Finding new and effective ways to promote your brand is a daunting task. Experiential marketing is a powerful tool that can help you increase your visibility and gain customer loyalty.
Start by understanding your audience. Research their preferences, values, and interests to design immersive experiences that will resonate with them.
- Create a Clear Message
In an age where consumers are more and more distracted, gaining visibility for your brand is challenging. Experiential marketing can help to make your company stand out, especially if it creates an experience that is unique, compelling, and emotional.
Consumers are more likely to connect with brands when they can see, touch, taste, smell or hear about them in a real-life setting. They are also more likely to share their positive experiences with friends and family, which can lead to further engagement and potential purchases.
For example, a digital marketing agency like Paper Street can hold a live workshop for law firms to learn how they can use SEO and PPC effectively. The event will be fun and educational, and attendees will leave with a better understanding of how they can improve their online visibility.
Alternatively, an eco-friendly fashion brand can collaborate with a well-known environmental activist to promote its sustainable products. The campaign will inspire consumers and align them with the brand’s values.
- Design an Experience Around Your Message
Creating a memorable experience is one of the best ways to humanize your brand. After all, consumers are more likely to remember how a brand made them feel (and how they interacted with it) than the brand itself.
Often, this interaction is more about values than sales. For example, when Lululemon created their Pride Month experience, the goal wasn’t to sell more yoga pants, but rather to connect with customers who shared their values and foster an emotional connection with those consumers.
When choosing an agency to execute your experiential campaign, make sure they’re a good fit for your brand culture and that you have chemistry with them. It’s important to trust your intuition—if you don’t, it may not be the right partnership. A successful relationship requires communication, teamwork and a commitment to the same goals. Ask an agency about their process and what they look for in a client.
- Make It Convenient
It’s important to make it convenient for your customers to engage with your brand. Whether this is through your website, social media, or in-person appearances. Your marketing message should stay consistent across all of these channels so that your audience feels connected and engaged with your brand.
A good experiential marketing agency will have the creative and expert eye needed to make your vision come to life. Look for an extensive portfolio that showcases their past work.
You may also want to ask about their budgets and scope of work. For example, if an agency feels like they don’t have the necessary resources for your project, that should be addressed upfront to prevent any misunderstandings or miscommunication. Additionally, it’s helpful to share the experiences your audience has with your brand at every touchpoint so that an agency can get a clear picture of your brand authenticity.
- Make It Meaningful
In the end, it’s all about how you make your customers feel. Research has shown that consumers are much more likely to remember a brand that made them feel something (a positive or negative experience) than one they simply heard about.
This is why experiential marketing is so powerful—it allows brands to create a sense of meaning for their audience that they cannot achieve through other marketing channels. When evaluating agencies, look for experiences that showcase their ability to engage your audience and generate a positive feeling about your business.
Additionally, your agency partner should be willing to build a relationship with you and truly get to know your brand. You want an agency that will understand your vision and work to help you make it a reality, rather than just handing you off to an account service director or vice president. Lastly, make sure you communicate with your agency partner throughout the entire event planning and execution process.
- Make It Shareable
For experiential marketing, success depends on the ability to capture attention and drive awareness. Unlike traditional display advertising campaigns that prioritize direct key performance indicators (KPIs) like cost per click or cost per thousand impressions, the effectiveness of an experiential campaign is often measured with indirect indicators such as social media engagement, participant feedback, and foot traffic.
Ultimately, successful experiential campaigns allow customers to interact directly with your product and provide real-time feedback. This information can be used to further develop your marketing strategy and build trust with potential customers.
To make your experiential marketing campaign more shareable, encourage participants to post photos and videos of their experience online. This can help to generate organic user-generated content (UGC) and expand your reach quickly.
- Make It Personal
When hiring an experiential marketing agency, make sure to work with someone who understands your national or global brand and the vision you have for the campaign. You’ll want an experienced partner who can get to know your company on a personal level, ask insightful questions, and share their experience and expertise in a meaningful way.
Experiences should align with your brand’s core values and offer a unique take on your product or service. They should also give consumers an opportunity to interact with the campaign in a personal, memorable way, transforming them from passive spectators into participants in a shared experience.
A great example of this is when an eco-friendly fashion brand collaborates with a well-known environmental activist to host a sustainable living event where the activists wear the brand’s clothing and share their journey on social media, inspiring attendees to connect with their passion. Experiences like this can help humanize brands and generate more long term loyalty than traditional advertising campaigns.
