Thanks to the internet, social media, email, and smartphones, brands have more access to their target audiences than ever before. But why is it still so hard to actually engage with consumers and potential consumers? Instead of selling products, it might be in a brand’s best interest to sell experiences instead.
“Experiential marketing is a type of marketing that creates an emotional connection between a customer and a brand. It helps customers experience the brand, which leads to customers being more involved and engaged,” says Michelle Story from Tradeway.
Instead of a one-way communication strategy that traditional advertising methods such as magazines and radio adverts offer, experiential marketing engages as many senses as possible and aims to create an immersive experience for the customer. Everything from flash mobs and large-scale, show stopping guerrilla marketing tactics to pop up shops, live events, hands-on activities, in-store promotions and product sampling can be considered experiential marketing. Here are a few tips to sell experiences, not products, successfully:
- Tie it all together
One of the key elements of a successful experiential marketing campaign is to make sure that it integrates seamlessly with your overall marketing strategy. Everything from your content marketing, sales material, social media engagements and web development need to be aligned with the experiential marketing campaign that you are launching. Prioritise repetition and consistency so that the same message is displayed across all of your platforms and channels.
- Experiment with new technologies
Articles, blogs, tweets and Facebook updates all have a time and place, but if you are launching an experiential marketing campaign then it is in your best interest to experiment with newer technologies. One immersive technology that is worth your while is virtual reality. According to research by Greenlight VR where almost 1,3000 US consumers between the ages of 18 and 60 were surveyed, 53% of consumers are likely to purchase from brands that use virtual reality.
Among respondents, 71 percent agree that a brand that sponsors VR is forward-thinking and modern, while 52 percent would like to be associated with that brand. Additionally, 62 percent would feel engaged with a brand that sponsors a VR experience, and 53 percent say they are more likely to purchase from a brand that sponsors a VR experience. Over 90% of survey respondents who hadn’t used virtual reality before said that had positive feelings about it when they were exposed to informational videos about virtual reality.
- What sets your brand apart?
What is your company’s unique selling proposition? There needs to be something different about what you do, and you need to identify this USP and capitalise on it with your experiential marketing campaign. When you know what sets your brand apart from the competition, then you can create a powerful experiential campaign that will be memorable and engaging.
Need help with your experiential marketing campaign? Then contact Tradeway today.