You do not have to change to do successful experiential marketing, but you have to be creative! We live in an exciting time. There is an endless stream of entertainment, activities and possibilities to be discovered every day. If you want to be remembered, you have to come up with something exciting.
People want to experience something and participate in exciting things that they can talk about, tweet or share with friends. Anyone who offers exciting experiences can attract the attention of potential customers and while working on the brand image. The primary goal of experiential marketing is to be remembered and to create positive associations with the brand.
What is experiential marketing?
A particular event is often the focus of experiential marketing, which is why it is confused with event marketing sometimes. The decisive difference is that the interaction with the brand is the focus of this experience-oriented approach to marketing. Potential customers are made aware of the brand by participating in an activity initiated by the brand. The participation in the brand-initiated activity or event leads to positive associations in people's minds. People are more likely to remember activities that they actively engaged in and by association they also remember the brand. Hence experiential marketing is not unidirectional. Bidirectional communication is the point.
Which events or activities and to what extent is completely up to the individual company. However, it is particularly important that the experience is tailored to the target group. The target group's needs, education, abilities and interests have to be clear before the action can be put in motion. You do not want to invest your time and money into an event that your target group finds uninteresting. Remember: this marketing strategy is about creating positive experience for which the brand will be remembered and receives positive publicity.
But do not make the mistake of thinking that your job is done once the event is completed.
An important element of experiential marketing is the follow-up, evaluation and dissemination of the experience. These elements significantly influence customer care and lead generation, which is why they should not be neglected or underestimated. If, for example, the experience is presented on social media channels with a picture gallery, participants can relive the experience to further strengthen the positive association with the brand established by the activity itself. Users who have not participated in the campaign will also find this interesting and may participate the next time you have something planned.
The elements of experiential marketing?
Various promotions can be used for experiential marketing: everything is possible from festivities, info events and exhibitions, surveys to games and image campaigns. As these examples show, this type of marketing is often based on an offline experience, which is marketed, processed, evaluated and discussed online. The important thing is to give the prospect or customer an added value in order to hold their attention.
Creating creative and great experiences can be very costly and time-consuming. Many companies therefore opt for a cooperation partner (co-marketing). The greater and more unusual an experience is, the better the chances that the participants will not forget what they experienced and who initiated the event. Moreover, the bigger an action, the more material for subsequent marketing measures it produces.
Experiential marketing par excellence:
Red Bull is a pioneer in terms of experiential marketing. The company has perfected this strategic marketing and lifted it to a whole new level. The starting point was the energy drink, which was marketed by event co-operations and mostly sporting events. In the meantime the brand advertises not only in the context of sports or other events, events are also promoted by the brand itself. Red Bull built up such a strong event-related image that many organizers want Red Bull as their partner to use profit from its image.
Your advantages at a glance:
- You will be remembered by potential customers.
- You combine customer care and lead generation.
- You increase your sales figures.
- You improve your image.
- You link offline and online marketing.
- You have a lot of creative scope.
- You can optimize your connection marketing with marketing automation.
- You promote networking.
- You have the ideal foundation for co-marketing.
This is how you get started
Creating and implementing marketing measures that promote the experience online is most efficient when using marketing automation software such as HubSpot. With this platform, campaigns can be planned very quickly and easily as well as realized on different online channels. It helps brands to reach many people as well as telling the world about how great your event was with comparably little effort.
