It’s no secret that experiential marketing is one of the best ways for you to exhibit your brand message. Experiential events offer your audience the ability to receive and participate in your message in a unique way rather than through traditional marketing methods. Not only are live events sexy and engaging but they have tremendous returns associated with them as well. Unsure what Experiential marketing is or how you could use it? Let’s start with the basics.
What is Experiential Marketing?
Experiential Marketing gives brands an opportunity to create an experience that allows consumers to learn more about a product and build brand awareness. Research shows that consumers are 74% more likely to buy products that are being promoted in an engaging way with a branded event marketing experience. That’s a huge increase! And while there are a lot of different ways that you can execute an experience with your consumers, here are a few:
- Product Showcase
- Immersive Experience
- Stunts
- Event Marketing
- Brand Activation
- Pop-Up
- Sampling
Benefits of Experiential Marketing
Experiencing a brand face-to-face and giving consumers an opportunity to engage with your brand can be extremely valuable. Research shows that consumers are extremely receptive and are likely to share the content they create, have a positive outlook on the brand after engaging, are more likely to buy products, and have a better understanding of the product compared to any other advertising method.
Now that we’ve convinced you how beneficial Experiential Marketing can be to your marketing strategy, let’s talk logistics.
How to Run a Successful Experiential Marketing Campaign
The definition of success will vary greatly depending on the campaign and the goals. Your strategy should engage your consumers while also hitting on your overall business objectives. We suggest looking at the campaign from the consumer standpoint. How would you be drawn in by an experience and what would you look for in a live event? Start with what you know, pull in what you’re hoping to gain from the experience from a business perspective, and tie it all together. Here are some thought-starters on how to get the ball rolling:
- Determine your audience and goals
- Build a solid strategy (this will help budget both your time and money most effectively!)
- Consider the budget
- Have a pre-, during, and post-campaign plan
- Capitalize on engagement
- Create an experience that's memorable
- Gather data in order to track performance and use those insights for future activations
- Capture the experience to be used on different channels after the close of the activation
How to Measure Performance and Success
Your next question might be “Well, how do I measure success?” You’ll want to know who you reached and how it impacted your consumers so you can determine if the return was greater than the cost to execute the experience in the first place.
It’s important that you determine your KPIs before the campaign starts. If you followed our guide, you already did that! What are you looking to achieve? Clearly identify what will measure success so at completion you’re easily able to answer whether you distributed samples to increase brand awareness, sold products to increase sales, or increased social engagement. Whatever it is you are looking to achieve, setting clearly outlined goals is the first step in being able to measure success.
After we complete an activation, we do what we call a post-mortem where we look at all aspects of the campaign from start to finish. What worked, what didn't, and what do we need to improve? We look at the program from each perspective. What did the client do well or could improve on? What could our partners do better next time or how did they kill it this time? We take all of those learnings and share them with each respective party. We feel that no one grows if everyone doesn't grow. We like to bring our learnings to the client at the end, figure out how we can collaborate better on future projects, and share some campaign insights with each other. This is the bow we like to tie at the end to seal up the program and be able to close it out in a productive way.
The Impact of Experiential Marketing
Events, guerrilla media, street teams, poster placements, and more create awareness for brands that are seen in a different way. Stepping outside of the non-traditional marketing landscape shows a brand's uniqueness and gives your audience a chance to have fun and interact with your brand.
It engages their senses and leaves a long-lasting impact where they're less likely to forget what they saw and experienced. Out-of-the-box experiences can turn something small into something huge and impactful. They get people talking. Utilizing this marketing strategy can be so powerful that within minutes, hours, or days the message can reach the entire country or even the world via social sharing.
Through connection, brand memory, reach, and authenticity many people will view your experiential marketing campaign as something they want to be a part of rather than looking at it as a point of sale. With this, you are not only letting your consumers have a unique experience, but you are also doing something way more valuable - gaining their trust! Now consumers will not simply look into your brand, but they will talk about it and pass it along to their friends and family!
So you’ve read the Moderne Guide to Events and Experiential Marketing. What next? It’s time to put it into action. Do you want to start small and see how your brand does with this new tactic? Have you done experiential marketing before and you’re looking for a new idea? We love tackling a challenge and working as an extension of your team.
At Moderne, we love to surprise and delight with strategically planned bells and whistles. Whether it’s a food truck, pop up shop, virtual reality, street team, or the “next big thing,” Moderne Communications is here to remove the stress and bring your wildest concepts to life. Contact us today to learn more about how to engage with your consumers IRL.
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Jan 4, 2023 3:56:14 PM