Experiential Marketing Strategy

What can a marketer do in order to help ensure their experiential marketing strategy is optimized? There are a few steps to be considered:

1. Analyze how customers currently experience your brand.
2. If you don’t have one already, put together a platform for your brand on which you can interact with customers.
3. Work with your team to align on the complete brand experience. Prioritize the integration of online and offline/real-world experience.
4. Identify the types of printed material that can be used to enhance this experience (displays, signage, etc.)
5. Disseminate your brand’s value propositions to both external and internal audiences. Make sure these satisfy your customer’s needs from all sides, such as providing appropriate information for the stages of your customers’ journeys and visuals that inspire curiosity.
6. Set performance goals (KPIs, key performance indicators) for your brand.
7. Follow up and monitor those KPIs on a regular cadence to ensure you can act quickly on any negative or positive news.

Experiential Marketing Results

When executed well, experiential marketing leads to an expanded relationship between a brand and the customer that enables every one of the customer’s interactions with that brand. There are some other powerful effects that come from experiential marketing, as well.

• A relatively high ROI: If your brand takes part in a large scale event with thousands of people in attendance, such as a fair, convention, or concert, you will likely see a lot of interactions and even acquire new customers. For example, spending $5,000 on booth rental and production of print materials like banners and brochures for a huge convention often leads to multiples of that in new revenue.
• More customer testing: Some of the best experiential marketing settings encourage customers or users of a brand to actually try using your product. This tactile interaction is a major driver for the creation of memory and emotional connection to your brand. While big events increase the sheer number of these interactions, you will find that smaller events encourage deeper, more meaningful brand/customer connection.
• Improved brand recognition: When a brand’s products exist almost entirely in the real world—as with many toys, decorative items and appliances—it can be extremely helpful to use experiential marketing as a prime opportunity to get your product in front of as many people as possible. This ultimately leads to a boost in brand recognition.
• Buzz building: Often going hand-in-hand with brand recognition is the process of building buzz among your audience. Both existing customers and potential customers can be affected by experiential marketing in a way that increases their excitement for a brand’s products, both old and new. This buzz can grow and extend to the wider customer base.
• Improved connection: This comes down to a “believability quotient.” When customers see and experience your product firsthand (or even hear about it from a trusted source), they are far more likely to retain positive feelings about your brand. This will translate into more positive messages and reviews as well as higher sales.