Over 40 million people move through the Metaverse every month, which is growing at a rate that is catching the attention of major global companies. Facebook, for example, has reportedly committed to hiring 10,000 people to develop the Metaverse, going so far as to rebrand their company based on their new direction. Even without accounting for future payment and networking companies, Bloomberg estimates the Metaverse will be valued at $800 billion by 2024. For brands and businesses looking to capture market share in this virtual ecosystem, now’s the time to implement a plan.
74% of US adults are joining or considering joining the Metaverse. For enterprises looking to capture early market share in this virtual ecosystem, it’s time to put a plan in place.
Learn some critical ways brands and businesses in consumer goods, real estate, manufacturing, and more are beginning to generate revenue in the Metaverse.
Why it Matters
- Big tech companies are investing heavily in the Metaverse — the next iteration of the internet and an immersive virtual reality where people and businesses can interact — expected to grow at a 39.4% compound annual rate through 2030.
- Experts said that brands that succeed in the Metaverse offer unique experiences for customers by delivering authenticity and creativity in various forms, including music, artwork, videos, or redeemable real-world bonuses.
- The Metaverse does provide businesses with sales opportunities, but the concept is more about branding and fostering community, sources said.
My name is Almira Lopez; I act like a CMO and think like a boss. I’m a Metaverse marketing strategist, and this is the best place for you to learn about Metaverse and how to market it all. So if that sounds good to you, you’re excited?
So, let’s get started!
How to Monetize Metaverse
Rather than being a completely separate reality, the Metaverse blurs the line between the virtual and real worlds. Through integrations, brands can use the Metaverse as one additional sales channel by integrating systems that allow customers to buy, invest, and sell in the Metaverse, whether using fiat currency (government-issued money) or cryptocurrency. Through integrating with payment processors, shipping companies, customer relationship management tools, and more, a consumer could enter a virtual mall with a friend, speak to an avatar of a sales representative, browse beautifully arranged shelves of lifelike 3D models, buy a pair of Nike shoes or a Cartier watch, and have the physical item delivered to them in real life. They could even do a walkthrough of a photorealistic presale property, choose the finishing package they like (e.g., hardwood floors, bathroom tilework, etc.), and purchase.
Top Industries for Immediate Metaverse Monetization
Retail Consumer Goods
Many companies in the consumer goods industry, such as automakers and furniture manufacturers, already create 3D renderings for design and manufacturing. They have the assets on hand that can be repurposed for customer-facing experiences, allowing them to achieve greater name recognition and differentiation by:
- Offering consumers a way to try out and visualize different items within interactive 3D environments, such as inspecting the details of a piece of clothing or trying it on in a virtual boutique, “test driving” a virtual car while simulating the experience of driving it on different landscapes, or customizing a piece of furniture and being able to visualize how it looks in a room
- Giving consumers a way to customize products and place an order for their personalized items
- Giving consumers a way to interact with other people in the same metaverse environment (friends, salespeople, etc.) at the same time, a key point of differentiation from existing e-commerce stores that struggle to replicate the human interaction element that is shopping in real life
Retail experiences in the Metaverse do not have to be exclusive to the physical or virtual worlds. A customer can:
- Begin their customer journey in an immersive experience in the Metaverse.
- Save their customized car or running shoe to their customer profile and then purchase it from their chosen virtual or real-world channel whenever they’re ready to buy
Also Read: 10 Biggest Metaverse Games to Play
Real Estate
Almost 50 percent of all prospective home buyers start their research online. Many consumers will only book an in-person viewing if they’ve flipped through some visuals online. Online searches fill the top of the funnel for pre-construction and pre-owned homes, but the real estate industry can sometimes be more efficient about converting these leads. The online information that leads to an appointment is up to three times more likely to become a sale than an appointment from a walk-in, yet only one to three percent of online visitors become leads. This is often because the leads need more engagement or nurturing to take them through the sales funnel. Truly immersive real estate experiences online can help address this gap. Property developers can create a steady stream of business by:
- Offering interactive 3D viewings of pre-construction homes so prospects can easily visualize them better compared to 3D renderings, see what a space looks like at different times of day, or customize the space with different interior design options by digitally dropping furniture into the experience
- Streamlining viewings of pre-owned homes to fill the pipeline while reserving in-person showings for highly motivated buyers. Upselling custom features for pre-construction homes, such as hardwood floors or premium bathroom tile work.
- As such, pre-construction home sales can achieve fuller pipelines and accelerated sales using interactive 3D experiences. Most lenders will only finance a builder’s project once they’ve sold at least 70 percent of the units to minimize risk. Immersive 3D walkthroughs in the Metaverse can reassure buyers who are hesitant to purchase a big-ticket item like a home that doesn’t yet exist by allowing them to see the home as it will be.
Manufacturing
The most immediate commercialization opportunities in manufacturing are related to personalizing consumer goods or streamlining direct-to-consumer (D2C) business models. Thirty-six percent of consumers are interested in buying personalized products, and the Metaverse makes it easier to enable mass customization and just-in-time manufacturing for consumers.
Brands can:
- Offer 3D product configurators for everything from running shoes to cars and encourage customers to purchase directly within the experience.
- Update product lines with data from customer interactions within the metaverse experience (e.g., if customers frequently customize shoes to use a specific color, they can send out special offers or campaigns that highlight those features)
- The Metaverse can help brands develop more streamlined product development, manufacturing, and supply chain processes while meeting customer demand.
Top Industries for Immediate Metaverse Monetization
A few business models for metaverse monetization are emerging and can be applied across different industries.
Selling Products to Consumers in the Real World
The Metaverse offers a novel and heightened way for brands to deliver an e-commerce experience to customers. They can create photorealistic virtual stores where customers can explore and make purchases. They can also save and access an item through their account on different platforms, such as a mobile app. The real-world and virtual-world experiences become integrated rather than two separate realms of shopping.
Filling Pipelines for High Ticket Items with Long Sales Cycles
Walkthroughs in the Metaverse can help brands fill up their sales pipelines by making it easy for consumers to get familiar with what they’re selling. There’s also an opportunity for online-only sales cycles. For example, a 59 percent interest in buying cars online worldwide exists. With real estate, immersive experiences make selling properties to foreign investors far easier.
One of the most immediate ways the Metaverse can help brands is by assisting them in moving real-world inventory faster and practicing lean manufacturing by using data from customer interactions within the Metaverse to inform their planning. Recent challenges have led to strained supply chains that call for innovative ways to meet customer demand while keeping operations streamlined.
Also Read: Best Metaverse to Buy Land
Executing a Metaverse Monetization Strategy
Take Inventory of the Systems That Contribute to Revenue Generation
Creative technology makes a metaverse experience enjoyable, but integrations make them sustainable. Note which systems allow your business to connect with and understand your brand audience, track and nurture leads, manage inventory, process customer transactions, and receive payments.
Outline Metaverse Experiences That Enhance the Customer Experience and Lead to Revenue
How can the Metaverse help you create experiences that combine the immediate gratification of digital with the interactivity and perceived trustworthiness of real-world experiences? Using realistic 3D avatars can help solve this issue.
Make a List of Necessary Integrations for Your Metaverse Experience
Before you design your immersive experience with a creative partner, list all its necessary integrations. Consider integrations for:
- Payment gateways
- Payment processors
- Inventory management
- User accounts
- Websites
- Customer relationship management (CRM) tools
- Sales automation tools
- Marketing automation tools
- Email automation tools
- Data Analytics
- Business intelligence platforms
- Videoconferencing apps
- Calendar/scheduling apps
Also Read: How Much A House Cost in Metaverse
Work with an Experienced Partner to Distribute Your Metaverse Experience
An experienced interactive 3D publisher enables the distribution of metaverse experiences that are:
Accessible: Consumers want to access the Metaverse and how they easily access the internet – through their smartphone, tablet, or laptop.
Photorealistic: To be immersive, a metaverse experience requires lifelike or pixel-perfect 3D renderings that are not diminished during distribution.
Integrated: The game file or 3D experience must accommodate any integration (e.g., point of sale, marketing intelligence) that an understanding needs to connect consumers and support the business objectives (whether or not that includes revenue generation).
Fully managed: Brands and their creative agencies can focus on what they do best – designing excellent customer experiences – while a metaverse publisher that offers white-glove service handles everything from cloud configuration to schedule to capacity.
Security: All data and files are safely secured at the server level, and only renderings are streamed to the end user.
How does Meta plan to Monetize the Metaverse?
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined some of his vision for a metaverse on the company’s earnings. Zuckerberg said it would take several years to build out the metaverse experience. If Facebook succeeds, it will profit from selling virtual goods in the Metaverse, advertising, and other virtual experiences.
Horizon Worlds is a network of shared 3D spaces currently exclusively available on Oculus Quest headsets. (Meta has plans to bring it to mobile, game consoles, and desktop VR in the coming months and years.)
Meta’s social platform aims to build an economy that its free, open-world app still needs to have. Meta’s had plans to open up metaverse commerce with things that could be bought and carried across apps. Still, these first steps in Horizon Worlds are much smaller: These in-game items will only work in the world they originated. They’re a way for individual world creators to monetize their creations.
The new monetizing tool has been enabled for a limited number of hand-picked creators by Meta, and plans are for it to roll out to others at some point.
Meta’s taking a 25% cut of in-world items that are sold, taken from money earned after the creator’s platform costs, and payments get processed through the Meta App Store, much like app purchases or extra content in games or apps.
Meta has introduced a new monthly performance bonus for creators, which will vary each month, in addition to the in-world items. The objective of this bonus is to encourage engagement in VR. The bonuses aim to follow a similar strategy to what Instagram already uses but with a unique set of metrics.
Meta called these early monetization efforts “tests” in its blog post, suggesting that the rules could keep changing and evolving. The company aims to open up ways to sell creator-made items that could carry over across the rest of the Horizon Worlds, like avatar clothing. Still, the company sees the in-world items as a way of tipping or supporting creators. They could lead to things like VIP access in worlds or extra content. These items would eventually work across hardware, too: Meta plans to have its Horizon platform live on devices beyond the company’s VR headsets.
