The way people consume information has drastically changed over the years. People have gone from absorbing information through newspapers, to old-fashioned TV to the heavy use of the internet as well as social media. This sentiment can be held for the way that content is being created. People have gone to from using still imaging, to videos to now incorporating Augmented Reality (AR) into their content.
When most people think of Augmented Reality, they think about the gaming world. The truth is that AR is moving rapidly beyond the gaming experience. With the rise of content creation, specialists have found ways to include AR as an additional means of creating modern, unique content.
The increasing focus on AR technology in the content creation world has consequently prompted businesses to adapt to this modern technology and to the ways they create their content.
While just about anyone can create content, it is important for businesses to create inspiring, attention-grabbing content that will ultimately covert mere audiences to customers. This article seeks to highlight the importance of content creation for businesses with a specific focus on content creation through the use of AR (Augmented Reality).
Content Creation is Crucial to Business Success
The success of any business is multifaceted in that there are many factors that need to be taken into account to ensure business success. From delivering top-notch customer service, heavy financial planning to avoid sinking the business, all the way implementing feasible marketing strategies. Content creation is no exception as it forms part of the contributory factors to business success.
There is no one right way to define content creation as the concept may differ from business to business. Be that as it may, content creation involves the process of formulating entertaining, informative material to distribute through different platforms. Businesses all over the world create content for various reasons, with one of the main reasons being to increase customer engagement to ultimately drive sales.
As alluded to earlier, content and the way it is created and consumed has seen a massive shift. For instance, businesses have opted to using content creation and distribution tools such as podcasts to release their messaging to their audience. This is a swift response to catering to the increasing number of podcast listeners world-wide. This is a wise strategy as a little over 383 million podcast listeners were recorded in 2021.
Content acts as a key link between any business and its audience. Moreover, it is the beating heart of every online communication strategy. It is therefore important for businesses, more so small businesses, to think strategically about plausible and efficient content creation strategies to implement in order to successfully grow their business.
Content Creation Strategies
Content creation strategies entail mapping out ways to curate, use and deliver your businesses’ content in ways that will place a positive spotlight on your business and ultimately drive sales to it. Investing in feasible content creation strategies will help you create brand consistency for your business and aid you in selecting the right distribution channels in order to ensure your content reaches the right audience. It will aid your business in garnering maximum engagement on every piece of content it releases.
How To Create Optimum Content Creation Strategies
Creating content is not the easiest task to undertake. Adopting content creation strategies is even harder to execute. However, there are tips to follow to ensure that your business fully partakes in the ongoing era of content creation to achieve growth. It should be noted that this is not a closed list:
- One of the best places to begin is to ask your audience what type of content they wish to see. Customer surveys can give your business an idea on the type of content to release that will not only boost your businesses’ presence but also appeal to the interests of your audience.
- Have clear goals that you wish your business to achieve through the content you put out. This will help center the type of content you create as opposed to having your content be all over the show. A good way to do this is by using the SMART method to set out these goals.
- Many online platforms offer backend insights into the demographics of those engaging with, or showing interest in your business. Google Analytics, for example, gives insight as to which country your audience is from and how long they engaged your website. Information like this is crucial as it provides insider intel on how your business can personalize its content to suit your audience. Furthermore, such analytics can help your business gage the content that gained the most traction, therefore aiding in the direction in which to create your content.
- Last, but certainly not least, scouting your competitors can help your business curate content that not only stands out but is also memorable to your business’ audience. A great example is the content that Nando’s Nando’s scout their competition and comes up with content that is hilarious, satirical, and thought-provoking which is rare for a restaurant business. Upon examination of Nando’s’ competitors, it becomes easy to conclude that Nando’s’ standard of content creation surpasses that of their competitors. This gives Nando’s their competitive edge.
The secret to creating high-quality content that will most likely convert observers into customers easily lies in harnessing high quality content creation strategies. To fully take control of this means keeping up with the latest content creation trends. Augmented Reality is one such trend.
Augmented Reality: A Rising Content Creation Trend
There are dozens of content creation trends that are surfacing yearly. From year-to-year, hundreds of articles on ‘content creation trends to look out for’ are released. Augmented Reality most certainly makes the list. It has been recorded that 2 in 3 online customers prefer to engage with businesses that incorporate AR into their brand messaging.
Augmented Reality can be described as the enhancement of the actual physical world around you. Through AR technology, virtual objects can — in real time — be placed in any actual environment to enhance it to fit your liking. One of the main aims of AR is to alter and enhance the perception of any real-world environment by adding extra details such as infographics, sound, video and images to it.
Benefits of AR for Your Business’ Content Creation
Utilizing AR when creating content for your business comes with a number of advantages:
AR brings your business offering closer to your audience
There is not a single consumer in the world who does not wish to gain real value for their time and their money. It is thus no surprise when many consumers take their time before concluding any transaction, more so with businesses that they engage with online. AR possesses the ability to help guide your customers — both existing and potential customers — through their decision making all the way through to the transaction process.
For example, if your business offers hair dye, AR can be used to give your audience an idea of what each dye color your business houses would look like on them. This adds the element of certainty to your audience’s shopping experience whilst also enhancing their experience with your business. This has the potential to increase your businesses’ sales.
AR enhances customer experience
One of the ways for businesses to draw in new customers and retain existing ones is to offer them noteworthy experiences that never cease to fail them. AR assists with this by enabling your business to create high quality FAQs and product/service descriptions that are easily and readily accessible. In this way, your business offers them transparency and ease which in turn contributes their enhanced customer experience.
Converse and Their Use of AR
A comprehensive and relevant example of a business that managed to add AR to their brand is the world-famous Converse. As mentioned earlier, customers continuously seek to engage with businesses who utilize AR to enhance their shopping experience.
Converse took note of this and subsequently introduced the AR experience that enables their global audience to virtually “try-on” the brand’s shoes from the comfort of their homes. Through this, users can select the shoes they want to try on and simply point the cameras of their phones to their feet, thus giving them a look at what the shoes they are interested in would look like on them. This helps eliminate the indecisiveness and uncertainty of their customers and leads to Converse raking in massive amounts of sales.
Augmented Reality Is Critical to the Future of Content Creation
Content creation is — and will continue to be — an important element of maintaining any business relevance. Content creation trends such as Augmented Reality continue to shape the future on how content is both released by businesses and enjoyed by consumers.
AR has the ability to enhance the quality and layout of your business’ content. Furthermore, AR technology possess knowledge and insight that can help your business set a standard of superiority amongst other businesses who put out similar content. While AR is not a foreign or new concept, it is most certainly a welcome addition to the content creation arena that is here to stay.
