While the metaverse might still be on the distant horizon for most of us, this technological stampede is making a lot of noise and it’s moving fast. Before long, metaverse marketing will be an everyday part of our lives. Gartner predicts that by 2026, 25% of us will spend at least 1 hour per day in the metaverse, for work and leisure. Companies still struggling to grasp the opportunity in the coming years will be rapidly outpaced by the competition, and struggle to regain their niche.
McKinsey astutely determines the metaverse is ‘an evolution of today’s internet’. When we consider how the internet has revolutionized marketing, it’s easy to see why the topic of metaverse marketing is so important for marketers to get to grips with.
Metaverse marketing vs. traditional marketing activities
Marketing is one of the most interesting areas where the metaverse can generate value. ‘Metaverse marketing’ is using the metaverse for marketing activities, for example by leveraging interactive 3D immersive experiences to engage potential leads. It includes using AR, VR, and other extended reality technologies, blended with intelligent and automated marketing processes to identify, intercept, and nurture potential leads.
It’s important to see metaverse marketing as a companion to traditional marketing activities – not a replacement. This means your metaverse marketing needs to reflect the sales funnel and customer journey. It should also link to other aspects of sales and marketing, such as after-sales support and customer service. By doing these well in the metaverse, you can generate the same repeat custom and word-of-mouth/social recommendations as your traditional marketing does.
One big difference compared to traditional marketing, is that metaverse marketing can become highly automated with ‘no touch’ processes that enable leads to pull themselves towards conversion.
How to design metaverse marketing campaigns
When designing your metaverse marketing, it should meet the same goals as always: lead generation, lead qualification, lead nurturing, and conversion. The metaverse can be fertile ground for lead generation because there are endless opportunities for engaging with your target audience. As always, it must consider the customer perspective and orient itself around identifying and solving problems for your target customer.
Right now, a lot of the use-cases (see below) are focused on younger Gen Z consumers. You may not think these use-cases are a good fit with your brand and customers – and you’re probably right. After all, you know your business best. This is why it’s important you define your own customers in detail, and create experiences they will engage with.
Think carefully about how your customers prefer to interact and which devices they use – and then design experiences with a good match for them. However, don’t discount Gen Z completely, either – they’re growing up fast, and will be the decision makers sooner than you might think. Laying some groundwork now might pay dividends in the future.
Another thing to consider when comparing metaverse marketing to ‘regular’ marketing is handling lead qualification and the process for advancing leads to the next stage in the sales funnel. This will always involve some kind of selection process, so you’re focusing efforts on the most important leads. When you create your concept, it’s important to have each stage linked to the next and ideally find ways of using automation and ways for users to ‘self qualify’ and move to the next stage.
Why metaverse marketing is here to stay
The greatest value of metaverse marketing is the huge potential for engagement. This can be applied to every stage in the sales funnel, but it has particular value for the awareness and consideration phases.
The metaverse is here to stay, and metaverse marketing is something you need to stay updated with. It’s undergoing constant technological evolution, with a growing infrastructure and an increase in metaverse content sharing platforms. Each year there is a wider range of use-cases as more firms experiment with unique ways to leverage this engaging technology. Combined with the demographically driven shift to online and omnichannel commerce, the metaverse will only grow in importance.
Examples of metaverse marketing
Many early adopters of the metaverse are gamers, and this is setting the blueprint for marketing opportunities. Gaming is closely linked to in-game purchases, including virtual goods and NFTs, using integrated payment solutions.
As a result, many of the earliest examples of metaverse marketing are based on this template for interaction. Examples include Gucci’s sale of virtual products in the Roblox game and Nike’s Cryptokicks (a virtual version of their Dunk sneakers). Turning this around, Chipotle created a Burrito rolling challenge that enabled Roblox players to earn vouchers for food from a real-life Chipotle restaurant by completing a challenge in the game.
The successful model of in-platform purchases can be easily applied outside the gaming world too, however instead of receiving virtual goods for using in a game, you need to offer something else.
There are key areas where metaverse marketing can deliver value:
Brand engagement – interaction with your brand, awareness of your identity and offer. Purchase of collectibles and NFTs.
Games and gamification – engagement with products through games, and social engagement using gamified experiences, promotions, and competitions.
Direct interaction – meeting in virtual spaces one-on-one, sales assistance, workshops, webinars/metinars. Interacting and exploring your products or services with 3D models and simulations.
Sales activity – direct purchases from a metaverse experience. Coordinating with omnichannel, social commerce, and ecommerce.
How to use metaverse marketing for B2B vs. B2C sales
Marketers use different methods for B2B and B2C business models because the goals and habits of these customers are quite distinct. Despite the unique challenges and opportunities of the metaverse, the process of building a marketing campaign is very similar. You may also find that in this unique area, the tactics used for both B2B and B2C are not so different as they might seem at first glance.
As always, you need to consider your ideal customers and build content and offers around these personas. However, instead of using a ‘white paper’, you can offer a 3D immersive experience that is just as educational and 10X engaging.
It’s not enough to create the 3D content – metaverse marketing needs to be a storytelling journey. You have an unparalleled opportunity to use immersive experiences that can combine factual information with engaging experiences and link with social proof and anecdotes or other storytelling.
The social aspect cannot be ignored. Consider ways you can leverage social media, for example with social influencers in virtual environments. Another possibility comes from user-generated content, which means co-opting users to engage with and promote your brand through gamified experiences, then sharing them on social media channels.
Tactics for metaverse marketing at each stage in the sales funnel
An intelligent approach to metaverse marketing is to wrap it around the sales funnel, just like any other campaign. There are different models that describe the different stages in the buyer journey/sales funnel, but we’re defining them here as, Pre-awareness, Awareness, Consideration, Selection, Action, and Conversion. Let’s look at ways you can use the metaverse at each of these stages.
Pre-awareness
This is the very widest part of the sales funnel, with a target audience that experiences challenges that they may not yet recognize or have a name for. Many marketers ignore this stage because the returns are usually disproportionately low. However, there are unique opportunities for collaboration and raising awareness through social interactions and sharing of content.
How: Leveraging metaverse games and social influencers in virtual spaces to promote ideas and talk about challenges. Selling, winning, or giving away virtual products or NFTs as prizes or merchandise that boosts visibility.
Awareness
At this stage, the audience is aware of their problems or challenges, and are looking for possible solutions. At this stage your goal is to enable potential leads to learn how others have solved their challenges.
How: Social media using virtual spaces, walk-throughs, webinars/metinars, immersive experiences at trade shows.
Consideration
By now, leads have a good understanding that a range of solutions exist, and you want them to know you’re one of them. Your goal at this stage is to show what you can do, and how it benefits them.
How: Demonstrations in virtual spaces, 3D virtual products to explore, games that simulate problems and solutions in action.
Selection
At the selection phase, the customer is shortlisting their options – so you want to make the cut. They will start to form preferences and seriously consider which options to keep and eliminate before choosing the winner. Leveraging your brand identity at this stage can be crucial.
How: Using augmented reality, so customers can see products in action/intended setting. Let them create and customize products to order – either as virtual or real-life products. Enable virtual comparison of your products vs. others.
Action
At this point your qualified leads are ready to convert – they just need to cross the gap with an action that takes them to the final stage. After interacting with your brand and seeing all the options in a virtual environment, they take action to get in touch or book a meeting.
How: Host open-door Q&A sessions that leads can join. Include the ability to book meetings directly from virtual spaces and webinars/metinars. Meet with potential clients in virtual spaces.
Conversion
Conversion is the final point in the sales funnel, hopefully leading to return custom and recommendations thanks to fantastic service provision. This is the ‘buy now’ moment, or when they sign the contract.
How: This can be as frictionless as you want it to be. Enable in-experience purchases, or sign contracts directly in virtual meeting spaces.
Building the sales funnel into metaverse marketing
As you might be able to already see, the different stages in the sales funnel become a little blurred with metaverse marketing. The potential for accelerating the lead generation and nurturing process is huge. With seamless experiences, a lead can convert with minutes of interacting with your brand – depending on how you have each element set up and interlinked.
To some extent, the traditional stages of the customer journey are being disrupted by the metaverse model, but this is a massive opportunity if you can enable a seamless progression by building-in links from each stage to the next. If your metaverse content marketing is successful, leads might jump straight to a purchase or trial offer.
In this technologically powered field, automation is your friend. You should design your metaverse marketing strategy with a logical structure similar to an email flow or drip campaign. With intelligent design, you can empower leads to make decisions that self-qualify (or disqualify) them as leads.
Disqualified leads need not be wasted either – these can be harnessed for social promotion of your brand using fun games and experiences they’ll want to share. Eventually, their social activity will put your brand in front of a lead that will qualify – and with no additional input from you.
Make sure that you always link your ‘virtual’ marketing with real-life marketing activities too. A lead might encounter your brand in a game, but still want to have a face-to-face meeting before signing on the dotted line.
Taking some advice about metaverse marketing from McKinsey, “Now is the right time to adopt a test-and-learn mindset, to be open to experiments in the metaverse, and to move on quickly from failure and capitalize on success.”
Don’t get restricted by devoting all your time to one platform or metaverse concept. You should aim to make your content as easy to share as possible – with both users of VR and AR able to join in.
Don’t lose a moment! Start creating and sharing your metaverse marketing content today with the Fectar Studio and Fectar App. With more than 6 million users, it’s the best way to maximize your metaverse audience.
