3 ways to know if you're ready for the metaverse

As the weeks progress, momentum is building behind the metaverse, with more brands announcing that they are setting up shop in the metaverse and many, many others offering explainers in an attempt to demystify this new arena.

I see this as the most exciting opportunity currently available for brands to engage an audience, but a lot of people are asking me ‘Do I need the metaverse yet?’. I always reply that there are many reasons to get started on this journey now - and it’s not just to earn recognition as an early adopter.

1) You want to engage people emotionally

Entering a perpetual 3D world pulls all of the same well-documented psychological levers created by immersive experiences that have been sought after for years. Now we can induce emotional and behavioural responses that are similar to those that took place in a VR headset (or in the real-world), engaging the audience's needs, ego and aspirations through a web-based experience.

Brands are using journeys into the metaverse for self-guided discovery, providing people with the agency to engage, learn more about, and ultimately create an allegiance to a product offering - and all that a brand represents. Take for instance the Dyson experience centre enabling customers to explore products through online simulations with on-demand content, an ideal home for teaching consumers and training sales professionals, but also for people to align themselves with the greater lifestyle promises of your brand.

And this again is where the metaverse is so powerful, since 95% of consumer decisions are made subconsciously, by providing your audience a world where they are immersed and investing time with your service or products, you are ticking the box of building comfort with, and loyalty to, your brand.

And of course all of these points are just as salient for your employee audience base as they are for your customers.

2) Having two way communications with your customers is so valuable

In all of my years in events, at the crux of every brief was a client seeking an opportunity for true engagement with their audience, an opportunity to respond directly to their interests and needs. 

In the metaverse, brands have exactly this opportunity, a virtual venue to build personalised and targeted relationships while enabling feedback loops to gain insights into how audiences think, feel and behave.

This rich data can be utilised to measure, map and discover every user interaction within a virtual environment while testing, optimising and changing messaging over time, completely free from the Hawthorne Effect but with the added ability to establish an ongoing conversation. 

The facility to customise virtual environments and engage every individual personally makes communication in the metaverse instantaneous, perpetual, targeted and chock full of intensely valuable analytics.

3) You recognise the benefit in building a community

Community drives connection like nothing else. Which in turn drives loyalty and of course results in huge economic benefit - both in the form of a more engaged and tenured workforce and a connected and loyal customer base. As reported by the Harvard Business Review, fully connected customers are 52% more valuable, on average, than those who are just highly satisfied.

True community has long been a hard won (and frequently illusive) goal for organisations. The challenge being communities share a sense of ‘place’ over time. They are not transient or transactional, which makes them very difficult to create with the traditional tools available to corporate marketing or training teams and their agencies. 

To build community you must create somewhere your audience can return to over time, and at any time they choose. If they feel the door is always open, they feel welcome and valued. If they know you are always there for them they are more likely to invest in the relationship.

The perpetual nature of the metaverse lets you build something enduring and constant. Somewhere your audiences can leave their mark and see the influence of their engagement over time.

In summary
Done well, the metaverse will provide Engagement + Data + Longevity. What better formula could there be for delivering ROI?

By taking a step into perpetual 3D worlds and making time spent with your brand valuable to every individual, full of active participation, meaningful and impactful, each week presents an opportunity to start now, or be left behind. 

Oh, and about those early adopter medals, no one is handing them out, but a quick glance at the papers will tell you that PR opportunities abound for those establishing a foothold in the metaverse now.