Businesses are starting to realize that traditional marketing strategies are no longer feasible.
They must look for new and creative ways to generate more leads, engage more prospects, and build new customer relationships.
To keep up with the pace of business, B2B companies are stepping up their game with emerging technologies like Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR).
Let’s look at how B2B companies are using augmented reality and virtual reality to boost sales and innovation.
And why is it critical for them to adopt this immersive technology?
B2B Marketing with AR/VR
AR and VR are two emerging technologies that can provide a wide range of benefits to businesses of all sizes.
As these technologies were previously only used in movies and video games, businesses are now recognizing their marketing potential.
In recent years, augmented reality and virtual reality have made inroads into a variety of industries to create an enhanced customer experience.
Industries like real estate, retail, healthcare, automotive, travel, and construction can now immerse their customers in their brand.
The use of this technology is helping businesses in innovating their sales presentations, product demonstration, virtual engagements, collaborations, and brand introductions.
With pandemic shifts and industry-wide acceptance, AR and VR will have a huge impact in the near future.
By incorporating them into a B2B marketing strategy, businesses would be able to stand out and foster innovation.
Why AR/VR is important for B2B Marketing?
With the tremendous growth of apps and social media platforms, customers have become smart enough to judge and form their own opinions.
This process has been greatly simplified with the help of AR and VR technology-based applications and platforms.
Interactive and immersive experiences are some of the best features that AR and VR have to offer.
And such features will alter the way B2B marketers intend to engage with their potential customers.
This technology has the potential to open up new possibilities, which means that businesses can have the content they want to share and tailor it to exactly what they want their customers to see.
When they see it, they will be interested enough to take action.
B2B marketers will be able to demonstrate a virtual walkthrough of their products or services to generate ideas on how to make them more user-friendly.
Such experiences will make customers immerse themselves and allow them to feel the emotions that the product or service will bring to them.
This will help businesses to grow their customer reach through word-of-mouth as a result of these immersive experiences.
In many cases, this is an excellent opportunity for businesses to incorporate this immersive technology into their content marketing strategy.
The Benefits of AR/VR for B2B Marketing
The technology has limitless applications for increasing the presence of a brand and its products in the minds of potential customers.
It enables a business to improve the customer experience by placing physical products in real-life scenarios that can be captured on their computers, tablets, or smartphones.
Thanks to technologies like AR and VR, there is no need to travel to a physical location to have such experiences.
Consider being able to experience and interact with a product in the middle of a virtual meeting and seeing it being used in action.
Being able to demonstrate to potential customers how to make the best use of a product is important and AR/VR does that.
There are lots of benefits of using AR and VR in B2B marketing, so let’s take a look at a few of them.
- Remote Visualization and Demonstration of Products or Services
Whether it is a product demonstration, sales presentation, or collaboration, businesses can provide a seamless virtual experience to their customers.
AR and VR help to create a 3D space where customers can experience and interact with products or services in a near real virtual environment.
They can access all the benefits of such products or services without having to lose valuable time to travel or be present at a physical location.
- Interactive and Immersive Experience
An artificial 3D space can be created with AR and VR technology to bring products or services to life.
It can help businesses to demonstrate products or services that are too complex to explain.
With AR and VR, customers will be able to explore and interact with such products or services in real-time.
And this will make them interested enough to take action, therefore, promoting further sales.
- Better Engagement
AR and VR implementation can help businesses in increasing customer engagement and involvement in their products or services.
Unlike traditional visualization, customers can now focus more on details.
It is not limited to viewing just pictures and videos but brings the ability to explore, visualize and interact, reinforcing the engagement process.
Such immersive and interactive experiences can achieve better engagement and be remembered for a long time.
- Personalized Experience
The benefits of personalized and targeted marketing are already acknowledged by some industries.
AR and VR can take advantage of this marketing strategy to provide customers with a more personalized buying experience.
This technology can add real-world enhancements and create 3D content in a virtual environment that would not be possible in a physical store.
Customers can also use AR and VR to create personalized products that are tailored to their preferences.
This leads to a better buying experience in which each customer gets special and exclusive products, resulting in increased sales for businesses.
- Real-time Behavioral Analytics
Implementing AR and VR can help businesses to collect valuable data. They can measure and track every interaction made by the buyers during a virtual walkthrough.
AR and VR have the ability to show which parts of the virtual walkthrough buyers are paying the most attention to.
It can also help to observe the buyer’s behavior and their engagement in real-time.
And all those data can help businesses to measure the overall impact of their products or services.
The ability to gather such analytics can help them to improve future interactions and marketing campaigns.
The Future of AR/VR for B2B Marketing
Businesses are already feeling the pressure to invest, given the amount of money, influence, and speculation surrounding emerging technologies.
With AR and VR, businesses will improve their relationships with their customers while also providing personalized services and solutions.
However, many people are still unfamiliar with this technology, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s still early and innovation is still growing rapidly.
For those who are already used to spending millions of dollars on marketing each year, spending even a small part of that on AR and VR marketing strategies is a great place to start.
