5 Reasons Why the Metaverse is a Great Asset for B2B Marketers

The Metaverse is laying the foundation for B2B marketers to get one step closer to delivering a better customer experience. With technologies like 3D, augmented reality and virtual reality, the metaverse can help marketers replicate live client interactions, in-person trade shows, product demos and meetings in the virtual world. This means, higher reach, better brand recall, impactful interactions, and, possibly increased sales and ROI.  

There’s a global event technology company in Germany, called Rooom, which is making it easy for event organisers to pull off virtual reality-based trade shows. Some time ago, on an experimental basis, Rooom put together a hybrid event for IFA Berlin, which hosts one of the most sought-after consumer electronics and home appliances trade shows in Europe.  

Rooom created a 3D replica of the exhibit hall with 3D product demos and platforms, and made the virtual reality (VR) technology available for virtual audiences on their desktop, mobiles and VR devices. The result? It attracted a whopping 200,000 virtual attendees and 16,000 in-person visitors over four days. 

IFA Berlin’s hybrid event is a great example of how an event organiser took the plunge in embracing new technologies like AR and VR, to deliver unique and exciting experiences for attendees.  

One of our Marketing Data experts  at Merit has this to add, “The role of AR and VR in large industry events is at an inflection point. We believe that event organisers are truly going to embrace the Metaverse, even as AR/VR technology platforms evolve and become more accessible. We also think that brands are going to leverage the Metaverse for aspects beyond events. They may even buy a piece of land in the Metaverse and invite privileged customers there for a special evening of discerning virtual experiences! But, hey, are we over-exaggerating the possibilities? Only time will tell.” 

But, before we go further, let’s first look at what the metaverse really is. 

While there’s not yet a clear definition, metaverse roughly refers to experiencing an extension of the reality that we live in, in the digital world. For example, in the metaverse you can shop, meet, view and interact with people, spaces and objects in a 3D space just as you do in the real world.  

IFA Berlin’s event is an example of how trade shows take place in the metaverse – audiences experience a 3D reality of the event hall and a 3D visualisation of the products displayed in each booth, much as they do when they attend the event in-person. Recently, CISCO Europe also hosted a trade show where it gave an opportunity for its virtual audiences to create an avatar which represents who they are in real life, and these avatars interact with one another in the virtual world. 

In this blog, we look at five ways metaverse can be a great asset for B2B marketers.  

Higher Reach, Unique Experience 

Events and trade shows have taken a full circle in starting from live events, to going completely online to going hybrid. But imagine a scenario where even in hybrid events, the audience gets to experience event “as if they were right there, in-person”.  

That’s what the metaverse can do. It can replicate real-life experience in 3D, and because it’s virtual, it can attract an audience across geographies. In fact, it can also draw out those less likely to attend live events, like data engineers, scientists and technical staff – who typically shy away from traditional conferences and events, but show up for AR/VR-based events because of its uniqueness.  

Enhanced customer interactions 

Today, businesses have come a long way already in identifying the most effective ways to interact with their customers. If a customer has a grievance, they reach out to the support team via chat or call, and the redressal or escalation is almost instant.  

But, with the emergence of virtual reality technologies in the metaverse, the same grievance becomes all the more experiential and personal when a customer is able to interact in a VR-based environment. This whole thing extends into the world of events, where people attending the event feel a lot more “in place”. When planned well, metaverse-based events deliver better in terms of genuine feel and connections between people who are physically in the room, and those who’re offline.   

And, there’s enough data out there to prove that even though virtual interactions come with a host of benefits, face-to-face interactions still play a crucial role in closing deals faster, or leaving the customer feeling more positive about the brand.  

A report by Meeting Professionals International (MPI) shows that brands that do face-to-face interactions have a 40% chance of converting prospects. Those are odds that any marketer would love to bet on. Leveraging the metaverse, takes the brand one step further in making virtual customers and attendees feel one notch closer to the real experience of the event.  

Leveraging VR for Sales Efforts  

Using VR technologies in the metaverse, brands can understand and recognise customer needs better, they can showcase their products and services in a more enhanced way, and they can interact with customers in a more personalised manner, which can potentially accelerate purchase and deal closure. These are surefire ways to drive better brand engagement, recall  and higher revenue for companies. 

Improved employee productivity 

One of the biggest challenges that companies faced during the lockdown was to keep peer interactions alive and consistent. Not only can metaverse provide a VR interaction space for employees to engage with one another, but it can also enhance the quality of remote skills training activities that teams run.  

Metaverse can make training more effective, interactive and real, thus boosting employee interest, engagement and productivity. Virtual marketing teams can leverage the metaverse, not only for customer engagements but also to intra-team collaboration.  

When in-person meetings can be replicated in the virtual world, people needn’t travel extensively to meet clients or customers, host trade shows, or even attend events themselves. They can, instead carry out interactions online, thus saving costs and being environmentally-friendly.  

Using the Metaverse to go beyond interactions 

For B2B marketers, it is not only leveraging the metaverse for interactions amongst team members of customers. They can also use the metaverse to plan games, collaborate with metaverse gaming companies and possibly even buy a piece of real estate for their “brand” in the metaverse.  

In conclusion, while metaverse is going one step closer in helping marketers replicate their real-life interactions into the virtual world, we need to wait and see how marketers can creatively leverage this concept and take it to a whole new level.  

Merit Group’s expertise in Marketing Data   

At Merit Group, we partner with some of the world’s leading B2B companies. Our data teams work closely with our clients to build comprehensive B2B marketing contact lists that provide a direct line to their target audience.  

If you’d like to learn more about our service offerings or speak to a marketing data consultant, please contact us here: https://www.meritdata-tech.com/contact-us