Slowly but steadily, we are inching towards the future, i.e., the Metaverse. And believe it or not, it is almost here. Although still somewhere in the grey area between right and wrong and needing more time to develop fully, it isn’t stopping people from using metaverse-related techs such as VR and AR. Below we present the best Metaverse business applications in 2023.
Well, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality are the two base technologies for realizing a Metaverse. And their getting attention is good news for the pro-Metaverse. Their acceptance, convergence, and more use cases will only shorten the road to the alternate realm. Be it via smart glasses, VR headsets, VR games to something more corporate-oriented such as Horizon world by Meta, the world is slowly coming to terms with Virtual Reality.
Plus, the increasingly realistic virtual worlds, cryptocurrencies, or non-fungible tokens (NFTs), immersive social networks, and growing AR applications and development are only helping in the transition from this physical to the virtual realm.
But the value Metaverse holds for businesses is unfathomable. Why so? Well, the Metaverse bursts open the saturation ceiling businesses are stuck at. Saturation of markets, marketing ideas & strategies, opportunities, and so on. So, as people flock toward the synthetic reality, businesses can leverage the opportunities to reach out to this audience who has a fresh palette and more appetite for 3D content.
Let’s look at some Metaverse business applications in technology’s current capacity. From management & operations to marketing & sales, the Metaverse revitalizes many core business verticals. So here goes our prediction as to how businesses will use Metaverse or VR tech to their advantage in 2023 and beyond.
Metaverse Business Applications and use cases
#1 Marketing and Brand Building
Branding with immersive social media
Social media is the holy grail for modern-day marketers. The pull it has with the masses is unlike anything else. But with immersive social media in the picture, things are going to get more intense and attractive.
An immersive social media means moving on from the existing 2D content marketing to highly customized, flexible, and interactive 3D content that can be interacted with. Meanwhile, businesses will not miss out on the tremendous opportunity of meeting their customers in person in a virtual realm with no limitations to creativity and customer demands.
A Metaverse business application will be that there are a variety of stores from different brands that offer customizable virtual products. And the opportunity to engage millions of people worldwide, communicate with them, and tell gripping brand stories without having to move an inch physically, is something businesses would savor. Not only does that mean lower costs, but lower risks, losses, and investment while more sales and engagement. That makes branding with immersive social media the perfect Metaverse business application.
With this kind of realism, the engagement rate is sure to be unlike anything else before. As Metaverse expands and improves, brands won’t be limited to social media pages anymore but expandable immersive virtual rooms and social media stores.
Further ahead, a few more years down, we predict that these immersive brand stores will become equally important for the brands as we start dwelling and socializing more in the Metaverse.
Selling with virtual fitting rooms
The retail industry will be able to tackle some of its challenges and problems, such as frequent product returns. The sheer amount of investment that goes into running the return management wing for e-commerce companies is massive. But with the virtual fitting rooms and try-ones, customers can now sample the product, leading to a more accurate product-buying and hence, fewer product returns.
Already, many companies are using virtual trial rooms for product sampling. IKEA, Amazon, and Walmart are some of the first movers in the segment. The e-commerce giant Amazon is working on developing the technology in-house. In June 2021, it introduced a sneaker try-on feature that allowed trying on shoes by brands such as New Balance, Adidas, and Reebok.
Gamevertising:
Get used to the term Gamevertising – a trend that will soon dominate. And just like billboard marketing, brands will target popular VR games such as Fortnite and Roblox, which have a large and active user community for brand placements.
The land in the Metaverse is already up for grabs. Decentraland, Somnium Space, and sandbox are a few platforms that allow buying land in the Metaverse. As these commercial lands lay under digital shopping complexes and malls built over them, the brand will be happy to tag them with their brand signages and billboards.
Recently, the new age, outlandish fashion brand Balenciaga created Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow, a game in which players explore a futuristic world populated by characters wearing Balenciaga products.
Marketing with Metaverse
The Metaverse will transform sales and marketing today. Businesses will use AI-powered advertising billboards that generate insights like how many people saw them, how long they gazed at, and which section people looked at for how long. Such data is a dream come true for marketers. And with the precise know-how of what is working and what isn’t, it will be much easier to create marketing campaigns that are a sure-shot success. Read our whitepaper to learn why marketing with immersive experiences engages customers emotionally: Virtual Reality for marketing using immersive experiences to address customers emotionally
#2 Operations and Management
Learning and working in virtual spaces
What is the key to an efficient and productive business floor? Pretty obvious- the employees. Skilled and productive employees are essential to any business. The more qualified and skillful they are, the easier it is for your business to surmount any challenge.
But the constantly evolving business landscape poses new, unprecedented hurdles now and then. So, a flexible, engaging, and efficient training program is needed to upskill employees quickly to take on any unprecedented challenge your company faces.
And this is when we can reach out for the capabilities of the Metaverse. The Metaverse business applications are not limited to marketing but day to day operations of a business as well, especially training and upskilling.
Immersive training learning modules facilitated by the Metaverse make learning engaging, fun, and refreshing. To understand this better, check out this use case where Bühler Motor uses VRdirect’s platform to provide browsable virtual training to internal employees.
Immersive learning, besides being efficient, is cost and time-saving for both the company and the employee. While users can interact and practice at their convenience, the company does not have to bear the training costs.
Remote working and virtual meetings – a great Metaverse business application
Since Covid, the remote work culture jetted off. A recent AT&T study found the hybrid work model is poised to grow from 42% in 2021 to 81% in 2024.
Almost 60% of businesses worldwide are considering remote work or hybrid models. And why not. It’s a win-win for both; employer and employee. That said, there are downsides to remote work culture. For example, an all-inclusive work culture is essential to a build a productive, one-goal mindset company, which is a miss with remote setup.
Then there are factors such as communications gaps, untraceable employee accountability, silos, and the insecurity or feeling of not being actively involved or a missing sense of belonging.
But not anymore. All such problems can be dealt with by introducing a powerful, immersive co-working virtual space. We are sure that co-working in Metaverse will be one of the most prominent and globally accepted use cases besides Metaverse social media. Eventually, the compelling-interactive virtual environment will be able to replace the traditional in-office work culture with remote working.
From employee-to-employee or employee-to-company engagement, the Metaverse will provide all that is missing in the current remote working setup. And as it becomes more advanced with better AI assistance and interactive possibilities, it will reshape the global business models.
Risk-free testing and training
Businesses can use the Metaverse for more than just collaborating and engaging. They can also transform training and testing processes, eliminating any risk of failure.
For example, here is a virtual safety training for earth-moving equipment operators. Such immersive training takes the risk away from high-risk, critical jobs such as heavy machine operators, oil rig technicians, astronauts, or even scuba divers.
It will be possible for companies to test anything in these virtual spaces, including new factory layouts, before implementing them or expensive equipment before purchasing them.
Final Words…
Soon, we could officially become the first ‘Metazens’. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Metaverse is yet to be fully actualized. Nonetheless, businesses should get familiar with the tech now.
VR and AR will be the perfect place to start. The techs have many uses for businesses, for example for tourism. They can gain a competitive edge with VR tours of destinations and properties. Look at this example to learn how you can leverage VR for tourism. Another example is VR for training. Read our Success Story and learn how Nestlé is using Virtual Reality to train their employees.
Lastly, we have barely touched upon the possibilities with the Metaverse! Specifically, Metaverse business applications. To be honest, we cannot be very specific about how the promised land, the Metaverse, would look like, but it is inevitable; that’s undeniable.
So, if you are a business owner or manager, better you buckle up.
The world we know today is going to change for good. We will soon have a virtual twin, buzzing with life, and a replica-human civilization with different needs, more appetite for content, and demands for newer products.
If you want to know how you can use Virtual Reality or the Metaverse for your business use case, schedule a demo with us:
