How to Enhance Marketing with Metaverse

TL;DR

Once you have garnered the leads from your marketing campaigns, website optimization, direct engagement, or advertisements, the job isn’t over. The next step is to nurture these leads and bring them closer to your list of clients. What you’ve gathered from these initial marketing practices falls under the Top Funnel of Marketing, and as you progress through the list of prospects, it gets narrowed down and reaches the middle of the funnel.

At this stage, you’re in the middle of your lead-conversion journey; therefore, it becomes the most crucial area to focus on. At Middle of Funnel, your list of prospects will be smaller than it was at the top, but it’s more qualified and relevant for your business.

In the new age of web3, interactivity is the new middle name of the superior customer experience and a call for the Metaverse. In this new era of marketing, the potential of the Metaverse is enormous. It opens up new opportunities to experience products and brand interaction, establishing better ways to connect with customers.

Your customers in Metaverse will look for more than plane information, a personalization that makes them a part of your world—leveraging the best from the middle of the funnel. Metaverse allows your customers to interact with the information and brand content they see or read, modify it, personalize it, transform it in multiple ways and make it their own.

What is a Marketing Funnel?

A marketing funnel, in the simplest terms, is a series of stages to guide prospects through the buying journey. It helps marketers plan and measure efforts to bring, engage, and convert leads through content and other marketing tactics, like landing pages and ads. However, these are the conventional ways to convert your prospects into customers. In this article, we’ll dive deep into the effect of Metaverse.

Ideally, marketing funnels are classified with the ‘AIDA’ model:

• Awareness
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

But you can simplify the marketing funnel into a three-stage model:

• Top of the funnel (Awareness)
• Middle of the funnel (Consideration)
• Bottom of the funnel (Conversion)

More into the Arrival of the Metaverse

There are a few key indicators that the Metaverse has already arrived:

• Consumers now have greater access to AR and VR technologies. For instance, the Oculus Quest 2 costs $299, which is less than the price of a PS5 or four tickets to a baseball game.
• The pandemic increased social media usage, online gaming, and online shopping, further fusing our virtual and real worlds.
• The shift to the internet caused many businesses to reevaluate their digital ecosystems and sparked technological innovation.
• Blockchain and other Web 3 technologies have allowed consumers to interact with their devices with new degrees of decentralization, autonomy, and control.
• There has been much media attention and investment in this field due to tech titans like Meta and Microsoft providing public data about their Metaverse ambitions.

To be clear, a network of virtual worlds that will eventually link our physical and digital realities is referred to as the “metaverse.” Although the Metaverse has not yet manifested to its full potential, it is commonly accepted that it will be where much human contact occurs in the coming Internet age.

Brands from all across the world are utilizing the Metaverse’s new opportunities. Are you prepared to make the plunge and determine whether providing your target audience with a Metaverse experience is the best course of action?

Demand Generation Re-defined

Although demand generation and lead generation sound synonyms, they mean different things.

Lead gen is the process of actively gathering data about potential customers to turn them into sales leads. A “demand gen” marketing strategy generates interest in or demand for your brand.

Both should encourage customers to purchase from you; they do so in different ways.

Many businesses currently promote their goods utilizing interactive games like Animal Crossing and technology like virtual reality. A future where digital assets matter equally to physical ones is also beginning to emerge; examples include cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and virtual real estate.

Virtual reality makes it possible to connect with companies and their products in ways beyond simply viewing them on a screen. Think about virtual performances, exclusive events, and 3D environments. The Metaverse’s marketing opportunities will multiply as it becomes more commonplace.

Brands can establish their digital worlds, venues, and stores within the Metaverse. In addition, brands can collaborate with already-existing virtual worlds within them.

Role of Metaverse for Middle of Funnel

For best of middle-funnel-marketing, it is crucial to adopt a test-and-learn approach, be willing to experiment in the Metaverse, and quickly move from setbacks and capitalize on success. Since there is a small amount of skepticism for the Metaverse, businesses may wish to exercise caution. Before being widely accepted, every new technology goes through a phase of trust building. However, we believe we’re at the cusp of a fundamental change in how people use the internet. Global marketers would be remiss about the automotive industry if they didn’t explore what Metaverse can offer.

Defining the Metaverse Marketing Goals

Before the decision to incorporate Metaverse, brands should understand why they want to be part of the Metaverse. If their potential customers are there, do they want to increase brand awareness, re-position themselves, pull favorable sentiment, or promote consumer loyalty? Brands must understand that Metaverse holds immense power to spark innovation in their marketing team. Furthermore, the primary goal should not be to drive direct sales since bringing Metaverse experiences allows consumers to interact with your brand and assist in better buying decisions.

Consumer Mindset for the Brands in the Metaverse

Consumers tend to visualize brands in the Metaverse as genuinely innovative, so the bar for delivering innovative experiences is high. As discussed earlier, direct sales may not be Metaverse’s priority and prime focus, but that does not mean brands shouldn’t think and plan to pull the future potential. Sales of virtual goods for Direct-to-avatar contribute to an already booming $54 billion market, and some forward-thinking companies are testing multiple opportunities to generate revenues. For instance, Auto OEMs like Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Toyota, Lamborghini, and more have launched a virtual experience or are planning to enter the Metaverse. Just as online-to-offline sales conversions have become a business standard today, we expect to see more metaverse-to-offline sales soon.

Conclusion

Marketers with the Metaverse need to establish new engagement strategies accounting for the unique consumer behavior at play. It’s crystal clear that Metaverse already empowers brands, especially Auto OEMs, with great marketing and brand-building opportunities. The present technological barriers and the gradual pace of mainstream adoption are not likely to be critical obstacles to experimenting, learning, and exploring success with marketing in the Metaverse.

Regardless of how the Metaverse evolves in the current decade, the amount of technological innovation and consumer adoption will probably rise. When you consider how quickly the new use cases are emerging, and platforms are evolving, it becomes difficult for brands to avoid testing and learning the Metaverse’s scope. It’ll also be essential for marketers to secure the talents required to keep up with the rapid developments in areas such as virtual and augmented reality, consumer experience analytics, and virtual events & commerce.

Finally, the Metaverse holds excellent potential beyond the marketing strategies and funnels. It’s to demonstrate the brand value throughout the experience. Organizations must research and understand the potential strategic implications of the Metaverse for R&D, operations, production, marketing, sales, consumer feedback, and employee training. Brands that plan and execute today will get the maximum benefit from the Metaverse tomorrow.

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