What Is Experiential Marketing? An Overview

Experiential marketing has been around for years, and the evidence can be seen everywhere. But only recently has this marketing strategy become more popular than traditional marketing methods like advertising and public relations. 

The reason for this popularity is not far-fetched. Experiential marketing has proven to be an excellent engagement marketing strategy in any industry. Although running one might require you to consult a credible experiential marketing agency. Due to its relative newness, understanding the strategy and how it works can help you make informed marketing decisions.

What Is Experiential Marketing?

Experiential marketing is a type of marketing strategy that focuses on the emotions and experiences of your customers. It's often used with other strategies, such as content marketing or social media advertising. 

The main goal of experiential marketing is to create an emotional connection with your customers by creating memorable moments for them. That way, you’re not just enabling them to just buy your products but you’re encouraging them to actually experience your brand. In short, it's about making your brand more human and more relatable, thus improving your customer engagement.

Experiential Marketing Practice

The experiential marketing practice is quite old, but practitioners have only recently begun to adopt 'experience-centric' strategies. By using experiential marketing, many companies can create greater engagement with customers and partners through a deeper understanding of their needs, pain points, motivations, and preferences.

You can use experiential marketing by:

• Having a physical presence of your brand in the market.
• Creating unique experiences through physical or digital channels.
• Building recognition by positioning yourself as an expert in the field.
• Hiring influencers to amplify your turnout and brand perception.

Importance Of Experiential Marketing

The primary importance of experiential marketing is that it focuses on engaging and connecting with the customer personally, rather than just selling them a product. Other significances of the marketing strategy include the following:

• It builds trust with clients: By connecting with the emotions of clients, experiential marketing helps businesses to build trust with their customers.
• It increases brand awareness: When there's trust between a buyer and a seller, the buyer feels more obliged to share the seller's products with friends and families. This act improves brand awareness.
• It increases brand loyalty: When trust is developed, brand loyalty isn’t far behind.
• It improves customer engagement: The emotional connection and rapport that’s built between a company and its customers may help improve customer engagement.
• It increases customer retention: When customers become emotionally attached to the brand, they're easy to retain and convert for sales. 

Strategies Of Experiential Marketing

Most experiential marketing strategies combine elements of physicality with digital technology to create an immersive experience for the target audience. The five strategies commonly used are as follows:

1. Social Selling

This means involving the customer in a conversation with other customers and employees. The strategy is often used in retail stores, where the salesperson engages with their customers and shares information about upcoming events or special offers.

2. Virtual Reality

This strategy involves creating an immersive experience that brings users into a new dimension. It can be done through virtual reality headsets or even website design. 

3. Augmented Reality

This strategy involves bringing digital content into the real world through mobile devices or wearables like smart glasses. With AR technology, brands can create a digital experience where their customers can engage with the brand in real life and make it an unforgettable experience that helps in brand retention.

4. 360-Degree Video

This strategy creates videos that allow viewers to experience the world from multiple perspectives. By using 360-degree video, brands can give consumers a more immersive and interactive experience that they’ll enjoy engaging in.

5. VR Simulation

This strategy is a form of digital marketing used in various industries. VR simulation allows brands to reach their intended audience through a more enticing perspective, that’s usually impossible with standard marketing methods.

Getting Started With Experiential Marketing Campaigns

Experiential marketing campaigns typically involve customer-facing employees who use their skills in communication and experience design to create an event or product that connects with customers on a personal level. While that's one way to kick-start your strategic campaigns, the options to do it through other ways are endless.

When starting an experiential marketing campaign, there are some key steps you should take before you get started:

• Define your objective: Do you want to retain existing customers or look for more? You need to know what you want to achieve out of your campaign.
• Brainstorm ideas: Experiential ideas can include social events or online programs. Whatever you intend to achieve, you should brainstorm how you want the campaign to attain your goals. You should outline your target results and define your process.
• Create a timeline for your project: Time is essential in all marketing efforts, including experiential marketing. Creating a timeline will help you target your audience at the right time for maximum engagement.
• Create a budget for your project: You need resources to run a campaign. Such resources account for your cost and employees. Having a marketing budget will help you manage your resources effectively.

Conclusion

Experiential marketing is an excellent and modern way of engaging with your present and prospective customers through emotionally connecting with them. Aside from your experiential marketing efforts to use different digital mediums to deliver engaging experiences to your customers, you should continuously strive to understand your customer's needs and preferences. If you prioritize your customer experiences, you’ll become a brand that doesn’t just sell products but builds relationships that nurture connections which in time can result in loyal customers.