What do Visual Search Engines like Google Lens, CamFind, and Bing Visual Search, Mean for Me?
Every hour of every day we are bombarded with images contained in videos, infographics, animations, and other types of pictorial stimuli. Wordy advertisements of yesteryear no longer apply to a visual society that believes reading is tedious and far from persuasive when it comes to information gathering and discernment. Furthermore, almost three quarters of the population find text-based searches fail to return adequate results.
When it comes to marketing, various forms of technology are accessible to businesses who want to present their customers with attractive, influential, and convincing visuals that leave no question in the viewer’s mind that this is the product they need, and why. The only hurdle remaining is how to guide customers to the company that offers the desired item.
This is where visual search engines come into play.
To give you a better idea of how this technology can enhance your marketing and boost your business, here is a glimpse into the most popular visual search engines available today:
- Google Lens – An AI-driven search app that utilizes vision-based computing capabilities, it enables users to interact with their environment and explore their surroundings in a unique way. For example, by pointing the smartphone’s camera at a storefront or singular product, Lens will display the target’s name, rating, reviews, and other pertinent information that eases decision-making. Lens can also translate languages into English, which is imperative to marketing on a global scale. The latest upgrade to Lens is augmented reality that allows customers to see a product from all angles. Google Lens is helping society warm to the idea that this technology is vital to everyday life if we are to save time and money while also enabling businesses to attract new customers who will become loyal followers.
- CamFind – Similar to Google Lens, this app connects to Google Glass and identifies whatever you are focused on within seconds to deliver decision-making information. Not only does it allow the user to search similar products, people can share their favorite items with friends and family. This feature is invaluable to businesses because word-of-mouth advertising is the gold standard since it is free, and people trust those they know, which can lead to even more faithful customers. The downside to CamFind is that it only works with Google Glass, which is an expensive product, so a large portion of the population will be unable to obtain it.
- Bing Visual Search – Convenient for both customers and marketers, this app allows users to single out an item in a picture to learn more about it and where to purchase it. A good example of this is when you are viewing an image of a couple walking down the street and you like the skirt the woman is wearing. Bing Visual Search allows the user to click on a magnifying glass icon, which then enables the person to draw a circle around the skirt that triggers the app to reveal its brand and where it is sold.
While each of these search engines is unique in their own way, they are all operating with artificial intelligence, which is the unifying component bridging the gap between customers and businesses. As technology becomes smarter, businesses have nothing to lose and customers have everything to gain. Marketing will become more streamlined as it runs continuously in the background of apps waiting to tell customers all about what they want and where to get it.
If you’ve been thinking about utilizing visual search engines to boost business, Higgins Marketing Group can help. Contact us for a pressure-free chat about the initial steppingstones needed to drive more customers to your website. Not sure yet? Check out our work and let us know when you’re ready.