Ever since Facebook rebranded itself as Meta last October, there’s been a lot of buzz about the metaverse. Pegged to become a nearly $800 billion market in the coming years, marquee brands such as Nike, Stella Artois, and Gucci are already honing their digital presences for the approaching shift from real-life commerce to the metaverse marketplace.   But before any brand can prosper in the metaverse, it needs to understand what it is and how to efficiently engage consumers in this new virtual frontier.  

What is the metaverse?

  While the buzzword has been gaining traction for the last several years, the term “metaverse” was coined by writer Neil Stephenson in his 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash. In his novel, Stephenson described the metaverse as a virtual reality in tandem with the real world.   In its most basic form, the metaverse is a 3D successor to the internet that features super-immersive digital experiences, including virtual reality (VR), interactive video, and augmented reality (AR). People can communicate, play, and buy all online.   Because it’s still in its infancy, the metaverse gives brands an opportunity to connect with customers in a whole new way. But how can you gain a competitive edge in this strange new plane of existence?      The answer is to engage consumers on a hyper-focused level to make them feel like part of a community and deliver a phenomenal outcome.  

You can sit with us

  In the metaverse, almost everyone is a newcomer. And just like a kid at a new school will desperately search for a group of people to sit with at lunch, consumers will want to sit at the table of brands they’re already familiar with.   To make customers feel like they’re part of the posse, brands must have an overarching continuity between the real world and the metaverse, effectively solidifying their presence in both worlds.   Beer giant Stella Artois found success with its parallel marketing strategy after it partnered with Zed Run, a virtual horse-racing platform. Since Stella is already known for its sporting event sponsorships in the real world, supporting NFT horses was an organic transition into the metaverse.   Luxury fashion designer Gucci did something similar when it enabled players of the virtual gaming platform, Roblox, to recreate wearable items in-game from the Gucci Gift collection.   Your brand can take a similar approach by hosting giveaways or other promotional events that it would otherwise do in real life. This will bolster brand recognition and foster community in the metaverse. Send customized invitations or alerts to customers via SMS, Messenger, Instagram, or WhatsApp to give them instant access to the big event.  

Personalization is paramount

  Brands can leverage omnichannel messaging to build connections with consumers in the metaverse. By engineering serendipity in the metaverse marketplace through highly-personalized conversations, consumers will feel like you “get” them, boosting their trust in uncharted territory.   When an experience is unexpected and positive, it can make customers feel lucky that it happened. Called “serendipity,” brands can leverage these feelings of delightful surprise to better connect with consumers in the metaverse. This will increase feelings of meaningfulness, satisfaction, and a stellar customer experience.   Since the metaverse is brand new, brands don’t have endless data or insights into past consumer behavior in this augmented world. As such, you need to create these serendipitous encounters at scale. This means delivering impactful messages in real-time during every part of the buyer’s journey. Creating meaningful micro-moments at the right time, with the right content, results in a fantastic macro experience for the customer.   Digital messaging channels enable brands to use images, videos, and links to engage consumers and bring interactions to life. They can then deliver instantaneous support to customers 24/7 via interactive chatbots.     By providing continuous micro-interactions at every stage of their journey, consumers will be able to identify brands in a new digital realm. This familiarity among the unknown will strengthen trust and boost satisfaction.  

Master the metaverse with omnichannel

  It’s comforting to see something familiar in a foreign landscape. By creating a brand image that straddles both the real world and the metaverse, brands can better connect with consumers. To deepen those connections, businesses can use omnichannel messaging to create valuable macro experiences that add up to something magical.   To learn how you can master the metaverse with omnichannel, contact us today.