United Country Online Marketing | United Country Online Marketing: How to Get Started?

Although the pandemic is officially over, the world has changed. Our daily lives have been permanently altered and many marketers are struggling to find their place in this new reality. To survive, they have had to drastically revise their approach to marketing and have had to learn to work remotely. Some firms have adjusted to working remotely better than others and although UCOM has kept most of its staff, it has had to make changes that most marketing agencies could not accommodate.

Adjusting To Working Remotely

The Covid-19 pandemic lasted for months and was the result of a combination of many factors. Global economic factors, such as the Great Credit Crunch of 2008 and the subsequent Global Economic Meltdown of 2009, were largely to blame. The world was unable to produce enough goods to meet the demand, and businesses needed to adapt quickly to keep up.

Many firms, including UCOM, had to lay off employees or work remotely because of the economic climate. The agency was no exception with around 70% of its staff working remotely during the pandemic.

However, the switch to a remote workforce did not come without challenges. Companies that switched to a remote workforce experienced a significant increase in employee engagement, productivity, and teamwork. According to Gallup Analytics, around 44% of employees are now more engaged in their work, while 15% are more productive. Seventeen percent report that they have more trust and respect for their managers.

To continue operating remotely, companies need to keep their employees engaged and productive. To do this, they need to ensure that their digital marketing strategy continues to be effective in promoting their products and services to consumers. This, in turn, means that companies need to keep up with the latest trends and technologies to ensure that their strategy remains highly relevant.

The Internet-Powered World

The Covid-19 pandemic was just one of the many real-life crises that United Country Online Marketing Inc. (UCOM) encountered during the past months. The company is a marketing agency based in Toronto that manages digital marketing and social media strategies for brands across North America. Although the pandemic is officially over, the world has changed. Our daily lives have been permanently altered and many marketers are struggling to find their place in this new reality.

The world is now more connected than ever before and thanks to the proliferation of the internet, companies can conduct business globally regardless of location. This has enabled small businesses to flourish and has also created some challenges. Previously, companies typically would rely on physical locations to reach consumers. However, with so much focus on online marketing, reaching customers has become much more difficult. This, in turn, has created a gap in the marketing strategy. While companies can still rely on the same tried and tested tactics they always used to gain traction, they now need to adapt and evolve to stay relevant.

As a marketing agency, UCOM decided to tackle this issue head on and established a special project team to examine the gaps in its strategy and determine the best course of action going forward. The resulting project, which lasted for several months, was dubbed ‘Project Evolve.’

The team started by breaking down the problem into key performance indicators (KPIs). These are metrics that an organization can measure to determine the success of its digital marketing strategy. Some of the KPIs that UCOM identified as problematic were:

Low traffic coming from organic search
Lack of social media engagement
Few conversions from social media
Few sales from email marketing campaigns
Reliance on outbound marketing

Once the problem was clearly defined, the team brainstormed potential solutions. One of the emerging technologies that could help bridge this gap was virtual reality (VR). VR allows users to immerse themselves in an exciting virtual world that allows them to escape from the humdrum of daily life. This can be an effective way to engage consumers and attract their attention whilst increasing brand awareness.

Why Is VR Important To Brands?

The advantage of working within a digital marketing agency is that you have access to a wide range of marketing technology, such as:

Video content creation
Analytics (Google, Adobe, etc)
Web analytics (Chrome, Hootsuite, etc)
PPC (Pay Per Click)
Display Advertising (Static Ads, Interstitial Ads, etc)
Remarketing (Targeting existing customers)
UX design
Access to large databases of consumers

With each of these marketing technologies, you can create and run digital marketing campaigns. The ability to do this from the comfort of your home or office gives you a distinct competitive advantage. Not only that, but you can also use the same equipment and platforms to conduct marketing research and analysis. This can help you get a better understanding of your target audience and allow you to create more effective marketing materials.

As a brand, your overarching objective is to secure customers and induce them to purchase your product or service. To achieve this, you need to understand your target audience’s needs and motivations and establish clear brand values. VR allows you to simulate being in a real-life situation where you can interact with your audiences, demonstrating that you understand their needs, wants, and desires. This helps you form meaningful connections and engagement.

Why should you consider VR for your next marketing campaign? As a brand, your overarching objective is to secure customers and induce them to purchase your product or service. To achieve this, you need to understand your target audience’s needs and motivations and establish clear brand values. VR allows you to simulate being in a real-life situation where you can interact with your audiences, demonstrating that you understand their needs, wants, and desires. This helps you form meaningful connections and engagement.

How Can VR Help You Market Your Brand?

There are many ways that virtual reality can help you market your brand. Here are some of the ways:

Engage Consumers
Develop A Sense of Place Identity
Create A Strong Mental Image
Have Fun
Build Brand Love
Bring Your Audience Into The Future
Test Product Ideas

The first step in any marketing campaign is to identify your target audience. Developing a clear understanding of who you are trying to reach, what they want, and how you can help them is the key to developing the right strategy. With VR, you can create highly immersive experiences that allow users to quickly understand what your brand stands for. If you want to engage consumers and allow them to feel a sense of connection with your brand, then VR is a perfect tool for you. The technology creates a more natural and familiar setting, encouraging users to fully immerse themselves within your digital landscape.

You can use VR to allow users to become fully immersed in your brand’s experience. This can be done by placing them in a situation where they can explore your products, try them out for themselves, or use them to solve an everyday problem. For example, you can place customers in a real-life setting within your retail store. The experience allows them to walk around with a mobile phone in hand, exploring your products whilst getting a feel for how they work. This can help establish a sense of familiarity and connection to your brand.

Using Virtual Reality To Uncover Product Needs And Problems

VR is a fantastic tool for researching and uncovering product needs and problems. The advantage of using VR in market research is that you can interview respondents at your leisure, in the comfort of your home or office. You can ask questions and get feedback without having to worry about time constraints or the disruption that comes with going into a physical store. You can also use VR to take users on a journey throughout your product or service and allow them to explore elements of your brand firsthand. This gives you the opportunity to see how users react to different elements of your design and learn from their feedback.