Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality… just about anything with the word reality tagged onto the end is becoming an increasingly hot topic for marketers.
Despite the buzz around the quality of some VR experiences, there remains an air of nervousness and cynicism too. The question is, does VR generate enough ROI to make it worth the expense? And importantly, what makes a good or poor quality VR experience? Is there a need for VR? Frankly, nowhere has more right to question the validity of VR than the B2B market.
Stepping away from the negatives for a second, let’s be honest, VR is pretty cool! We’ve all seen (or been part of) some amazing, immersive experiences! But having spoken to a few different B2B marketers to gauge their views, it seems fairly unanimous that there are some ‘hurdles’ when it comes to using VR. Cost, channel to market, reuse, engagement levels, campaign integration and ROI seem to be the main concerns amongst a plethora of other worries.
- The cost, despite being much cheaper and accessible than it was just 3-4 years ago, is still fairly high. It often rules itself out of being a campaign add-on or nice-to-have, which limits those willing to experiment with it.
- The channels to market are fairly limited too. How many people have VR headsets in the home to download your experience? There is the obvious option of using 360 video and sending out Google Cardboard headsets as part of a direct mail campaign, but does little to improve costs.
- VR reuse isn’t all that simple either. Whether it’s live action or animation can affect this drastically, but also the above concerns of cost and channels come back into play. Will it be reused for different regions, sectors or other audiences? The broader it becomes, the more diluted, challenging and costly creating the experience becomes too.
- There’s also the ongoing debate as to whether VR is a serious piece of marketing or just a gimmick. There’s no doubt that people enjoy putting on a headset and playing with a VR experience for a while but do people walk away being impressed by your brand?
- How can you make VR part of the campaign you’re creating without it appearing as if it’s shoe-horned in? This issue could affect many B2B marketers as they battle with getting VR to accurately (but excitingly) embody brand/strategic messaging for their audiences.
- Then the biggie – ROI. Does someone putting on a headset and engaging in an experience turn into a solid lead? Does it impress customers enough to throw you an RFP or even better, a cheque book?
At this point I’m going to take a breather – so far I’ve made it seem as if I’m totally negative towards VR but in fact I’m quite the opposite! I actually feel like B2B marketing can make VERY good use of VR, but in specific approaches.
I think an approach where VR is at the heart of your campaign could really make it a big success. When VR becomes your driving call to action, everything then becomes themed around the experience, making investment more realistic, and the experience more immersive and achievable. However, this means the experience must engross the audience through storytelling and take them to a place they could never go. A VR experience of someone sitting in an office using a laptop is never going to get the juices (or cash) flowing!
The other approach that I can see utilising VR is ABM. The specific nature of ABM means that you can make the experience completely tailored to the client, engrossing them in a vision of what their organisation could be, and influencing them through inspiration! And now that the investment and belief in ABM is drastically increasing thanks to it’s B2B success stories, I think ABM would be the one place where VR can really show ROI. Once the client has come away from the experience you’ve put them in, there should be no doubt in their mind that you ‘get’ it and should be their trusted supplier/partner.
So by no means do I think VR is a no-go for B2B marketers. I actually think it’s a very, very viable option when used in the right way and not just using VR for the sake of using VR!
