Right now, the big news in mobile marketing is the introduction of 5G. This is the latest generation of mobile technology and it promises to be leaps and bounds ahead of the last. It’s also still in the process of rolling out, which means you have plenty of time to get ready for its arrival.
In this post, we’ll discuss what 5G technology is and how it’s different from its predecessors. Then we’ll explore what this development means for your digital presence. Let’s get started!
What to Expect from 5G Technology
As with each previous generation of mobile technology, 5G promises to be a significant jump forward. Rather than being an incremental improvement, it uses brand-new techniques to provide mobile users with a better experience.
The details can be a little complex, but here’s the summary of how 5G is different:
- It uses new radio frequencies, at a much higher range. These frequencies can be extremely focused, which means they waste less energy and can support much faster data transmissions.
- The wavelengths it uses are shorter, meaning antennas can be a lot smaller while supporting a lot more devices per meter.
- 5G networks are better at understanding what type of data is being transmitted. They are therefore more flexible and can switch between high and low power modes as needed.
The key takeaway here is that 5G is faster, more efficient, and more cost-effective than previous generations. For marketers, the first element is the most crucial. 5G has the potential to be 20 times faster than 4G, which has a number of exciting implications for how you create and share content online.
3 Ways 5G May Impact Your Digital Marketing
Any new leap in technology offers plenty of opportunities for innovation. As such, 5G may have a wide variety of impacts on your digital presence. While we can’t predict all of them, here are three of the most likely and intriguing possibilities.
1. Expanding the Usability of Augmented Reality (AR)
Augmented Reality (AR) is a key technology that’s often confused with its close cousin, Virtual Reality (VR). While VR places the user into a fully-virtual experience, AR adds digital elements to the real world.
For marketers, this technology has a lot of applications. Most crucially, it can be used to let customers “experience” a product virtually, before making a purchase. Using their mobile devices, they can see how a product might fit into their home, or “try on” clothing and accessories to get a preview of how they would look wearing them.
However, AR is a demanding technology, which is where 5G comes in. 5G’s greater speeds and bandwidth make AR an option for far more businesses and users. It offers the potential for a seamless, lag-free AR experience, where your customers can virtually interact with products until they find the right one. In other words, 5G is likely to bring AR into reach for many small to mid-sized businesses.
2. Providing a Way to Connect the Digital and Physical Experiences
Many businesses with a strong digital presence still maintain physical locations, whether it’s a retail store or something else entirely. Either way, your effectiveness will often rely on your ability to connect these two presences and provide a seamless experience no matter how potential customers encounter you.
With 5G, it becomes much simpler and more effective to bring the digital experience into your physical location. Previous Wi-Fi networks could only support so many connections per each access point. With 5G, on the other hand, you can support a massive amount of connections in a small area, using only a single access point.
This has implications for all kinds of ways to connect your digital and physical presences. For example, you could provide an easy way to use smart devices to explore and learn more about your products while in-store.
You can even bring the AR experience into your retail location, by offering digital screens to enable customers to try out products virtually. With 5G, total integration of the virtual and real-world aspects of your business is a far more achievable goal.
3. Offering Greater Opportunities for Personalized Content
These days, personalization is everything. People have come to expect digital experiences to be tailored to their specific needs whenever possible. This can be as simple as the inclusion of each recipient’s name in email marketing messages, or as complex as a chatbot that offers targeted product recommendations.
In other words, customers now expect to be treated like individuals online, just as they would in the real world. Naturally, many marketers have already taken steps to provide more personalized experiences. However, the data collection required to do this in real time can be slow, making this strategy less effective overall.
As you might expect, 5G can come to the rescue. Its efficiency makes data collection a far speedier process. This means you can collect and/or access customer-specific information quicker, allowing for near-instant personalization of content, shopping experiences, and more. It’s possible, therefore, to provide finely-targeted messaging for each member of your audience – without downtime or lag that might drive them away.
Conclusion
We’ve seen the first 5G devices come out in limited form already, and the technology should be here in full force soon. Each new generation of mobile technology is adopted more quickly – which means that now is the time to plan ahead if you want to take full advantage of what 5G offers to digital marketers.
How do you expect 5G to impact your business? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!