Persuading customers to hand over their hard-earned cash for a product or service is never easy, no matter how great you think your marketing campaigns are. For this reason, businesses rely on numerous different tools to help persuade customers to buy from them. These include television advertisements, print out-reach, radio ads and the list goes on. More recently though, businesses have begun to rely heavily on what I consider to be the most powerful marketing tool of all time — virtual reality.
Virtual reality is going to be a trillion-dollar industry in the next few years
The technology is already here, it’s just that nobody is using it yet.
But, as soon as somebody figures out how to make money from it, we’ll see a flood of virtual reality products and services.
It will be like when Apple introduced the iPhone and suddenly everyone wanted a touchscreen device.
Virtual reality is going to change everything about how we interact with computers. You’ll be able to do things like:
– Experience an entirely new world where anything is possible.
– Travel anywhere in the world without leaving home or your office chair.
– Meet people who don’t live near you but share interests and hobbies with you online through immersive environments that are far more realistic than any video chat platform we’ve ever seen before (or will again until devices like this come along).
– Work on projects with other people in real time via shared virtual spaces that look and feel like real environments (and which can therefore help overcome many of the challenges of working remotely).
VR is the most powerful form of content marketing
Because it allows brands to create something that has never been seen before: worlds that are completely immersive and interactive.
Virtual reality is not just an interesting technology; it’s a new way of experiencing the world around us. It’s a way for people to interact with each other, play games and learn new things in ways they’ve never been able to before. And this has huge implications for brands and marketers who want their content to stand out from the crowd.
VR is powerful because it triggers the brain’s “placebo effect
— which means that people will believe they’ve experienced something even if they haven’t actually done so.
The placebo effect has been studied extensively since its discovery more than 80 years ago by Harvard psychologist Dr. Henry Beecher, who found that placebos were effective in treating everything from ulcers to depression.
The placebo effect isn’t just about making people feel better — it’s about making them feel like they’ve had real experiences. And that’s where VR comes in.
You can start using VR today for free
Google Cardboard is a low-cost, DIY alternative for those who want to try out some of the best content available for the platform. It’s made from cardboard and comes with a smartphone holder that fits most devices. You can buy one on Amazon for $15-$20 or make your own using instructions on Google’s website.
Samsung Gear VR is a much more robust headset that works with Samsung phones as well as some iPhones (iPhone 6/6s/7/7 plus). It doesn’t require any assembly like Google Cardboard does, but it costs around $100 and must be purchased alongside one of these compatible phones: Galaxy S6/S7/S8/Note 5 or Note 7
A special kind of VR is called 360-degree video and Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are already supporting it
So how can you use this technology to promote your business?
If you want to stand out from the crowd, virtual reality is the way forward. If you want to engage with customers on a whole new level, then this is the way forward.
If you want to give your customers something truly unique, then this is the way forward.
Virtual Reality Is About to Take Over the World of Marketing and Advertising… But What Exactly Is It?
360-degree video can help you create engagement like you’ve never seen before
Some companies are already using this technology to engage their customers and prospects, but the majority of marketers have yet to embrace it.
Virtual reality is a technology that replicates an environment, real or imagined, and simulates a user’s physical presence in that environment. It uses a host of technologies to achieve this goal, such as 3D computer graphics, sound, vibration, and sometimes smell. In current times, virtual reality is predominantly used in video games whose visuals are generated by personal computers (PCs). More recently, it has become possible to use mobile devices as an alternative platform for VR applications using the Android operating system (OS) Cardboard kit developed by Google Inc., which turns an Android phone into a basic VR device by providing users with special lenses that allow them to look at the screen while wearing headphones (to hear sounds).
We have entered the age of emotions
And if you want to capture your audience’s attention, you need to appeal to their emotions as well as their intellect.
Virtual reality can do just that by putting consumers in an environment that triggers their emotions – such as fear or excitement – and makes them feel like they are part of an experience rather than just watching it from afar.
This kind of immersion in your message can make all the difference when it comes to getting people talking about your brand and driving sales conversions through word-of-mouth recommendations from happy customers who have had a memorable experience with your company.
Virtual reality is the most powerful marketing tool available to businesses today and is free. It gives people what they want, when they want it and how they want it. After studying business and marketing for decades, I can tell you this is a fundamental shift in the power dynamic of business as usual.
