Experiential Marketing: What It Is & Why It Works

Over the past couple of years, people's lifestyles have changed a lot, the pandemic has increased the virtualization of our lives, many areas have moved to an online format. Virtual meetings, webinars, online shopping and online content delivery have become the norm for us.

On the one hand, this is good and convenient, but on the other, the variety and number of offers overloads people’s consciousness. It is necessary to constantly attract attention, surprise, and look for non-standard approaches. One such approach could be experiential marketing. Offering real-life experiences in addition to digital marketing is a great way to stand out from competitors in a crowded virtual world.

What is experiential marketing?

Experimental marketing is one of the progressive methods of advertising. As part of its application, an interactive experience is used, during which customers are encouraged to purchase a product or order a service. This type of marketing is a powerful tool for organizations that want to make a lasting impression on their target audience. Let's look at successful examples of using this technique.

Elements of a successful campaign

Let's look at the factors used in every successful campaign.

1. Product introduction

Indirectly or directly (as in the case of Milka), but any customer experience needs to be woven into the moment of sale. After all, campaigns are created not so much to entertain customers, but to motivate them to buy.

2. Creativity comes first

Promotions that spark users' imagination and desire to share with friends work best. Businesses around the world spend millions of dollars testing boring and bland marketing strategies. They think that money can draw attention to mediocrity - but it doesn't.

3. Promote crowd building and discussion.

Either literally (as in the James Bond campaign) or indirectly, making you want to share with friends.

4. Listen to feedback

What would happen to weather rooms if Globetrotter didn't use feedback? Listen to the response and you will understand how your strategy resonates in the hearts of people.

Of course, it is impossible to suggest the best ideas and options for their implementation, because each specific business has its own specifics. Listen to your customers, analyze your target audience and... create!

Examples of experiential marketing

Many businesses adopt experiential marketing strategy because of its effectiveness in achieving the goal. Here Are some examples you can learn from.

The European brand GLOBETROTTER develops sports equipment and produces special clothing. In order to attract new customers, the company decided to provide the opportunity to test products. Rain and snow rooms were created in stores, in which customers were doused with water and simulated bad weather was created. The brand also provided freezers with temperatures down to -30 C. At first, store visitors were outraged, but the number of sales after this move increased significantly.

Recently, one can notice the development of the cult of fashionable sneakers, and if a new collection is released, there is a buzz among the people. The ADIDAS company, as always, decided to be original and organized an interesting company “Jump with Derrick”. This man is a famous basketball player who can jump very high. The idea of experimental advertising is to give visitors to branded stores the opportunity to repeat a record by touching a strip at a certain height. If this is possible, the participant receives a pair of sneakers as a gift.

Effective advertising campaigns impress not only the target audience of companies, but also the people around them. The Coca-Cola company decided to participate in the promotion of the new film and launched a “find the 007 in you” campaign. As part of the campaign, all participants who approached the drinks kiosk were given a chance to win two tickets to the new film. The catch is that to win you had to find the second kiosk within 70 seconds by going through obstacles. The campaign captured and pleasantly surprised not only the target group of people, but also many random passers-by.

The previous examples involve some financial costs, but this story will not require a huge investment. A leading restaurant industry expert and host of a television show called Bar Rescue believes he is in a battle with food service owners to bring something new to their business. One example was the implementation of this advertising campaign. The point is to create conditions under which users will start making viral photos. The solution was an open-type stand, next to which customers took photos.

Organizing events in any company is an important element of development. A major radical campaign, for example, was carried out as part of the Christmas shooting campaign, in which participants fired shots at Christmas tree decorations.

Companies often hold wine festivals; this gives entrepreneurs and employees a non-standard experience of interacting with clients. The most high-profile advertising event, which managed to grow into the scale of the annual festival, was the promotion from the Red Bull company. Its actors invited the participants to independently create an aircraft and take off on it.

This advertising campaign is perhaps the most impressive customer experience yet. The chocolate manufacturer MILKA launched a promotion in which some packages were missing one piece. The lucky recipients of these tiles were given the opportunity to receive a piece by mail or send it to one of their friends. It would seem that this is a trifle, but it acts as a significant catalyst for sales.

Successful advertising campaign: main nuances

Every good stock has a basic set of factors that must be taken into account.

Customer experience must be combined with the fact of sale, either directly or indirectly. After all, such events are held not only to entertain customers, but to create a motivational base for purchase.

Promotions aimed at developing imagination and inviting sharing with friends work flawlessly in 99% of cases. All over the world, companies are willing to spend a lot of money on testing. But money is not the main factor; creativity has no competition here.

This is another strategic technique that will indirectly get people talking about the brand, discussing it with friends and sharing the latest news and new products.

Listen to what consumers think about your ideas, generate basic solutions according to the preferences of the target audience, and the result will pleasantly surprise you.

Trial marketing is a powerful driver of purchase. Among the people surveyed in the studies, the majority of consumers gave preference to this type of shopping motivation.

Benefits of Experiential Marketing

Traditional marketing is designed to attract attention and build trust through marketing messages. It appeals to the emotions and intellect through visual and auditory stimuli, creating enough interest in the product to cause consumers to take action.

Experiential marketing does the opposite. It begins with some action aimed at impressing a potential client. This allows the consumer to feel direct and immediate contact with the company's product or service, creating active interaction from the moment of their first contact with the brand.

Experiential marketing helps you break through the noise of conventional marketing and advertising and captures attention through interaction. The more time a person spends interacting with a brand, the higher their trust and connection. After an initial contact like this, it becomes much easier to continue remarketing through display advertising, social media advertising and email marketing.

How to Use Experiential Marketing for Your Company

The most successful experiential marketing focuses on creating meaningful, interactive, memorable, and unique experiences for potential customers and clients.

Instead of simply demonstrating the features of a product or service, engage people in a way that influences their emotions and feelings about the purchase.

An experience-based marketing strategy aims to develop a connection between a brand and its customers. Instead of promoting products or services to a passive audience, find ways to engage them in the process. Experimental marketing campaigns are aimed at active interaction between the client and the brand. These could be themed events, free product offers, collaborations with marketing agents, or any other event that attracts attention.

Each visitor, when interacting with a brand, product or service, should receive his own unique experience. Inspired by positive experiences, customers can become ambassadors for your brand, sharing their experiences on social networks or among friends and acquaintances.

In order for your business to grow and develop, add variety to your work with your target audience, along with traditional marketing technologies, add new ways to get acquainted with product samples, come up with positive events and activities that attract the attention of potential customers and make them talk about you.

Conclusion

I hope this post was able to give you a clear understanding of how experiential marketing works and how beneficial it will be if you adopt this strategy. Refer to the comment session for any clarification.