One of the options that you have when it comes to demonstrating products and services at trade shows is virtual reality. Virtual reality is set to become the preferred and pervasive technology when it comes to all things digital in the near future. Even the Internet will shift from its current access model to one where virtual reality is used. If you use trade shows to promote your company or demonstrate your products, then jumping on virtual reality is definitely going to show that you are progressive and maintaining pace with some of the innovators and tech giants out there. Let’s look at how you can use virtual reality in your next trade show.
Understanding Virtual Reality
The first thing you have to do is understand virtual reality. You probably already know that virtual reality is currently available only through VR headsets. However, virtual reality headsets come in a wide range of pricing models and usability. The most basic virtual reality headsets can be bought for as little as five dollars and are used with a standard smartphone. However, these are not immersive technologies and you should definitely not be using this for professional applications. Technologies range from Google’s cardboard, which is the same technology that the five dollar headsets are based on, all the way up to the oculus rift and that headsets created by Sony and other tech companies.
You also need to know what virtual reality can and cannot do. The best way to do this is to become familiar with the technology itself by using it. If you are able to use some of the high-end virtual reality headsets and the games are applications that come with them, you will have a much better idea what the capabilities are a virtual reality as well as what the limitations are.
You are also going to want to understand how virtual reality is being used in business and what the effects are. There’s a great deal of research being done and information published by various sources that detail how effective virtual reality is when it comes to business applications.
Your Limited Window of Opportunity
The fact is, you have a very limited window of opportunity when it comes to using virtual reality for your product demonstrations. Just like the innovators who created websites when they first became available back in the 90s, virtual reality is not widely implemented at this point. That means that you have an advantage if you use it. However, unlike the Internet, tech companies are able to easily see the future of virtual reality and how widespread it will be, and non-tech companies will soon follow. That means that you have a very limited time to use it before everyone is doing it. If you want to distinguish yourself, now is the time to implement virtual reality.
How to Best Use Virtual Reality
So, how do you best use virtual reality? You do it by following the same set of principles that you would use with any other marketing tactic. You start with the well-known acronym AIDA, which stands for creating attention, interest, desire and action. Your first step is to capture the attention of your audience. When it comes to VR, the best way to do that is to let everyone know in advance that you will be showcasing a VR tech demo at the tradeshow. By being one of the few companies that develops a VR application for your products, you are going to peek people’s interest.
Your next step is to capture their interest. But when it comes to a tradeshow, you are competing with thousands of other products and services, some of them offering the exact same benefits that you are. So how do you capture someone’s interest in that sea of demo offerings? That’s where virtual reality has its strength. Even if you capture someone’s interest, odds are that they are going to forget about you because there are just so many competitors. But with the virtual reality demonstration, you have the ability to make a lasting impression that is going to supersede all of the other demonstrations that they see.
Basically, you want to give them an experience that they are not going to forget. Give them a sensory experience that is going to make a deep impression on their brain and then relate it to your story.
Your next step is to create a desire for them to use your products in their business or life, and that is done through making that product or service relevant to them specifically. You need to show them your products up close and demonstrate to them exactly how they will be able to use them rather than how someone else is currently using them. One of the best ways that you can do this is by creating a virtual reality show room of your products. Depending upon how far you want to take your virtual reality application development, you can actually take people into a huge space where they can see your products and action, try them out for themselves and explore all of the options that you have available.
Finally, you have to get them to take action. This is where you transition them from the virtual reality environment where you have built up the desire and impact that your products have made and take them to a point where they can actually take action and sign up for your mailing list, actually by a product or service right there at the tradeshow or whatever way that you decide to convert them into a buying customer or get them to the next step where they could potentially be a buying customer.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is simply that virtual reality in a tradeshow is better than any other currently available technology. If you can use virtual reality are augmented reality to demonstrate your products or services, people are going to remember them and you are going to get a much higher rate of sales and grow faster.
