One of the strategies most used by companies and brands in recent years is experiential marketing. A relatively new concept, often misunderstood, but very effective. This strategy’s ultimate goal is to offer consumers a unique and even immersive experience. Whether you want to increase your visibility or are looking for one-off marketing and communication actions to stand out from your competitors or boost your brand image, experiential marketing has to be part of your overall strategy. Here are some tips:
Summary
1. What is experiential marketing?
A company’s goal with experiential marketing is to create deep connections with its existing and potential customers. This type of action allows the latter to interact with your brand’s identity and core values actively. Experiential marketing offers brands, both start-ups and large groups, an exceptional opportunity to increase customer loyalty and, therefore, revenues.
Experiential marketing focuses on how customers’ emotions influence their purchasing decision. Emotions are the basis of these communication actions, offering customers extraordinary experiences. All interactions must be pleasant and awaken the senses so that the brand image leaves an impression on customers and they do not forget it. According to some studies, experiential marketing greatly enhances word-of-mouth marketing, which has been the most effective strategy for attracting new customers for centuries.
2. The different forms of experiential marketing
There are different types of experiential marketing: the one based on the customer’s experience when making a purchase or visiting your shop or website and the one based on the advertising and communication implemented in the specific marketing action.
- Experiential marketing based on customer experience uses carefully thought-out strategies to improve the quality of the customer welcome (in shops, on arrival at an event, etc.), the environment and the quality of customer service so that using or buying a product becomes a pleasant and unique experience. You can carry out many actions, such as transforming the point of sale and creating new experiences through virtual reality or augmented reality, for example.
- As for experiential marketing focused on advertising and promotion, it allows the creation of initiatives aimed not only at customers but also at potential customers or influencers. Once the promotion is done, and the buzz is created, the company can organise experiential activities to offer customers memorable, engaging and unique experiences.
3. Experiential marketing: 4 key points to build on
- The surprise effect: As the aim is to attract customers’ attention by offering them a new experience, very different from their everyday life, you have to create a surprise effect when they arrive at your point of sale.
- Sense of exclusivity: It is essential to create a unique experience that provides a sense of exclusivity and creates a special bond between the customer and the brand.
- Stimulating the five senses: To generate powerful emotions, you can rely on the 5 senses and create olfactory, visual and even gustatory experiences, if appropriate.
- Incitement to buy: Once the experience you offer is over, you have to highlight your products or services so that the customer feels more inclined to buy.
4. How to do experiential marketing?
Identify your target
As with any marketing campaign, knowing your target audience is the first step in developing experiential marketing strategies. To better understand and respond to the interests and expectations of your audience, it is essential to segment them. To do so, use previously identified and defined criteria. CRM tools can also help you in this regard.
Work on the decoration of the points of sale
To offer customers a seamless shopping experience, as a brand, you need to pay special attention to the design and decoration of your retail outlets. For each customer to have a unique but brief relationship with the brand, the point of sale must reflect the company’s identity and values. You can also choose a specific theme according to the time of the year (e.g., Christmas, Halloween), a product launch, a new series, etc.
Create a narrative
Allowing customers to participate in an emotional and immersive story is one of the functions of experiential marketing. A well-designed narrative can go a long way in creating an immersive and engaging experience and décor.
Communicate your brand image on social networks
You can communicate the values and identity of your brand through the production of podcasts, reels on Instagram, infographics and other content that you can publish online on your various channels. Mysteriously unveiling your shops as you approach the launch of your experiential marketing strategy can create much buzz among customers.
Playing with the senses
Creating visual or auditory elements is only one aspect of experiential marketing. Playing with the five senses is essential if a brand wants its products to evoke powerful emotions in consumers. Although it is sometimes complex and expensive for an online shop to appeal to customers’ senses of taste or smell, it is possible to stimulate the cognitive part of the brain with images, music, videos and much more. For physical shops, many suppliers can help you temporarily diffuse unique and attractive scents when the customer enters your shop.
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