The Future of Digital Marketing Experience is Here With Augmented Reality
Augmented reality, the latest digital marketing experience, continues to grow and shape the field of digital marketing. Not to be confused with virtual reality, which by contrast replaces the real world with a simulated one, augmented reality provides a view of the real world in real-time overlaid with useful information and enhanced experience points.
As the technology continues to evolve, it’s making its way into various industries including digital marketing, and we’re continuing to discover the vast opportunities it provides us. Knowing how and when to harness this technology to achieve your business goals aren’t only important for strengthening your consumer relationships, it can also be imperative for business growth by impressing potential investors with your innovative positioning.
For marketing professionals, this gives you the power to transform your brand into a holistic digital marketing experience that immerses customers in a product or service. Augmented reality transforms your customers’ environment from a cluttered landscape of static, flat data and advertisements, to a rich, interactive worldview that lets them touch, see, and engage with the world in new ways.
Augmented Reality: Break Through Digital Marketing Clutter
As an expanding technology, this is an especially valuable tool for businesses that want to differentiate themselves or build deeper relationships with their customers. Be part of the future – by 2017, there will be an estimated 2.7 billion augmented reality apps in circulation.
Augmented reality gives you center stage outside the noise by engaging your customers in ways they have never experienced before, and providing value as an extension of your brand that far exceeds your competition. It’s easy to create visuals that show your consumer what you offer but that doesn’t always mean they understand how that fits into their lives. Â
To get you started thinking about how you can take part in this cutting edge digital marketing experience, here are our favorite real-world examples of how businesses just like you are using augmented reality to transform their customer experience.
- Augmented Reality for Urban and Neighborhood-Based Discovery: Using augmented reality to support urban discovery not only exposes potential customers to your business (and others nearby or like you), but helps them engage with your brand in its native environment. This is especially important for the tourism, hospitality, and real estate industries. For example, our team at MadPlum Creative partnered up with Punto Destino to transform the traditional housing market through this unique, digital experience. We created a mobile app layered with augmented reality touch points to guide potential buyers through their prospective neighborhoods and immerse them in the lifestyle they were about to embark on. The results – over 90% occupancy for their clients – speak for themselves and to the power of AR.
- How Augmented Reality Enhances the Shopping Experience: Whether your customers are looking for an incredible promotion online or in store, trying to imagine your sofa in their apartment, or how certain colors, textures and trends jive in their day to day lives, placing customers in an interactive digital marketing experience can help them answer these questions and more. By using augmented reality to enhance the shopping experience, your prospects can try out your product, enjoy your services, and immerse themselves in your brand’s lifestyle before they become customers. This rich, immersive access creates a feeling of instant gratification that encourages sales and boosts customer loyalty.
A great example of a company successfully using augmented reality is Lego’s, Lego Digital Box. Parents and their children are able to visit their local Lego store and see what the finished product of their lego design looks like before they even purchase it. Not only is it a cool and interesting feature on it’s own but it also inspires the consumer to actually see the possible finished product.
Although augmented reality is still a new trend, the AR business is earmarked to generate close to $1.6 billion in the next two years. We don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty exciting piece of the action … and we’re ready to continue to grow with it. How about you?
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