What is phygital marketing?

Phygital marketing increases the way brands transition between online and offline experiences. By investing here, businesses can increase consistency of your brand voice and presence with customers.

Expanding marketing efforts between physical and digital worlds can help brands increase the ways you connect with customers. Consumers today are regularly switching between interacting with their devices while experiencing life in the physical world. By creating a phygital marketing experience that connects across physical and digital spaces, brands have the opportunity to connect with audiences in new and innovative ways.

Businesses can increase customer relationships with phygital marketing. Phygital strategies can facilitate omnichannel services, which can build brand loyalty and trust between a business and customers. For example, customers can go into a physical store and purchase a product, but if there’s a problem, they can go to the brand’s app and speak to a customer support specialist from the comfort of their home.

Having clear marketing objectives will help a brand figure out the best phygital strategy to implement. Is your brand aiming to increase reach, awareness, consideration, conversion, or all of the above? Depending on the goal, create a plan and phygital tactics. For example, to increase visits to your website, you might add a QR code to a commercial spot that runs alongside a live event.

Specifying your audience will help refine your phygital strategy. This includes market segmentation, such as by demographic or regional information, to help identify which phygital marketing tactics to take. For instance, if the goal is to convert more in-store shoppers into digital shoppers, create marketing material fitted for physical stores that drives to digital channels. This could be a digital display with touch screens that encourage shoppers to sign up with their email on a brand website for a chance to win a prize.

When developing a strategy, look for ways to integrate physical and digital elements to create a phygital experience. For instance, digital kiosks are phygital. In-store shoppers can use a digital kiosk to quickly purchase products. This phygital experience increases speed and convenience for shoppers.

Leveraging customers’ shopping preferences in phygital shopping experiences can increase engagement. For example, creating shopping options can help busy or indecisive shoppers facilitate their purchases by offering recommendations on the most popular items.

A phygital strategy bridges the physical and digital work by providing interactive experiences with the help of technology advancements. For example, by using technology like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), brands can encourage engagement with customers. But technology doesn’t have to be sophisticated to garner engagement with audiences; even using QR codes in physical places like inside of stores or on fliers and billboards can be an effective way to bring customers to a brand’s digital channels. By focusing on promoting engagement, brands can find the right type of marketing activation to create a memorable phygital experience.

QR codes are a perfect blend of physical and digital worlds coming together. Consumers scan a QR code with their phones to access online content, deals, or product and brand details. About 49% of consumers have used or scanned a QR code using their phone in the last month, increasing by 53% since 2021².

An increasing number of consumers are tuning into watch shoppable livestreams for product discovery and validation. More than 20% of social media users worldwide cite livestreams as a main reason for logging on, especially in the Philippines (41%) and Indonesia (37%)³. For example, consumers in the APAC region are familiar with mobile shopping, which means brands can launch and test shoppable livestreams with these customers.

The ways we communicate with technology has increased. For example, homes today are a lot smarter than they were a decade ago because of integrations with technology like Amazon Alexa. Customers have connected more than 400 million smart home devices to Alexa and use Alexa hundreds of millions of times each week to control those devices⁴. This is a perfect example of Amazon creating an engaging phygital experience for customers. Customers can ask Alexa about the weather or time from the comfort of their homes, offices, or vehicles, and Alexa will provide them with the information they need. Voice-based technology is being used across devices from smartphones to smart speakers, and it’s becoming more common for businesses to use chatbots to aid in customer service needs.

A growing trend among brands is using AR and VR technology to increase engagement with customers to drive marketing campaigns and enhance shopping experiences. For example, Tyson Foods worked with Snapchat and Amazon Ads, leveraging AR and VR to increase brand awareness, consideration, and conversion for Jimmy Dean sausage products. During the campaign, audiences were encouraged to scan images of eggs through the Snapchat app, which would unlock a promotion on Amazon for Jimmy Dean sausage products. Through this experience, Tyson Foods was able to bring unexpected delight to hundreds of consumers using innovative technology, while also bringing attention to their products.

It’s not unusual for your watch, glasses, or rings to be smart. More consumers are adopting wearable technology. These devices include Apple Watches, Fitbits, Bluetooth headsets, smart jewelry, and enhance glasses. These examples show how physical products can help consumers access and navigate digital information. For instance, someone jogging through the park can measure their pace, mileage, and heart rate with their smart watch, giving them instant access to information to help them assess how they are performing.

Nowadays, if you want to grab a coffee or pick up a salad at your favorite lunch spot, you likely have the option to pay using your mobile device. Advancements in mobile payment with apps are making it easier for customers to shop and pay at their favorite stores and restaurants while spending less time in the checkout line.

Amazon Live can help brands drive consideration for products by educating and interacting with customers in shoppable livestreams. Businesses can grab audience attention with personality-driven video programming that highlights products through storytelling. And using live product demonstrations helps brands educate audiences on product features, benefits, and special offers, which helps customers make informed buying decisions.

Communities come together to watch and create on Twitch, the leading global livestreaming service. Streamers create engaging content, form close bonds with viewers, and build connected communities who value live engagement and lasting relationships. With Amazon’s first-party signals, brands can use Twitch ads to forge authentic ties with these creators and hard-to-reach young adult cohorts.

Custom advertising solutions from Amazon Ads have launched exciting phygital campaigns, such as the Tyson Foods Jimmy Dean sausage challenge using VR and AR. Amazon custom advertising solutions engage consumers at multiple stages of the marketing funnel, building brand awareness, consideration, and conversion.

Amazon audio ads can help brands reach unique ad-supported audiences across first-party and third-party streaming audio services. Audio ads makes it easy to connect with audiences in those hard-to-reach moments in the home and beyond.

From custom ads to audio experiences, brands can use phygital marketing strategies to drive engagement, consideration, and conversion by bridging the physical and digital worlds together. Through these marketing techniques brands can build meaningful connections with audiences and create unforgettable moments.