The Ultimate Guide to Experiential Marketing

Experiential marketing is an experience that brings people closer to the brand in a rather unique and engaging way.

Marketers across the globe are employing this marketing technique to promote their products in a way that they remain in the consumers’ brains for a long time to come.

No wonder that experiential marketing is taking the world by storm. Let’s dig a little deeper in what it is all about.

 

What is Experiential Marketing?

As the name suggests, it has everything to do with ‘experience’. This technique aims to help the consumers experience a brand while immersing them into that brand/product like never before. 

This type of marketing ditches the traditional means of media. Instead, it creates a rather long-lasting connection with the consumers by using unique experiences as a way to market brands. This may sound a bit challenging to you because it is. 

Coming up with an event or experience that consumers can indulge themselves while also remembering it for time to come is a challenging task. The event has to be unique enough for it to stand out.

However, it is not tough to come up with such an event. If you have the creativeness that it takes to host a memorable event, you can nail it.

 

Marketing as an Unforgettable Experience

Experiential marketing is becoming an ingrained philosophy among marketers. This is the type of marketing that one can apply to any brand.

The main aim of this type of marketing is to engage the customers in the sales as well as the marketing process in a way that very well suits them. 

The growing popularity of experiential marketing is the result of the fact that talking to consumers through billboard ads or a video ad is less effective than engaging them in the whole experience.

This source of marketing gives consumers a more personalized experience. And they feel more connected to the brand/product. 

Not just saying it for the sake of convincing, but studies show that around 70% of the users became regular customers after they were involved by a brand in an episode of experiential marketing. 

 

Are You Equipped to Provide an Experience?

This sort of marketing can be tough as well as easy. The hard part is figuring out a way to do things when you are planning it for the first time.

However, when you get the knack of it, things seem a little less tough. However, every time before starting the preparations for a new event, you will have to pay attention to a couple of things.

These include the following:

1. Budget

The first and foremost factor that you need to consider is the budget.

When we say that experiential marketing is about providing an experience, it costs money to provide that experience. It is not a birthday party that you are hosting for a couple of friends at your place.

Therefore, you have to plan your budget accordingly. Any new campaign that you are about to introduce to the consumers should have an allocated budget. And you should work well within the budget.

For that, you should also know about the scope and size of your campaign. Only then will you be able to allocate a budget accordingly. 

 

2. Strategy

You will also need to gather the stakeholders that are sponsoring the event. With them, you will have to discuss all the goals tactics and logistics for the upcoming event.

This will also give you more ideas to host a successful event, as everyone will bring their ideas to the table as well.

 

3. Operations

Next up on the list are the operations. You need a plan of action before you start the preparations for the event.

This asks of you to assign the tasks to the various teams. Apart from that, you will need an efficient communication with your vendors, your various teams as well as your organizers. 

Miscommunication can be very hefty on your pocket in this case.

 

4. Giveaways

A rather popular way of attracting people towards your event is by announcing giveaways. It is upon you to decide what is it that will set you apart from your competitors. 

 

5. Promotional Incentives

You and your team also need to create a buzz around your event. This hype will attract even more people towards the event.

Promotional incentives can include celebrity appearances or a special prize. It depends on you. 

 

6. Measuring

Planning and hosting a successful event is not enough. Experiential marketing is more than just hosting an event. You need to measure your success after the event.

There are various factors that you need to consider while determining whether the event was successful or not. 

This will help you to figure out the areas that need improvement. After the whole analysis, you can then communicate the key learnings to your stakeholders as well as clients, sponsors and other partners. 

 

Can It be Done on a Budget?

As discussed in the earlier section, keeping the budget in mind is essential for any marketing campaign.

Here are a couple of ways by which you can provide the consumers with an experiential marketing event on a budget:

1. Creativity

Whenever you are on a small budget, your creative side will help you to host one of the best events or come up with an exceptionally good campaign. 

 

2. Go Big

You can make use of strategies like flash mobs to create awareness among people about your brand or product.

The best part is that flash mobs do not cost you much as they often include volunteers. Moreover, they also leave a lasting impact on people.

 

3. Shock People

Nestle came up with this inexpensive idea of painting baristas’ bodies while they served coffee in a pop-up coffee shop.

This was to introduce Natural Bliss coffee creamer by the company. Nudist baristas were shocking but it caught peoples’ attention.

Moral of the story: shock people.

Having said this, there are tactics by which you can help ensure that your event/campaign is a success. Employing all or some of these strategies would mean that you can boost your strategy.

 

Tactics for Success

To ensure that your event is a success, you need to resort to the following tactics:

1. Social Media Engagement

Social media engagement is the most effective way of making your event a success. This is because social media platforms enable you to keep the consumers updated before, during and after the event as well. 

But for that to happen, you will have to keep a couple of things in mind. The social media platform will only be fruitful for your brand if you do the following:

• Use the best social media platform.
• Come up with engaging content.
• Create consistent messaging.
• Encourage sharing.

If you succeed in doing all of the above, you will reach a lot of people and your event will be a success as well. 

 

2. Up Your Brand Ambassadors Game

Brand ambassadors help in bringing something unique to your event. They can be a good source for starting a conversation and building the bridge between the brand and the consumers.

Some of the tips that can aid you in picking the aptest brand ambassador include:

• Identifying your goals.
• Understanding the event requirements.
• Getting help to pick the best people like the brand ambassadors. 
• Offer incentives to the brand ambassadors. 

That being said, you also need to resort to some other tactics to make the event a hit. 

 

3. Live Streaming

Not all people will be able to make it to your event. But you have to make them feel as if they were present at the event. Their virtual presence matters as well.

Therefore, you should live stream the event. This will make the consumers feel as if they are a present at the event. 

You can make use of live video feeds to keep the people connected to your event.

When doing so, you can perform live product demos, host a question and answer session, and even go behind the scenes to keep the people entertained with live-action. 

 

4. Create an Immersive Experience

You need to create an immersive experience through your experiential marketing event so that people get thoroughly involved.

You can do so by employing the following:

• Pre-promote the event.
• Create a registration page.
• Create a social event.
• Offer the audience some kind of attraction.
• Request some post-event action from all involved. 

The tactics are not only limited to the ones stated above. You can always come up with your own set of ideas. However, these are some of the most effective ways to make an event or campaign successful. 

I still remember the time I was a part of the team that was working on an event for the introduction of Spectrum triple play in the market.

Although the whole event planning experience was tiring and involved months of hard work, it was also one of the best times I had. 

In my opinion, the biggest reason for the success of our event was the liaison between the team members and the vendors.