Augmented reality is already taking the internet by storm. The massive success of Pokémon Go, a game that generated millions of downloads, was only the beginning of what AR technology could achieve.

Marketing and sales are primarily driven by consumer demands. In a world where the online marketplace now encompasses people from all walks of life and across the world, AR technology can introduce innovation in digital marketing.

Furthermore, two countries where augmented reality has already established its roots are Japan and China. Both countries have seen brands implement AR and VR technology into their customer shopping experiences. These were met with success, especially in China, where augmented and virtual reality are seen as having tremendous future potential.

As more brands involve augmented reality in their branding strategies, content marketing will also transform. AR technology gives you unique opportunities to enhance customer experience and drive conversion rates. Here are five ways you can use AR in your content marketing to generate engagement

Augmented reality is already being used by brands to drive e-commerce sales. Using AR technology in sales and marketing can bring in serious revenue.

The mixed augmented reality and retail market will, by 2022, be worth $8 billion.

This tremendous potential comes from the fact that AR experiences provide users with the one thing they can’t otherwise find online – immersion. When you’re out purchasing clothes or buying food, you get to touch the food and experience it.

These tactile experiences help you in the decision-making process where you ultimately choose to either buy the product or put it back. E-commerce portals traditionally were held back by the limits of physical smart devices. But augmented reality is changing the game.

You can add AR content to products in e-commerce websites that enhance customer experience. This can be product information, how to use videos, or even color options.

Content marketing using AR gives you an abundance of creative options using audio-visual media. AR content is also more shareable than non-AR.

Augmented reality content makes frequent use of 3D animations. By pointing the camera of a smartphone to a certain target or QR code, your phone can start to play animations, display information and more.

This creates new opportunities for content marketing. Aside from social media and digital marketing, AR content marketing can also be used in physical spaces. Create ads and showroom brochures using augmented technology for products that aren’t available in-store. This allows retailers to integrate augmented reality into retail shopping experiences. Adding relevant information, how-to and product data, as well as digital advertising, will enhance the AR content.

71% consumers find brands that integrate AR/VR and find them progressive. AR content is fun, immersive, and good online marketing. It also allows you to introduce your brand story and narrative in a unique way.

Use augmented reality content marketing to elevate your branding collaterals as well. Add a QR code to your business card that takes the recipient straight to your company’s branding video on YouTube. You can add similar QR codes to online posts, as well as offline collaterals like brochures, newsletters, packaging, and more. Even hoardings and billboards can be used to promote brand awareness and generate interest.

64% of marketers are using or intending to implement augmented and virtual reality, and there’s a good reason behind that. Online, it’s much more difficult to make your content stand out. Adding an AR element immediately differentiates you from the competition.

Augmented reality allows users to enjoy personalized experiences in real-time. There’s a reason AR technology works better for content marketing when compared to VR. For starters, AR content marketing does not need any additional equipment such as headsets or glasses. It can be enjoyed in real-time and not in a virtual world.

In addition, Mindshare showed that AR generates almost 200% more engagement than non-AR content.Add gamification elements such as hidden promo codes in ads and online content. Users can point their phone cameras at these promo codes to activate rewards.

Augmented reality experiences have already been used to create gaming experiences for online users. The same concepts can also be applied to content marketing.

Integrate a call to action as well, as this is more likely to increase conversion rates. What you can do to drive online marketing using AR content marketing is to create interactive how-to videos and informative blogs.

Add AR elements to these videos and articles to allow the user to find relevant products on your website. A code that links the user’s phone to the relevant product straight from your content is a great way to boost sales and create content unique to your brand.

Augmented reality is becoming more and more important, as different industries realize the potential the technology holds for them. Content marketing is no different. In a world where marketing and advertising as a whole are looking to augmented reality for new ideas, content marketing plays an important role in leading the way.

Martech is part of the digital technology world which has become extremely volatile, especially with the new technology constantly evolving to help develop unique marketing strategies. Revolutionary new marketing technologies come up ever so often and prove to be highly beneficial. When it comes to the ad tech world, marketing automation has been all the rage lately. So we have compiled a list of 5 ways Martech can boost your marketing strategies.

According to the Marketer vs. Machine report by Adestra, 74% of marketers mentioned saving time as the biggest benefit of marketing automation. Other benefits included timely communications, upselling, and increased customer engagement.

Whether it’s integration with natural language processing (NLP) or machine learning (ML), marketing automation is helping businesses outgrow their competitors. In fact, the Lead Generation Marketing Effective Study by Lenskold states that 63% of businesses that are outgrowing their competitors are using marketing automation.

Now, marketing automation is part of a wider fusion of two domains called MarTech. MarTech brings together the concepts of marketing powered by top-notch technology. This marketing tech or adtech helps marketers execute digital strategies faster and more effectively. Here’s how MarTech tools can help you optimize and flourish your business.

 

1. Martech enhances customer engagement and experience

One of the biggest purposes of digital technology has always been enhanced experiences for customers. Digital technology, especially adtech, aims to provide customers with better products and seamless user experiences. With MarTech, businesses can take this purpose to an even higher level.

MarTech tools, with the help of natural language processing and machine learning, provide marketers insights into personal information, subscriptions, customer purchase patterns, demographic, past conversations, market demands, behavioural data, and more. Marketers can then use these insights to develop better and highly-targeted marketing strategies that come with high potential.

Imagine this:

A marketer has automated a lead generation email using a MarTech tool to be sent out to two-thousand subscribers. The content of this email is highly personalized and created by keeping the above insights in mind. Now, when a 30-year-old man receives an email about a good anti-ageing face cream in their inbox, they are more likely to follow through the purchase than a 16-year-old teenager receiving the email.

Clearly, personalized emails enable businesses to find high-quality leads with a higher probability of making a purchase.

With that being said, MarTech is not limited to internal automation but can be adopted into physical hardware to enhance the customer experience. Large financial institutions have utilised this by adding RFID technology to improve their users’ security.

 

2. Smarter content curation and creation with new marketing technology

Companies tend to bring out a new marketing technology after the other without first assessing their content. There are many instances where a company could come up with a great new marketing strategy but couldn’t get good results. They fail to understand that maybe it was their content that was lacking.

According to a report by Digital Trends, 73% of consumers prefer to do business with companies that personalize their shopping experience. MarTech tools powered by natural language processing and machine learning can provide key insights into customer preferences. Businesses can then utilize these to create highly personalized content that speaks very closely to the customer’s personality and needs.

 

3. Marketing automation improves productivity 

Marketing involves many time-consuming tasks, which in some cases can decrease work productivity, but with the recent shift to digitalisation marketing technology has enabled marketers to streamline workflows and processes using marketing automation tools.

One can now automate a particularly redundant task and focus on other high-priority tasks such as automated customer profiling, data collecting, or spreadsheet updating, marketing tech enables you to boost your time efficiency by leaps and bounds. The time saved also allows marketers to dedicate more time to developing new unique ideas.

4. Martech can boost excellent alignment between sales and marketing

A marketing strategy won’t work well unless there’s alignment between the two teams responsible for bringing customers and making sales – the sales team and the marketing team. Often, the company will receive below average results, owing to a choppy alignment between these two teams.

With MarTech tools, businesses can help these teams streamline their workflows and work in harmony. When the marketing team provides high-quality and sales-ready leads to the sales team, they have a better chance of converting them into paying customers. Thus, MarTech tools enable both these teams to work with reduced friction and increased efficiency.

5. Effective measurement strategies using adtech

Often, marketing includes a lot of guesswork. Marketers have to constantly play catch-up and assess which strategy is working and which isn’t. This guesswork is also not based on concrete and proven key performance indicators or KPIs. This is where marketing tech or MarTech tools can lend a helping hand.

Almost all MarTech tools provide marketers with an insight into the KPIs. How many people added a certain product into their shopping carts? Which was the most common touchpoint in the customer’s journey where customers abandoned the purchase?

Now, when marketers know that the customer clicked on an Instagram ad, visited their website, viewed the product, but ditched the purchase at this point, they know their weak point. Once an analysed has been carried out they can choose to optimise the part of their customer journey to achieve business objectives.

Sources:

[1] https://www.sas.com/en_us/insights/articles/marketing/harness-martech-advantage.html

[2] https://www.way2target.com/blog/what-is-martech-and-their-benefits/

[3] https://www.widen.com/blog/what-is-martech

[4] https://martechtoday.com/the-benefits-of-using-marketing-automation-236408