The 5 mistakes not to make when starting the Metaverse

Think the Metaverse could be an opportunity for your business?

But you don’t know exactly how to go about it?

Then this short article is for you.

At Excelsior, I help companies launch themselves into this new virtual world.

Through experience, I have detected 5 common mistakes when launching into the Metaverse.

In the next few minutes, I’m going to show you these mistakes.

Then I will tell you how to remedy them.

My goal is to :

save you time, energy and resources.
Allow you to launch the Metaverse with peace of mind.
make your launch in the Metaverse as successful as possible

Without further ado, here is the program:

• Mistake 1: Choosing the wrong Metaverse
• Mistake 2: Buying the wrong virtual land
• Mistake 3: Building the wrong virtual 3D building
• Error 4 : Not imagining adapted activities
• Error 5 : Not communicating properly about your virtual experience

Mistake 1: Choosing the wrong Metaverse

The most common mistake I’ve encountered with our clients is choosing the wrong Metaverse.

Indeed, as I share in the article on the top14 Metaverse, there are more suitable virtual worlds to launch as a business.

You need an active metaverse, meaning one where users are already visiting.

Also, if you’re developing an experience to retain employees, build loyalty or attract new customers, you need a virtual world that is easy to access.

Finally, it’s best to go to a Metaverse where brands or companies are already present.

I like the image of real life where you see that cell phone stores like SFR, BOUYGUES or ORANGE are often next to each other. The prospect then comes to a first store and goes to the others to compare. It’s the same principle for the choice of the Metaverse and the purchase of the virtual land (as we will see later): the more brands are present, the higher the chances that users will visit you.

To conclude, I would advise you to go for the Metaverse The Sandbox as a priority. Companies like Gucci, Adidas, Carrefour, Groupe Casino, Havas are present. The Metaverse Decentraland can also be an option. Brands like Forever 21, Dolce & Gabbana and Tommy Hilfiger have already joined. And the Metaverse Fashion Week was held there.

If you are still hesitating to make your choice, don’t hesitate to book a discovery call with us:

Let’s move on to the second most common mistake:

Mistake 2: Buying the wrong virtual land

Setting up in the Metaverse, especially for a virtual HQ, often involves either buying or renting.

To give you an idea, the floor price of a virtual land on Decentraland is 1,7 ETH and on The Sandbox 1,5 ETH, that is to say more than 2000€ at the time of writing.

For this price, you have a plot of land often badly placed, without much importance.

Because, indeed, we are talking about virtual real estate.

As for real estate, buying a virtual land is an action that must be thought through, with strategies to be put in place.

The location is for example one of the most important things.

You must therefore analyze where the other companies are.

Is there a business district in the Metaverse?

Is there a fashion district in the Metaverse?

Is there a financial district in the Metaverse?

In addition, the Metaverse often has dedicated locations.

So you need to determine if there are such locations near the land you want to buy or lease.

Virtual real estate is still an emerging market, but one that is developing at great speed, especially with the emergence of NFTs.

Indeed, as this Fnac article on virtual real estate says, there are specialized agencies such as Agence Voxel and Metaverse Property that propose offers.

At Excelsior, we can also help you make your choice.

So don’t hesitate to book a discovery call.

Let’s move on to the 3rd common mistake:

Let’s move on to the 3rd common mistake:

Whatever your ambition, you are not going to leave your land empty once you have bought it.

Thus, the question of the virtual building to be built arises.

At this stage, it is often difficult to determine the marketing objective of your operation.

Do you want to address your own employees, your current customers, your future customers?

Once the answer is found, you will have to build your building differently.

At Excelsior, for example, we have built our own microverse in the Spatial.io application. We do our interviews there in 3D. You can browse it here. 

For Crédit Agricole, we duplicated their premises to offer an immersive experience for 1000 employees of the company.

Then, once the marketing objective is validated.

You need to build the building.

At Excelsior, we have a dedicated 3D team to create your custom virtual building.

The fourth mistake is also common, it consists in :

Mistake 4: Not thinking of suitable activities

Once you have bought your land and built your building, you have to animate it.

The problem that often arises is to create an activity that is not consistent with the building.

At Excelsior, we created different spaces with different objectives: one for recruitment, the other for our client meetings.

We thought of them differently in terms of design and architecture.

In addition, with the Crédit Agricole, we imagined an escape game to gamify the discovery of the universe.

Other possibilities of activities are possible like :

• Create a mini game
• Create an online store
• Team Building
• Holding conferences
• Evangelizing about your business

I encourage you to read our article on marketing ideas in the metaverse to learn more about this topic.

Let’s move on to the fifth mistake.

Mistake 5: Not communicating properly about your virtual experience

Web3, the Metaverse and NFT are a big trend.

But these topics are met with ire from some sections of the population.

Some do not understand the usefulness.

So the communication phase must be well orchestrated.

I will always remember the poorly received NFT announcements at Ubisoft or Discord. I think these companies did not communicate well.

Because others have made Web3 and the Metaverse a real asset.

The company Nike bought the studio rtfkt, specialized in NFT.  This announcement was positively received by the fans. Moreover, this acquisition is a value generator for Nike. Luxury companies have also cleverly positioned themselves on the subject of NFT.

More traditional players such as the Casino group also use it as an innovation asset.

They insist on testing concepts, which allow them to create new “hybrid” experiences for their customers, with concrete projects.

At Excelsior, we have a foot in this new world. We can help you create a communication strategy that will make your implementation in the metaverse an asset.

Let’s summarize the 5 mistakes:

• Error 1: Choosing the wrong Metaverse
• Error 2 : Buying the wrong virtual terrain
• Error 3 : Building a virtual 3D building that is not adapted
• Error 4 : Not imagining adapted activities
• Error 5 : Not communicating properly about your virtual experience
• Conclusion: should you get into the Metaverse?

The Metaverse is the future of the Internet, but more immersive.

It is therefore essential to adopt a “test and learn” approach in this field. 

Indeed, in the long term, you can almost duplicate your activity in the metaverse.

This could offer a new growth lever.

For example:

• An advertising company like JC Decaux will be able to create billboards in the Metaverse as it does today in real life (and massively multiply its profits because no material costs)
• A law firm will be able to create a service to manage virtual disputes because they will have real impacts (avatar theft, clothing theft, weddings…)
• A clothing brand will be able to make virtual clothes and shoes (Nike has already bought RTFKT, a 3D virtual sneaker design studio)

More specifically, if you have a business related to film, music, entertainment, art, professional services, finance, real estate and video games, your industry is a good fit for the Metaverse.

At Excelsior, we think the easiest way to get started is to create your virtual HQ.

You’ll be able to host internal and external events, which will turn this space into an innovation laboratory.

And in the long run, you’ll be one step ahead of your competitors, as the Casino Group is currently doing.

I hope you enjoyed this article,

Feel free to browse our blog to learn more about the Metaverse.