Over the last month we’ve been contacted by an industry expert (direct marketing), three companies that offer augmented reality as their main product and two agencies interested in learning how to make augmented reality and other immersive technologies a key part of their portfolio. 

All of the contacts expressed a keen interest in our insight on two things; how to sell augmented reality and the future of digital marketing. 

We’re truly flattered that these people have contacted Hidden for advice on matters of such professional significance and wish to share, on a broad basis, how we feel about the first subject on their list.

Customers want a solution not a technology

Augmented reality is simply a subcomponent of a system. What I mean by this is that AR is a utility used to intelligently position and attach information to areas and objects within the real-world when used in conjunction with a lens enhance computing environment. Most people that are interested in the technology understand this subcomponent relationship.

What a lot of people selling augmented reality don’t understand is that the client is not interested in the technology. They are interested in what it can do for their business. With this in mind, the approach is straight forward and should be focused on the client’s sales and marketing strategy and goals.

It sounds obvious but, understand the goals

Working back from the client’s goals and with a lucid understanding of their strategy, the idea of incorporating AR in the campaign can be explored in a suitable manner. One of the major benefits of an AR based campaign that it is important to point out is how the technology can create an insightful and rich set of information for the client. This is not a side-effect of standard AR and requires a defined set of data points and simple recording mechanisms specifically designed to record interaction with the virtual subject.

Measure and evaluate the effectiveness

Our augmented reality campaigns, similar to a website content management system, record the interaction with the augmented subject matter. This information can be organised for later dissemination or we can incorporate real-time monitoring of the campaign.

This ‘mass intelligence’ information is very valuable and can be used for key workings of a business in terms of product refinement, product development, and richer marketing materials which would naturally increase precision in the company’s sales approach.

In summary

If you take anything away from this post we hope you take the point that it is clearly not about the technology and businesses do not so much adopt a new wave of technologies as encounter them.

It’s our job to help them create new ways to profit from the possibilities.