Why Is Experiential Marketing Important For Your Next Event?

Marketing comes in all manner of shapes and sizes.  However, digital marketing is not the only way to put a word out there about your services and products.  One of the best ways to increase your brand visibility and loyalty is to have customer conversations offline.

An experiential marketing campaign is usually a live event whose aim is to entertain, educate and inform customers and prospects. We have discussed its types and why you should ride on it for your brand’s success.

Types of experiential marketing

Here are the major types of experiential marketing explained:

1. Brand activations

Brand activation simply refers to the launching of a brand’s new products and services.  This gives brands a good platform to carry out experiential marketing because of the availability of media and customers who are in most cases eager to see what the brand brings to the market. You can bet that it is effortless to sell when customers are aware of your brand’s new products in the market.

Product sampling is the best way that brands can exercise experiential marketing during brand activation. Sampling means that you let your customers have a test or a feel for your new products.

 2. Event marketing

Event marketing and experiential marketing can be done together. You have to know that not all experiential marketing is event-oriented. What this means is that an event creates its memories. An event will require early ticketing, venue and time. Other activities that precede an event include sending out reminder emails, inviting people to book early tickets and much more. Experiential marketing, on the other hand, has an element of surprise. This does not require sharing on social media, sending out emails or asking for ticket booking as seen in event marketing.

3. Guerrilla marketing

Guerrilla marketing features an element of surprise by creating a range of experiences. The surprise factor is aimed at starting conversations around a given campaign. This is the main reason as to why this type of marketing involves several activities.

Guerrilla marketing or ambush marketing does not ask permission. To bring the experiential marketing feel into guerrilla marketing there has to be an element of engagement.

In some cases, guerrilla marketing may lead to legal issues because it doesn’t ask for permission. Even though, this type of experiential marketing can be successful without posing any problems.

4. Retail installation

A good number of people still appreciate shopping around stores. Experiential marketing thrives very well in retail stores. The trick is usually getting the customer to the store and keeping them there for longer. This increases their likelihood of purchasing significantly.

Retail stores enhance experiential marketing by creating an intriguing and interactive display. This allows customers to be exposed to the products for longer thus increasing their chances of buying.

For retail stores to thrive through this era of online shopping, a lot has to happen in terms of experiential marketing. Retail stores are fortunate enough to have a platform to engage with their customers and increase loyalty, a privilege that the online stores lack!

Should you try experiential marketing?

There is no better way to create a personal experience for your customers other than involving them in your brand vision, activities and much more. Continue reading to find out why this type of marketing is a goldmine:

1.     Keeps the discussion going

Experiential marketing beats all other marketing strategies hands down! You will have quite a good number of people talking about an experiential campaign you had at an event. This is the most effortless and fast way to increase your brand visibility. Remember people share their events experiences with their friends across several social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and many more.

2.    Builds relationships

Looking to build a good relationship with your customers? During your event, you will have the opportunity to humanize your company. Your customers will meet the faces behind the products and services your brand sells.  This helps boost brand affinity, what this means is that your customers are not likely to buy from elsewhere because of the memories they have created with your experiential marketing.

Use this opportunity to share your brand’s values and dreams. Your customers are likely to trust you more when they know what you stand for! Try as much as possible to focus on them. They matter! Do not forget that 80% of people buy from a brand that highly engages them.

OnSpot Social event app comes with several features that help you increase your customer engagement thus increasing loyalty. The app boosts digital games and contests that help you create an unforgettable experience for your brand. By converting your iPad into a booth, you will able to host scratch and win games and select random winners for their prizes. You may also use the email capturing feature to collect new leads at your booth. There are so many ways to use this app to engage your customers at an event and afterwards.

3.    Unique content

You must have top-notch content to enhance your marketing strategy. We can all agree that it is quite overwhelming for companies to reach their customers, especially those that are online. The good news is that experiential marketing comes with several ways to generate unique content to share across all the online platforms where their customers spend most of their time.

For example, by making use of the OnSpot Social event app, you can share branded product videos to your customers online. Additionally, you can make a video slide of images taken during your event to share with your customers who were unable to attend your events. This creates curiosity and spikes engagement which attracts more people to your brand.

4.   Gain Useful Analytics

Experiential marketing as told above, allows brands to interact with customers during events, it is so effortless for them to gain some useful analytics.

Brands can take note of attendance, customer engagement and much more. Furthermore, they can look into social media sales, conversions, and engagement. Such data is vital for any brand that wants to gain authority in its industry.  Experiential data is vital for making future experiential marketing decisions for your events.

Give them something new each time

People are tired of ads. They yearn for new and engaging experiences with value. Experiential marketing allows you to move consumers to the bottom of the sales funnel very fast, capture leads and increase your brand visibility.

There is no doubt that investing in this type of marketing, will give your business a boost so that you can make sales that you desire and deserve.