How does your brand attract attention on the shelves?
Retail marketing is highly competitive, and brands who want to succeed need to harness cutting-edge technology to keep ahead in our rapidly changing landscape.
Excitingly, consumers readily adopted augmented reality during the pandemic due to being more likely to adopt touch-free experiences into their shopping and research processes. Brands that embrace this technology now have a chance to take their marketing to the next level through exciting, interactive engagements with their customer base.
If you’re wondering whether AR will help your shopper marketing strategy, here are six ways augmented reality can benefit your brand in retail.
1. Enhance Brand Recognition
You want your shoppers to recognize your brand, and augmented reality can help grab attention through gamification.
When the AR-based game Pokemon Go took the world by storm, they realized the opportunity to partner with retail brands like Starbucks by creating branded Pokestops or places a player had to visit to get free in-game items. Since then, they’ve expanded their offerings allowing brands to enhance a player’s in-game experience and gain brand recognition at the same time.
2. Power Advertising Campaigns
Too many advertising campaigns send only a one-way message to consumers.
AR powers your advertising campaigns, allowing a two-way interaction between your brand and consumers. Engaging consumers in a two way exchange makes your campaign more effective and memorable.
3. Enrich In-Store Displays & Overall Shopping Experience
One popular AR use case in retail is providing shoppers with the ability to see how an item would look in their home or even on themselves. They can match colors, gauge space requirements, or mix and match elements as needed.
Augmented reality in retail spaces makes it easy for consumers to decide on the spot whether an item works for their space or style. These digital experiences are how AR in retail enhances the shopping experience by reducing friction and making the process fun rather than stressful.
Using QR codes is another way to enhance the shopping experience, letting consumers learn more about products on shelves by simply scanning a QR code instead of having to take the time to look up the item they’re interested in.
4. Increase Consumer Engagement
When you create new, memorable AR journeys for your brand – it builds customer loyalty fast.
Consumers remember the brands that give them experiences centered around their goals. Augmented reality retail apps can help solve pain points, teach consumers about your product, create opportunities and solidify consumer engagement.
5. Deliver a Contactless Experience
The customer self-service preference has been strong since millennials became a driving market force. Add increasing customer sensitivity to viral pathogens, and you get a marketplace that now seeks a contactless experience.
Delivering this experience for consumers will differentiate your product on a shelf and set your brand up as the preferred option in a marketplace that still offers contact-only solutions.
6. Collect Data Seamlessly
First-party data is retail marketing gold, and using an augmented reality in-store experience that captures this data is one of the best parts of an augmented reality strategy.
Using QR codes to lead consumers to apps, landing pages or games or submit contest registrations are all ways that you can quickly collect first-party data from your AR initiatives.
How Can Augmented Reality Benefit Your Brand?
Augmented reality can help your retail marketing strategy take off in 2022.
If you’re interested in providing virtual experiences to power your brand in retail spaces while increasing consumer engagement and customer loyalty, we can help!
