Imagine what will happen when science fiction comes to life. From smart glasses, helmets to apps, products of Augmented Reality (AR) are starting to reshape the landscape of customer experience.
The recently concluded Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is a spectacular expo of AR products. These products will dominate digital marketing for years to come.
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality (VR), are the largest trends that are driving metamorphosis at major enterprises in the digital marketing community. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), VR and AR technologies will blossom to $162 billion in the year 2020.
VR will seize the market in the next quarter, AR, on the other hand, will represent the long-term opportunity for many enterprises, particularly the retail sector. Inevitably, the bigwigs in the global market already see the promising potentials of AR and VR. As a result, AR and VR are sweeping the world by storm.
One of the best examples of AR at scale is the Nintendo’s Pokemon GO. The widely popular game caught the interest of people across the globe. The AR application spans different industries from IT majors to retail giants to automakers. GAP, BMW I Visualizer, and Microsoft HoloLens are examples of other brands that use AR to promote their products and services.
The Effect of AR to The Behaviors of Consumers Toward Brands
There’s a lot of reason why Augmented Reality is set to transform the way consumers deal with brands.
From gamifying the shopping experience of the customers to tracking the ROI, from providing personalized solutions to real-time interactions, AR can alter the templates of how business works.
Below are the following ways on how AR can change consumer experience:
Real-time Feedback
The unique thing about Augmented Reality is that customers can give instant reviews or comments to the products bought, regardless if other consumers share them in different channels.
It also matters to know what kind of channels are getting the common reviews as well as the duration of how consumers look at a particular item. This type of feedback is a superb idea for digital marketing.
Instant Interaction
Augmented Reality produces an interactive experience which engages the customer more intuitively. The customer will surely want to come back for another experience is he or she is more than satisfied with his or her experience. Well, if the customers appear like a king earlier, with AR, they’ll become an emperor.
Gamification
Obtaining new customers is by any means, expensive. Marketers counteract this situation by introducing games that motivate shoppers to indulge their competitive instincts to generate engagement. Through this strategy, customers experience the brand and earn highly customized points and rewards and coupons.
Personalization
Augmented reality facilitates an impeccable omnichannel for customers. Take your cue from Makeup Genius app of L’Oreal. Through this app, women can check how makeups are applied in real time using a facial recognition technology.
When it comes to the clothing industry, AR technology makes it possible for you to see how the clothes will look on you. It also provides pieces of information such as design options, availability, location, price and more.
Tracking of ROI
The most notable benefit of Augmented Reality is that it allows brands to trace the most feasible route starting from initial contact to the cash register. It can provide a real-time image of how products are faring in the market and related analytics as well. It helps the marketers track the RoI efficiently.
Augmented Reality is indeed a goldmine for digital marketing strategies. It is mobile-friendly and can function as a bridge between other forms of media. More so, its ability to measure ROI and trace data makes it an indispensable tool.
Takeaway
The growth of new and less expensive hardware will leverage the Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality within the grasp of individuals and growing number of companies. In the future, you’ll witness new experiences that’ll fundamentally change the way people work.
This guest post is courtesy of Iman Bahrani. He is an experienced Brisbane SEO practitioner and a digital marketing expert of searchiacalseo.au, a full grown digital marketing agency headquartered in Australia. His time is always full of corporate chores and developing marketing strategies for different companies. Philip also likes to spend his time writing just about anything related to his expertise and shares them with his readers.