Marketing is constantly evolving, and companies need to stay on top of the latest trends to get the results they need and stand out from the crowd. The last decade saw the rise of social media marketing, for example - but new technologies are emerging once again to change the game. Jeff Yapp, Founder & CEO of Wutznxt, gives his take on how artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and experiential marketing are changing the face of marketing today.
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is one of today’s most important business trends. According to Jeff Yapp, artificial intelligence is already everywhere in the digital marketing world. For example, many companies use chatbots to greet users on their website and funnel them through certain decisions to:
Artificial intelligence also has incredible potential when it comes to data. Most ad campaigns involve a lot of guesswork on the part of marketers – AI ultimately removes the guesswork by allowing data collection and automation. With more data, marketers understand what works and what doesn’t, thus saving countless hours and dollars.
Currently, there are several tiers of virtual reality available for consumers:
All of these headsets allow users to enter a 360-degree environment and rotate their heads to view it as they would in real life - the high-end models also allow users a full range of motion with their hands and the ability to walk within a room-scale space.
What does this mean for marketing? According to Jeff Yapp, the ability to track a user’s eye movement allows marketers to understand exactly where viewers are looking - and how long they are looking. This is invaluable to understand what works and what doesn’t work within a campaign.
Because of VR’s immersive and interactive nature, it is also possible to create unique campaigns that leave the viewer with a memorable experience.
Although virtual reality is still in its early phase, it holds a lot of potential for early adopters and enables marketing teams to find out more about their website visitors.
It’s pretty clear that audiences don’t like commercials - whenever possible, they’ll go out of their way to block them or fast-forward through them.
However, experimental marketing has one goal in mind - create lasting and memorable impressions on consumers.
Jeff Yapp states that experiential marketing, when done right, can lead to:
Experiential marketing lets consumers live through a product or service instead of simply hearing about it. They get to experience the feelings associated with your brand.
Several examples of experiential marketing campaigns can include:
With a rapidly evolving marketing landscape, these up-and-coming technologies are quickly changing the way businesses approach their marketing campaign. Jeff Yapp suggests adopting these technologies into your marketing campaigns early on to stand out from the competition and leave a lasting impression on their consumers.
