Pros and Cons of Using 3D Images for Website and Marketing

One of the most challenging tasks for any marketer is convincing potential customers how their product stands out from other alternatives in the market. This issue goes far beyond brand positioning. It focuses on helping the customer make the right selection among a sea of comparable products, to serve as a best fit to their problem statement.

3D modeling of products and images is one of the effective ways to help the customers perceive them better in a close-to-real-world preview on the website.

No wonder, more and more businesses today are using 3D marketing to communicate their pitch to their potential clients. This new technology of rendering 3D images enables advertisers to produce a more memorable experience than commonplace 2D commercials.

According to a recent Forbes study, 3D marketing initiatives helped in boosting luxury brand conversion rates by 40%. Let’s find out in more detail the pros and cons of using 3D images for websites and marketing campaigns.

Pros of using 3D Images for Websites

Let’s start with the advantages of using 3D images on your website.

1. 3D rendering helps shape a highly-coordinated marketing strategy

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) often work closely with third-party vendors or advertisement agencies to deliver their marketing plans. 3D designers or rendering experts are critical assets of these marketing teams, as they have the ability to visualize captured images or illustrations navigating through the limitations of 3D imaging technology.

This empowers the marketing agencies to make 3D content marketing a key tool of their execution plan. The higher synergy helps to make the best use of 3D imaging technologies and align them with critical landing pages of digital marketing campaigns. This is specifically more applicable to those industries (like real estate, engineering, architecture, etc.) where 3D imaging is used to convert difficult-to-interpret images into interactive 3D avatars.

2. Very powerful tool to highlight key components/features of your products

For tech-savvy industries, many times key features of products or inspected assets can get really confusing in their 2D formats.  3D imaging and rendering can help with high-end applications as they are more reliable and easier to perceive. Thereby, it ensures that all the key features of the product or service being marketed are appropriately demonstrated to potential clients on ads and images on the website.

Consider the case when you are selling a product with many pieces, such as a laptop or a washing machine. You can create a 3D model of your laptop using 3D rendering. New age tools can even make the image an interactive one where one can click on each component part and play with it, moved around, rotated, and resized by the user engaging with it.

In this case, 3D graphics will enable you to assist your website visitor in better appreciating the benefits of your goods and getting a close-up view of them. Such interactions are fast replacing in-person visits to check out specific products across the world and making e-commerce all the more effective in meeting end-user expectations.

3. Building a Personalized Concept for Products

The preliminary 3D product renderings can be used in a variety of marketing scenarios and promotional platforms. For instance, architects are using 3D architectural rendering technology to create a specific plan on an existing as-is layout of a house/building. Similarly, houses are being inspected online using a 3D interactive space for a specific property.

One can go on and on with examples from a wide range of industries, where 3D imagery is playing a key role in standing out of the competition.

Marketing agencies are upgrading their game and incorporating a new dimension in their branding initiatives by using product 3D modeling technology. Using Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) technology, brand assets like logos, sites, or virtual experiences can now be converted into engaging 3D avatars. These 3D avatars can be incorporated into a powerful branding initiative of a company. In this way, businesses can upgrade their product demonstrations and user engagement by using product CGI services.

Cons of using 3D Images for Website and Marketing

The main pain points of 3D rendering are that they generally cost more and take a little bit more time to produce.

1. 3D Image Rendering is costly and takes time to produce

It’s uncommon for one animator to be a jack-of-all-trades because animating 3D images for websites requires working with multiple technologies. Although 3D rendering of 2D images is not that complex, the same cannot be said about asset inspections in the engineering industry.

Not all animators are capable of doing it as an end-to-end production of such imagery. Instead, based on what’s being portrayed in 3D format, you may need several experts in CGI to get the job done. This includes character animation or special effects, or methods like modeling, lighting, and texturing.

2. Producing 3D Images requires high-end equipment

While we’re on the topic of resources, which includes money, it is important to note that 3D animators need powerful computers to run applications like Cinema 4D, Houdini, and Maya. With every passing year, 3D technologies are getting cheaper and more powerful than ever before. Businesses would still need to consider whether their product would actually benefit from a 3D visual representation on their e-commerce website, and if it’s worth the investment.

3. 3D Imagery isn’t as flexible as its 2D counterpart

3D visualizations of products and services cannot be adapted and expanded to print and web-based materials in the same way that 2D animations can. This means that business owners wouldn’t exactly be able to emulate the same visual that prospective clients experience on your website, when, say, you are printing out flyers for the same product or service you’re offering.

The bottom line

Brands may easily alter product models to meet changing consumer expectations thanks to 3D rendering. These models can also be used to measure levels of acceptance. Additionally, they can protect companies from financial problems if customers reject new ideas, thereby bringing down the cost of product beta experimentation and making the fresh concept hit the market in a shorter time span.

3D images for websites help customers explore options and make better decisions. This is because of the differences in texture, tone, material, angles, and color of the product brought on by 3D images for websites. This technology also has the ability to attract new customers due to its alternatives for product testing. Online firms must be receptive to these developments to survive in this cutthroat climate.