach, such as with AR, helps remove physical barriers, as your clients can experience your product through mobile or desktop anywhere, even in the comfort of their own home. This flexibility has a lot of advantages for a company: It can help to optimize business operations, empower employees, engage with customers and transform products and services to satisfy customer needs.
For example, an approach like this can empower employees in that it provides them with more tools to include in their "promotional arsenal" -- ones that are deeper integrated into your marketing function.
3. Create bonus content for your products.
Successfully integrating AR into your customer experience could help breathe new life into your offering by taking a different approach to sales and marketing efforts. For instance, a product-based company could include additional information on its product packaging, which customers could access via AR, offering more value to them. If a company selling health pills is looking to revive its marketing, it might consider offering customers health exercise suggestions, which would complement the core product.
4. Provide an extra level of confidence for customers.
Businesses should also focus on enhancing customers' shopping experiences and entire buying journey. Recently, more brands have started using AR to let customers visualize products and try them before they buy.
For instance, Amazon is letting its app users select the products they're looking to buy and, with the help of AR, augment the product in their present environment, share it with others for their opinion and then have more confidence buying the same product they've visualized.
Enhancing your customers' buying journey is important for creating a loyal customer base.
5. Don't forget the utility of augmented reality.
AR can also help businesses train employees or customers remotely and save time and money on travel. It can also be useful for businesses to provide instant customer service, like demonstrating how to assemble a piece of furniture. A company could create videos of an employee demonstrating the assembly, and when the customer is viewing the demo in AR, they will feel as if the employee is right there in front of them, teaching them how to perform the task.
6. Bridge your marketing efforts.
AR can act like a bridge between paper and digital media marketing and physical and virtual gaps. It can help brands to personally connect with customers at all touch points of the experience. Ikea has been using AR for its app, Ikea Place. As a result, the company received new customers and 2 million app downloads.
Another recent podcast guest shared that his company incorporates AR into its sales funnel -- from initial contact to components of the actual clients' buying journey. Bridging sales and marketing with AR technology can help your sales process become more seamless.
7. Establish your brand as a premium offering.
The reason people are willing to pay higher prices for certain brands is that they believe they are getting a certain level of quality. If businesses focused on crafting a higher perception of themselves within their audience, not only would their revenue potentially increase because of higher profit margins but they could also start attracting higher-quality customers.
Premium branding is all about selling people on buying from you before they even talk to you. If you are the go-to company to solve their problem, it simply comes down to their level of commitment to solving that problem.
As a digital marketer, I'm fully aware that it's becoming more difficult and costly to get -- and stay -- in front of the right customer. Investing resources in AR could result in lower acquisition cost through technology and allow clients to have a deeper relationship with your product or service.
