6 Fantastic VR Marketing Examples for Your Business

The importance of virtual reality (VR) shouldn't be taken lightly, as the Internet was once a debate. This is the future and we should learn from past experiences with the Internet.

 Here you will find 9 Fantastic Ideas on how to apply VR to your business. It is estimated that by 2020, the economic impact of virtual and augmented reality is predicted to reach $29.5 billion.

By the end of 2017, the number of shipped units of VR software and hardware from Sony, Oculus, HTC, and others totaled $2.4 million, up from $1.7 million in 2016.

By 2020, the number of VR headsets sold is predicted to reach 82 million -- a 1,507% increase from 2017 predicted totals.

 It's evident that VR is being adopted in the marketplace at a rapid pace, and adding this capability to your existing portfolio of marketing channels is something you must consider to stay current in the ever changing ever growing competitive space for business.

 What Is VR VR, is short for virtual reality, is a form of interactive software that immerses users in a three-dimensional environment to simulate a real experience (This is achieved with the help of some hardware). Ideally, VR allows people to simulate the experience in 360 degrees.

 Numerous industries are now finding uses for VR. Some examples include the transport people to places they might otherwise have to travel to, or simply imagine.

While movie companies, for example, are giving audiences the opportunity to experience the movie as if they're the actual character in the scene, and conventional businesses are now using VR to demonstrate and promote their products to potential customers to give them a more immersive experience and a more vivid illustration on what they intend to communicate.

 Before we dive into some of the businesses that have found success injecting their marketing with a dose of VR, it's worth noting that virtual reality has a few key differences from another term you might've heard before: augmented reality.

Both are working in the virtual space, however, there are differences:

 Let's dive into the 9 fantastic ideas on how to apply VR to your business below:

 1. Key Technology: VERYX Food Sortixd d. 0g

 

 As a designer and manufacturer of food processing systems, Key Technology created a VR demo system that would allow any attendee to experience a more detailed, hands-on look at how the company's VERYX digital food sorting platform works and how it will help them.

 2. Defy Ventures and Within: Step To The Line

 

 Another great VR initiative we recommend is Step To The Line: A short film (that was immersively viewed on a VR headset) documenting the lives of inmates at California maximum-security prisons. Created by Within, a VR storytelling production company, in partnership with Defy Ventures, an entrepreneurship and development program for men, women, and youth who are currently or were formerly incarcerated.

The objective of this viewing experience is to help viewers to uniquely see what life is like within the walls of these correctional facilities, from the yard, to the cells, to the conversations that take place there.

3. Limbic Life: Project VITALICS

 

There is knowledge that For far too many people, injuries, age, and disease can diminish mobility and equilibrium to the point where walking is extremely painful to nearly impossible.

 Pairing this special chair with a Gear VR headset allows users to more intuitively move their bodies (thanks to the chair's combined neuroscience-based and ergonomic design) while virtually experiencing day-to-day experiences with a rehabilitative use of their hands and legs.

 Dr. Patrik Künzler mentioned, "Patients enjoy being in the chair and the freedom of movement it allows. They enjoy VR a lot, especially the flying games," he told Samsung Business Insights. And not only can the VR technology help them physically heal, but it also contributes to emotional rehabilitation. "When they get up from the chair," Künzler said, "they’re in a good mood and feel happy.”

4. Lowe's: Holoroom How To

 

 IT is more often than not for any first-time buyer. Even if you know of the unfathomable power of paperwork and finances to undermine the fun of designing or decorating a new home. That is, until you walk into one of 19 Lowe's stores that features the Holoroom How To VR experience.

 Some homeowners are lucky enough to pay a professional to renovate their home when it needs to be. For others -- Lowe's core buyer -- the next stop is the world of do-it-yourself (DIY) home improvement, which comes with its own hefty dose of stress.

 That's why Lowe's decided to step in and help out homeowners -- or recreational DIY enthusiasts -- with a virtual skills-training clinic that uses HTC Vive headsets that guides participants through a visual, educational experience on the how-to of home improvement.

5. Boursin: The Sensorium

 

We discovered that the cheese brand Boursin once created a VR experience to take users on a multi-sensory journey through a refrigerator to shed light on its products' flavor profiles, food pairings, and recipe ideas.

 The goal: to raise awareness among U.K. consumers of Boursin's distinct taste and product selection. While the VR installment was part of a live experiential marketing campaign, the rest of us can get a taste -- pun intended -- of the virtual experience via this YouTube video.

 6. Adidas: Delicatessen

 

 In 2017, Adidas partnered with Somewhere Else, an emerging tech marketing agency, to follow the mountain-climbing journey of two extreme athletes sponsored by TERREX (a division of Adidas). And what good is mountain climbing to an audience if you can't give them a 360-degree view of the journey?

Viewers were able to follow the climbers, literally rock for rock and climb along with them. You heard that right -- Using a VR headset and holding two sensory remote controls in each hand, viewers could actually scale the mountain of Delicatessen right alongside Rueck and Miller.

This VR campaign, according to Somewhere Else, served to "find an unforgettable way to market TERREX, [Adidas's] line of outdoor apparel & accessories." What the company also did, however, was introduce viewers to an activity they might have never tried otherwise. Instill an interest in the experience first, and the product is suddenly more appealing to the user.

Read More

5 Tips On How You Can Use Email To Your Advantage

It is widely known that email marketing is one of the best channels for engaging subscribers and nurturing leads.

Below are 5 Tips on How you can use email to your advantage

1.  Make use of interactive content

As Social metrics have noted that interactive content is the best way of garnering a subscriber’s attention. It doesn’t only make the emails more accurate and simpler but also brings out its fun elements and informative side. For example, you can include embeded links which show GIFs.

2.  Subscribe to an email savvy brand

Good emails pave avenues for a successful email marketing campaign.

However, finding emails that stand out on a regular basis is a tough task. So, to get hold of some creative email ideas, subscribe to a brand that’s email savvy.

How I organise this in my inbox is to create a custom email filter which sorts these emails into folders for easy reference in future.

3.  Watch on your competitors’ email campaigns

Apart from subscribing to an email savvy brand, keeping an eye on your competitor’s email campaign is also a great idea to get a competitive edge over them. See what strategies they are implementing to capture the subscriber’s attention.

Pay attention to how they write their content, design their email templates, and layout their email campaign and how they include their Call-to-Action.

4.  Make use of professional images

Nothing grabs a subscriber’s attention more than a high-end, professional image.

It doesn’t only help in breaking long walls of text but, also gives you the option to include something attention-grabbing.

A great resource is Pexels.com

5.  Go the automation way

Another sure-fire way of keeping your email marketing top-notch is by opting for automation.

From welcome emails to drip and triggered campaigns, email automation helps you do it all instantly. This is the reason

Although this reduces your workload, you shouldn’t skimp at the opportunity to personalise whenever possible. While it sends welcome emails automatically to help establish a connection with your new subscriber, it uses drip campaigns to send unique content at regular interval and keep the customers involved.

Learn more about how you can host and access professional business email from Everworks here.

Read More

10 Common Email Mistakes to Avoid

People are social by nature and we set ourselves apart from other animals through the way we communicate and present ourselves.
Similarly your business is unique to other competitors in the way it builds and portrays itself (the brand) to its customers and prospects.

And out of the many channels of communications available, email is the only one where the conversation can be personalised depending on which point of entry the customer chooses to interact with your brand.

Here are some common mistakes that most email marketers make:

1. No welcome email

Almost every subscriber expects some sort of a welcome email when they subscribe to any email list. It is confirmation that they have performed an action and it is reciprocated in a manner in which they expect.

It’s as good as meeting a someone and not greeting that person and not even making yourself known. The first impression is extremely important, but not making the effort to present yourself with the opportunity to make that first impression is equally damaging.

A welcome email, is triggered immediately after a prospect has agreed to exchange time to receive your emails.

2. Not asking for permission.

Don’t assume that your prospects want to receive everything at any time. Put yourself in your prospect’s shoes. What would you do if you received email from a brand that you do not recognise? Would you continue to subscribe or even purchase? I don’t think you would.

3. Don’t hardsell. It’s as good as saying, “Thanks for joining, the solution costs you RM x.”

A visitor subscribes to your email newsletter hoping that your brand can help solve their problems.

Somtimes email marketers forget this and tend to sell their products under the pretext that it is providing a solution.

4. Not fixing on a sending schedule

Don’t forget the importance of time. Consider when you are sending your readers emails. The likelihood of them not reading your email is high if the majority of your customers are based in Malaysia, but your email is being sent after 12 midnight.

5. No personalisation

This is a very common mistake. Imagine sending out an email to a guy about the latest dress discount your store is having right now.

It doesn’t make sense, and it doesn’t add any value to the subscriber.

Always make sure you segment your list before sending out your email, even though it is done through an email service provider.

6. Multiple emails sent together

There are many email marketers that set overlapping automated email lists. While they may contain different messages the subscriber in short gets spammed.

7. Stopping subscribers from leaving

You can’t win over everyone. And sometimes somethings aren’t meant to be. If a subscriber wishes to unsubscribe a marketer should readily offer this.

Not giving subscribers this option might prompt them to report your email as spam to stop receiving emails and this will lower your sender reputation (means the likelihood of your future emails being in spam is higher)

8. Improper punctuations & grammar

Regardless of any business, there is no excuse for poor grammar. Especially punctuations.

The grammar used is a reflection of your image and professionalism.

9. Improper email tone

A spell-checked email copy is useless if it conveys the wrong tone. The prime areas where marketers tend to miss their footing in setting email tone is improper salutation, wrong choice of words or even how they sign off.

10. “Ciao, Mr. Shawn”

Addressing your subscriber with wrong personalization is one of the common mistakes that email marketers tend to commit. The root cause of the error exists in wrong list entry, wrong personalization tag or even the lack of a tag.

-------

Your email is a reflection of you. Don’t make these mistakes as it will only does the brand’s personality get dented, but you also weaken the relation between you and your subscriber.

Did we forget any other mistakes? Share your views in the comment section below.

Learn how you can integrate email marketing into your business here.

Read More