marketingSHOWCASE Summer Round-Up

Last week, we attended the final marketingSHOWCASE event of the summer season. Over the last couple of weeks, the MARTECH3D team has travelled up and down the country, from Liverpool to Brighton, to network with marketeers across sectors and see what’s new and where we slot in. There have been a number of consistent topics that have cropped up at these events, from utilising TikTok for businesses to making the most of personalised data, but the main trend that marketeers appear to be curious about is the rise of immersive tech and how it impacts their strategies.

As pioneers in the 3D marketing space, it has been great to showcase our award-winning platform and speak to marketeers across the manufacturing industry about current roadblocks and how early adoption of 3D martech can help.

Immersive B2B experiences

One of the most significant problems marketeers raised is being able to create engaging experiences for B2B audiences. Selling to businesses is not like selling to the public, and many marketeers said they felt restricted by the types of content they could use on their website or social media channels.

3D tech allows manufacturers to create virtual environments where potential buyers can explore and interact with their products in a highly realistic and interactive way that is accessible on desktop, on social media, on microsites, or at events. For example, a food manufacturing company can offer a VR tour of its production facility, allowing audiences to see the manufacturing process and gain a deeper understanding of the product's quality and value, without having to book in an in-person meeting.

This level of interactivity hasn’t previously been available to B2B marketeers, but they now have the tools necessary to build engaging content across platforms that otherwise wouldn’t work for them.

Faster decision making processes

The average B2B buying cycle for a new client is around four months, with 27 interactions undertaken during that time. This can be a problem for marketing and sales people as it’s almost impossible to see which strategies are working in real-time, and it can be frustrating when a prospect is nurtured for so long and then doesn’t convert.

The AR technology integrated into the MARTECH3D platform enables manufacturers to superimpose virtual elements onto the real world, providing their prospective clients with an enhanced view of their products. Our AR product viewer allows prospects to visualise how a particular product would look in their own environment early on; no expensive renders or prototypes needed. This functionality drastically reduces the length of the decision-making process, as customers can assess the product's fit, size and design immediately.

Based on discussions we had at marketingSHOWCASE events with manufacturing marketeers and salespeople, this reduced timeline would contribute to a better, more focused output for sales teams and more streamlined campaigns for marketeers – both of which result in better bottom lines and higher productivity and conversion rates.

Better engagement

3D technology is revolutionising product visualisation – often one of the biggest problems for manufacturers. At the events, we heard from countless marketeers about how they struggle to market their products because they’re too big or complex, and how expensive it is to bring prototypes to events and pitches. The problem is, without a working model to demonstrate, engagement is low, and poor engagement leads to poor sales.

With 3D solutions like MARTECH3D, manufacturers can create highly detailed 3D models of their products, allowing potential customers to explore them from every angle. These interactive digital twins give users a comprehensive understanding of the product's features, materials, and functionality, allowing buyers to fully interact with the product, even if it’s not actually there. This means engagement rates won’t suffer if machinery isn’t taken to events (which is often expensive).

Cost savings

The manufacturing industry is growing, but every marketeer we spoke to at marketingSHOWCASE was bound by tight budgets that were often spent on un-engaging, lacklustre campaigns. The MARTECH3D platform is designed specifically for manufacturing marketing and sales and has been engineered to maximise ROI. We’ve spoken to thousands of marketeers and combined their experiences with our own in order to develop our multifaceted tool in this way, and we know it saves money.

Virtual showrooms and 3D product demos are perfect for cutting costs at events, where spend can run into the thousands for every piece of machine that is displayed. Our AR product viewer and 3D product configurator are ideal for demos and pitches, where transport logistics aren’t always easy (or cheap) to navigate. All four products are housed on one centralised platform with built in analytics that can be utilised across all digital marketing channels, meaning you don’t need to spend money separately.

Conclusion

The marketingSHOWCASE events provided us with a great opportunity to connect with marketeers across the manufacturing industries and talk more in depth about martech as a whole, automation, and 3D marketing as a growing concept, whilst learning about other trends and new best practices. We’re looking forward to connecting with more marketeers and sharing the excitement around 3D/AR/VR in marketing again at the autumn round of events.

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