Back in 2016 we talked about how marketers can use virtual reality. With all of this talk about the metaverse, is it too soon to be thinking about metaverse marketing for the average business?

As a digital marketing agency, we love all things digital. So, let’s take a look into metaverse marketing and whether or not it is viable for businesses to dive into this new space.

Metaverse marketing and your digital strategy

Firstly, it is important to know that metaverse worlds are highly interactive and are very visual experiences. The age range of the users that interact with these worlds can be varied, but typically Gen Z and millennials make up the majority of active users currently.

Metaverse marketing using VR. Photo by Lux Interaction on Unsplash

If you are reading this and wondering what the metaverse is, we’ve written a beginner-friendly metaverse article that explains all of the basics. Put simply, the metaverse is best thought of as a 3D version of the internet that is highly interactive, and persistent.

As with any type of marketing for your business, it’s essential to stay tuned in to current trends that can be leveraged for marketing purposes. The increasing popularity of technologies such as Web 3.0, blockchain technology and NFTs means that each should be considered for its potential. Not all of these will be a good fit for your business, but it is important to be open-minded and investigate these new technologies and trends to see openings and opportunities.

According to Grayscale, despite being in its infancy, users have spent over $200 million on items in the metaverse. Additionally, NFTs have seen a $2.5 billion increase during the peak of the pandemic. Even though these technologies are at the start of their lifespan, users are spending big in these spaces and spending lots of time within them.

Marketing potential for businesses within metaverse worlds

Unlike advertising in the real world, advertising your product, service or business in the metaverse isn’t constrained by real-world limitations. This means that there are some creative opportunities for metaverse marketing and advertising within virtual worlds and metaverse experiences.

In the next few years, metaverse VR worlds could allow for the next evolution of clever interactive marketing experiences.

Metaverse experiences are likely to become more commonplace

Instead of seeing an advertisement for a sports event on a 2D surface like a TV screen or computer monitor, you could be transferred through a virtual portal into a VR experience that allows you to interact with and explore stadiums, venues, and behind the scenes areas and more. The opportunity to give fans unprecedented access to new interactive experiences is both exciting, and inevitable in the coming years.

As for the average business looking to get involved, if you offer a very visual type of product such as clothing or jewellery, the following is something to consider.

In the coming months and years, businesses could make digital equivalents of their products for digital avatars, and also allow for the sale of real-world products from within the metaverse that can be then shipped to your real-world address. This augmentation between physical and meta commerce may become increasingly popular in the coming years.

As for the entertainment industry, we could see movie trailers that provide interactive small-scale areas from the set that bring users into the world and provide immersive experiences like never before. The possibilities are almost endless.

This is all largely dependent on which metaverse world you will be using. Some metaverse experiences focus on more social elements, whereas others provide more of a gaming metaverse. There is some fierce competition between metaverse experiences, and the coming years will be crucial for Meta and other companies invested in providing these experiences.

The metaverse, NFTs and digital real estate

We all know how pricey real estate can be in sought-after areas in large cities. All you have to do is look at the property value in London and New York to see how things have changed over time.

Much like those investing in property decades ago, investing in digital real estate now is a viable and attractive option to many businesses and entrepreneurs.

What is digital real estate?

With the advent of the internet, open-minded investors started to buy up digital assets and digital locations online.

Examples of digital assets and real estate include domain names, webspace, websites and now NFTs. But how does this tie into metaverse experiences, and buying up digital land?

Digital real estate doesn’t just mean domains and webspace anymore, it is becoming closer to how we think of physical real estate with property and land. In metaverse worlds, land and property will become valuable for similar reasons as they do in the physical world. This will most likely introduce the need for metaverse marketing, including metaverse SEO, the art of optimising digital worlds to allow users to find real estate and digital assets.

These early metaverse worlds are paving the way for more sophisticated experiences in the future. It is the foundation upon which richer experiences will form. It’s similar to the advent of fibre optics in the 1970s, or roads and motorways being built for the first time. It provides a strong foundation for life-changing experiences to be built upon relatively primitive platforms.

Metaverse real estate, advertising and marketing

Like in the physical world, many factors impact the pricing of property and land in the metaverse.

At the end of 2021, someone paid $450,000 to be Snoop Dogg’s neighbour which shows the high demand that some locations have. When users buy digital land, effectively they’re buying an NFT linked to a specific location. Once purchased, you can build your digital house and then have the option to resell it further on down the line.

“In January alone, sales of metaverse real estate topped $85 million, according to MetaMetric Solutions.”

— Fortune.com

The similarities with the physical world don’t stop there, advertisement space can be purchased to promote your product, service or business. Depending on the metaverse, these can also be bought through the purchase of an NFT. Some have started to refer to this as in-world advertising and has the same appeal as advertising in traditional spaces in physical locations.

If a space is getting a lot of traffic from an applicable demographic, it makes sense to run advertisements that could convert to sales and new customers.

Many investors are uncertain about the future of Web 3.0 technologies, or NFTs. However, most are starting to warm to the idea of getting involved, just so they don’t miss out.

You don’t have to be sold on the concept completely, but at this stage, it would be smart to have some sort of ‘horse in the race’ to avoid missing out.

Buying up digital land in the metaverse now is becoming the equivalent of securing your .com domain name in the late 90s / early 2000s. It is important to consider getting involved with digital land or securing advertisement space while it is somewhat affordable.

With Meta marketing their new experience, Horizon Worlds, it is a good indicator of where the space is heading. The big tech giants of Silicon Valley continue to invest in VR and the metaverse, meaning things are only getting better for the end-users.

Conclusion: NFT controversy and the future of metaverse marketing 

A lot of potential new investors have been put off by the bad reputation NFTs are getting in some spaces and industries.

Within the gaming industry, a few studios have tried to implement blockchain-based games and NFTs, but gaming platform Steam has said that they won’t allow these on their platform.

Many feel that NFTs have been used to exploit buyers and their lack of knowledge surrounding them. With NFT images like the Bored Ape series, a piece of artwork can sell for as much as 3.4 million dollars. There is still a lot of demand for these NFTs, but they are causing quite a stir in some circles.

Sadly, NFTs have become somewhat synonymous with this type of utilisation, even though NFTs can be used in useful ways elsewhere such as buying up land or advertisements within metaverse worlds. The question is whether the metaverse and metaverse marketing will take new leaps and bounds past the use of NFTs, or perhaps some of the controversy surrounding NFTs will diminish with time.

This article is part of our latest series on the metaverse and what this means for businesses. To jump straight to one of our other titles, please feel free to browse below:

• What Is the Metaverse & What Are NFTS? What Does This Mean for Business?
• Are The Metaverse And Virtual Reality The Same Thing? What About XR & MR?
• Is Metaverse Social Media Marketing a Trend to Watch in 2022?
• Is Metaverse SEO (Or Should We Say Meta SEO) The Future of Search Marketing?
• Should Businesses Think About Metaverse Marketing as Part of Their Digital Strategy?
• Leading Metaverse Companies, Projects & Examples: Who Will Win the Race?

What are your thoughts on NFTs and metaverse marketing? We’d love to hear what you think in the comments below.