How the Metaverse will Change Marketing Strategies Forever
Make no mistake about it, the Metaverse is no longer a thing of the future. It’s here, and it’s ready to be explored by you and your customers.
We see it all around us, people immersed in their beautifully-built, virtual worlds—spending less and less time in ordinary life. As a result, brand managers everywhere are scrambling to modernize their approach—wondering where the most lucrative prospects for marketing in the Metaverse might be found.
In fact, some businesses (seeing the signs of new beginnings) have gone all-in, ditching traditional advertising forms in favor of developing hyper-personalized, immersive environments for their customers to explore and enjoy.
It’s truly a new era! If you’re a curious and forward-thinking company looking to expand your marketing knowledge in this space, keep reading to find out how the Metaverse is influencing the future of digital marketing and how you can seize the opportunity to boost your brand.
But First, Some Metaverse Essentials
For those just tuning in, let’s quickly recap: the Metaverse is a decentralized reality—a multi-participant shared space with a strong emphasis on user experience. It extends across the internet in much the same way that the internet itself extends across the globe.
It fronts an immense amount of interest and opportunity for businesses, enterprises, and individuals alike. It’s potentially the largest wealth transfer in human history; imagine if everyone woke up tomorrow morning with the ability to suddenly create, discover, or reinvent whatever they need right at their fingertips! Totally out-of-this-world, right?
What This Means For Your Business
Keep in mind that the Metaverse is not actually a technology, but a vision that exists via numerous technologies. Consider the Metaverse as a 3D model of the internet. It’s a place parallel to the physical world—where you spend your digital days interacting with your social circles, via unique avatars, in elaborately designed environments.
Among the Metaverse’s many advantages for marketers are a number of innovative and distinctive qualities, including:
- The Metaverse is perpetually active and does not pause or stop when a user exits. Regardless of whether or not anyone is present, the virtual worlds within it continue endlessly.
- It exists and functions in real-time, with a timeline analogous to real-world time. For marketers, this makes it easy to plan out the best times and places to reach their target demographic.
- Users have complete autonomy and are afforded the freedom to engage in a wide variety of personal interests simultaneously.
- The Metaverse is a self-contained reality that allows users to purchase, sell, trade, create, invest, study, explore, play, and own things. Users can also achieve notoriety and admiration for their contributions to the Metaverse’s expansion.
- It consists of coexisting platforms that can collaborate or operate independently. This, for example, allows users to transfer things from one game reality to another or to spread brand messaging across numerous digital environments.
- It supports user-generated content (UGC). Users of the Metaverse can produce and share material that other users will like. This is comparable to the concept of UGC in social media marketing, which has proven to be a practical strategy for increasing brand exposure in virtual communities.
Though this may all currently sound like far-out science fiction, the Metaverse is the obvious next step in human relations. Pretty soon, this concept will be our everyday reality.
Current Opportunities in Metaverse Marketing
Now for the fun part: the Metaverse is a brave new world, and marketers are just beginning to explore its possibilities. And even though there will be many marketing hurdles ahead, brands who are savvy enough to navigate these new seas will find plenty of opportunities.
While the following list is by no means exhaustive, it should serve as a starting point for you. Let’s take a look at six fascinating metaverse marketing options available today, along with some example cases of what other top brands are up to:
- Ad Placement: It’s not difficult to imagine. Brands have long been promoted in video game scenery like Grand Theft Auto and NBA2K. Think billboards, signage, bus posters, etc., but in the Metaverse.
- Product Placement: Similar to real-world product placements, as seen in most TV shows and movies, brands can place their product creations in fit-for-audience experiences within the Metaverse. Hasbro, for example, collaborated with Roblox to bring Nerf guns into the virtual world.
- Designed Experiences: Gucci also collaborated with Roblox to create a Gucci-themed environment in the Roblox metaverse. Players can explore the world, purchase in-game items with real money, and so on. In fact, one player spent over $4,000 on a virtual Gucci handbag—of course, limited edition!
- Virtual Events: The hip-hop sensation Travis Scott teamed up with Epic Games to put on a virtual concert for Fortnite players. The live concert attracted over 12 million viewers (about 300 sold-out stadiums in one sitting). Whoa, that’s massive!
- Digital Real Estate: As an alternative to working with pre-existing metaverses, which might only put you in front of a moderately specific type of audience, you could consider purchasing digital real estate and establishing your own Metaverse to satisfy the specific goals unique to your organization.
- NFTs: Lastly, all top brands are experimenting with digital products in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which may be purchased on crypto exchanges or in the Metaverse. Nike, for example, is just getting started with virtual branded sneakers and accessories for avatars to the sport.
As companies and technology catch up with the Metaverse, there will undoubtedly be a learning curve. However, there are many intriguing ways forward for those open to new experiences and experimentation.
Take Your Brand to The Metaverse with Sercas
The Metaverse is quickly becoming the new frontier of online engagement. Think of this period as akin to the early days of social media marketing. If you don’t have a winning strategy in the works, you’re about to miss out on some serious opportunities.
That’s where your pals at Sercas come in! We’re here to keep you up-to-date with the latest trends and developments in digital metaverse marketing.
Our team can help you design the right strategy for your business. We’ll guide you in understanding what makes the Metaverse such a powerful tool, and assist you in determining how best to use it in order to reach your target audience and achieve success.
Do you have a metaverse marketing strategy?