Are You Ready to Incorporate Virtual Reality into Your 2018 Content Marketing Strategy?

You’ve probably noticed that the use of virtual reality (VR) has nearly tripled in just one year. Everyone wants to incorporate it into their business strategy.

Virtual reality is the new must have piece of content that is now considered as a sustainable content solution.

And while every brand is rushing to reveal their VR experience, some are investing their time and efforts in creating solid strategies that will ensure a better return on investment.

Despite what others think about virtual reality, it’s important to carefully figure out if your visual content strategy really needs VR in the first place.

According to Content Marketing Institute 71% of consumers think a brand that uses VR is forward-thinking.

And one thing is for sure, these forward-thinking brands stand out and gain more customer attention.

Creating a content marketing strategy for virtual reality requires a deeper understanding of engagement through interactivity.

6 Must Haves for Creating Content Marketing Strategy for VR

1.    Consider Your Existing Audience First

How do your ideal customers consume your content? Determine the medium – webinar, Q&A, live videos or vlogs. Regardless of the type of medium or the content schedule you have created, you can continue with that strategy by implementing VR technology.

If you focus on video marketing, you can start creating VR content on Facebook Spaces. Mobile app companies can infuse virtual reality content for use with an iPhone, Samsung or Google VR headset.

Let’s take an example of Stubhub, they allow their customers to see a 360 degree VR view from their actual seats, on every ticket purchase.

By incorporating VR, Stubhub.com is now able to offer great customer experience and help customers better navigate to a purchase. The brand is intelligently solving their customers problems by tweaking their existing content to enable VR abilities.

2.    Create a Unique Experience

Let’s accept it, virtual reality is not about the content, it’s all about offering the best user experience.

Your content marketing strategy should be devised in a way as it gives customers an in-depth view at your product offerings.  

Take Shopify – the ecommerce giant, as an example. The ecommerce platform is about to release their latest thread studio, which is basically a VR app that will take customers into virtual studio to view products.

Once the customer has chosen his favorite color and design, he sent to Shopify’s print-on-demand provider. From here, customers can bring his virtual vision to life.

In future, brick-and-mortar stores will be replaced by virtual stores that allow consumers to walk through and browse without physically present at the store.

3.    Keep Long Distance Customers in Mind

VR will make it simpler to craft content for long distance buyer pool. As VR will transform the home buying process, it will also help realtors to take their widely located potential buyers through a completely virtual tour of their property.

Now customers from all around the world can see a home inside and out just like they are visiting physically.

Real estate businesses will be able to allow their clients the ability to make custom changes to the home by using the VR app, offering more interactive user experience and giving clients an immersive view of what it would be like to live in the home.

4.    Give Customers an Immersive View of Products

Showing consumes a visual of what household items, furniture, and other products will look like is an important way to encourage them to make a purchase decision.

Take home improvement giant Lowe’s Innovation Labs as an example. The brand has already added a VR element that truly based on the concept of home customization.

The home improvement design and visualization VR tool Holoroom takes homeowners through a model home and provide a look at what the home would look like with home improvement products. They provide their customers with an immersive, intuitive experience the home of their dreams.

5.    Offer an Emotional Journey

You can take your customers to an emotional journey through your virtual reality content. Here, emotional refers to, what your target customers are most passionate about and craft content that meets those areas.

For instance, if you are writing a travel blog, probably your main goal is to promote vacation packages you have mentioned in the blog. You can provide customers the one-of-a-kind experience by taking them to the beaches of Rio de Janiero, or atop of the Eye of London through the impressiveness of virtual reality.

Honor Everywhere offers a virtual reality experience to military veterans and allows them to visit the war memorials and enjoy the experience using VR headsets.

6.    Encourage User-Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) is gradually becoming a staple in content marketing. The main objective of content marketing is to create communities, user-generated VR content is a new concept that will drive further development in VR hardware.

In future, consumers will be able to equip themselves with 360-degree cameras to create their own finest VR experiences. Tools like Facebook Spaces, YouTube, Periscope and Insta360 allow people to shoot advanced content via their phones. And brands can easily integrate user-generated VR videos onto their website.

Digital marketing agencies looking to make VR a significant part of their digital marketing efforts should prepare themselves. It’s never too early to come up with a compelling UGC campaign idea, as in coming years, the demand for user-generated VR content will continue to grow.

Okay…. What’s Next?

Should your 2018 content strategy include virtual reality? For many brands, the answer is big NO.

2017 is the year when businesses at least start acknowledging its presence and start implementing in their businesses. In addition, the innovation of VR marketing strategies proves it is going to be a major player in the future of content marketing.

Content creators should start A/B testing with virtual reality technology. You can start with individual posts or landing ages, gauge the user response. And create your 2018 content marketing strategy accordingly.

Trust me, there is no ideal time than present to start thinking of innovative ways to make VR beneficial for your brand.