Tips For Creating A Metaverse Marketing Strategy

 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement of the development of the metaverse echoed through social media and resonated in the minds of various brands, since it offers new marketing opportunities. However, your brand will need a marketing strategy to effectively advertise in the newly created virtual world. Here are some tips for creating a metaverse marketing strategy for your brand.

 

 

Why You Need to Develop a Metaverse Marketing Strategy

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One of the biggest social media platforms, Facebook, which also doubles as a marketing platform, just announced an even bigger marketing space: the metaverse.

For those not familiar with the concept, Influencer Marketing Hub described metaverses as an always active, self-contained, and fully functioning digital world, which exists in real-time. Users connect to these immersive digital spaces through virtual reality or augmented reality technologies.

Epic Games’ Fortnite is the perfect example. Gamers play the game in real-time, against each other, and attend events held in that particular metaverse. For instance, popular American singer and songwriter Ariana Grande even held a concert in Fortnite. Players’ actually attended the virtual experience through their virtual avatars.

Brands That Are Already in the Game

Considering the extensive use of relatively new technology, metaverses are currently the best opportunity to keep millennials and Gen Z users up-to-date and engaged with your brand.

Vans, the skateboarding brand, has an online park that has seen more than 48 million visitors to date. This campaign helped them build brand awareness among their target demographics of 13 to 35 year olds.

Gucci has released a digital pair of sneakers that can be worn in AR or used in Roblox video games, available for only $13. However, the company ventured a step further and opened the Gucci Garden in Roblox, complementing the real-world installment called Gucci Garden Archetypes.

It’s evident that metaverses are the next big thing in digital marketing. Facebook’s iteration, which is still in its early phases, seeks to become the brand new world for social interactions, events, digital marketing, and even commerce. However, most technologies advertised by Facebook’s Meta Platforms remain to be developed.

 

What to Know About Marketing in the Metaverse

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Metaverses are more than just virtual spaces made for the enjoyment of younger generations. To know more about marketing in the metaverse, you’ll need to distinguish its key characteristics:

The Metaverse Is Always Active and Exists in Real-Time

Metaverses don’t end, turn off, or pause when you disconnect. They continue to function without you, since they’re synchronized with real-world time and always online to accommodate all users from different time zones.

The Metaverse Is Self-Contained

The metaverse is a self-contained, fully functioning virtual universe that allows users to generate, own, sell, and invest. Furthermore, individual users can be rewarded for the labor they invest in the metaverse. Considering that it effectively creates a digital economy and runs on blockchain technology, the metaverse is likely to use some form of cryptocurrencies.

The Metaverse Is a Mixture of Different Platforms

In a true sense of the term, a metaverse is actually a network of different platforms working together within a single virtual environment. Gaming is a good example of this; the items gamers purchased in one game can be transferred and used in another game within the same metaverse.

However, Meta (formerly Facebook) is developing their proprietary platform, The Metaverse, seeking to become the hub for entertainment, social interactions, and e-commerce. As such, it should theoretically encompass all currently functioning metaverses and brands, bringing their goods and services more available to the visitors and residents of its virtual world, aka, the consumers.

The Metaverse Consists of User-Generated Content

Metaverses aren’t just virtual hotspots for users to socialize. They also allow users to create content and digital art that other users can enjoy or purchase for their private collection.

 

Tips for Developing a Metaverse Marketing Strategy

 

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Digital billboards already exist in virtual spaces such as Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft, and Animal Crossing, advertising specific goods and services to target audiences. While these spaces gained massive popularity thanks to the pandemic, Zuckerberg’s announcement sent brands into a frenzy, trying to decide the best approach to this new marketing opportunity:

Create a Plan to Offer Branded Collectibles

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered a new era of social events: online gatherings in metaverses, like birthday parties in Roblox, or business meetings in World of Warcraft. However, it also accelerated a few growing trends like collecting digital art, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and branded merchandise.

You can offer virtual merchandise and virtual fashion on the platform’s marketplace and increase both brand awareness and your revenue.

Keep Your Metaverse and Real Marketing Efforts in Sync

Most people have no idea where to start with metaverse marketing, but the best approach is to parallel what they do in reality. For example, Stella Artois, a beer brand, partnered with Zed Run to create an NFT horse race. As a result, the company has issued 50 bundles of branded NFTs, each with an original piece of digital art and a digital racehorse.

Though it sounds more like a gimmick than a marketing campaign, Stella Artois is known for sponsoring major horse races, so sponsoring the digital version of the sport is a natural entry point into metaverse marketing.

Take Advantage of Existing Communities

Instead of applying real-world tactics that promote your brand, such as annoying YouTube ads, partner up with the platform’s developer community members. The community members already know what works best within their platform and what experiences will resonate with the users. Spreading brand awareness is often most effective when partnered with platform-native creators. For example, Fortnite’s Ariana Grande concert benefited both the game’s developer and the singer herself.

Test the Waters

Metaverses are still a novelty and a developmental concept, so marketers still don’t know which strategies are the best, or how to measure their effectiveness just yet. While the metrics aren’t there just yet, the right tools and strategies will emerge in time.

Endnote

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There aren’t any textbooks and tools that can help you with creating the best metaverse marketing strategy, but you can use this guide as a starting point. If you’re ready to discuss a metaverse marketing strategy, schedule a meeting with the pros at HyFyve — a full-service marketing agency with astonishing B2B Branding and Marketing chops.