Why Experiential Marketing Is So Effective

If you’re looking to jumpstart your next ad campaign and attract a wide, young audience of consumers, your marketing department should be looking at experiential marketing as a solution.

Unlike traditional media which can present advertising to your audience in a very removed way, experiential marketing seeks to immerse your audience in real life and social examples of your product, forming a memorable connection with as many audience members as possible. This can encourage them to develop a strong sense of loyalty to your brand and develop a strong customer base.

Examples of experiential marketing include Sensodyne’s “The Great Sensitivity Test,” which set up portable test stations near London Bridge encouraging passersby to test their teeth sensitivity and obtain free samples. In the UK, an Ikea store gave 100 people the chance to spend a night in Ikea in response to a Facebook group called “I wanna have a sleepover in Ikea.”

These techniques center around seeming like an exciting opportunity that draws people in, then lets them leave feeling a sense of loyalty to the company through a unique experience.

Customers want an emotional connection

Customers who form an emotional connection to a brand are significantly more loyal to it. Studies have found that an emotional connection is more important than customer satisfaction in attracting and retaining a customer, which means experiential marketing techniques should emphasize the attachment that the experience can form. Such a campaign can make customers feel special or lucky for being able to have participated - in that case, a company would want to develop a campaign that is simultaneously relatively accessible, but fosters a sense of exclusivity.

Customers also like companies to make them feel like they’re doing something that has a positive impact, so an experiential campaign centered around addressing some sort of social cause can also attract customers and attention. In addition, a face to face interaction with the company can clinch a customer’s emotional attachment to the business.

Modern technology makes it more than possible

Thanks to the rise of social media, experiential marketing is more possible than ever. Facebook Events can allow you to set up a pop-up event that reaches millions of users within minutes, and users can also independently tag a location to identify that an event is coming. You can also do this if you buy real YouTube views and publish video blogs that go viral. You have more access than ever to the people around you, via social media and geotagging, in order to advertise an experiential campaign and draw people to it.

In addition, you can also share and repost content created by users who participated in the event in order to generate more interest in the campaign and the brand. A traditional advertisement might appear once, twice, or a few times in front of your audience without standing out. They may think no one else will notice this event and it won’t be worthwhile. Social media allows participants to generate what is essentially free advertising for you. Audience members who see others experiencing your business’s marketing event may react positively, asking for a similar event in their area. This produces excitement and interest in your brand.

It works for the millennial crowd

Millennials are taking over a greater and greater share of the shopping population. Companies who want to survive must appeal to this demographic, and experiential marketing appeals to them. Classic advertisements are a turn-off to millennials, who have learned to become skeptical of company claims. However, an experiential marketing event can give millennials a chance to test products out themselves and receive thorough education on a topic. This hands-on approach can alleviate the millennials’ skepticism. In addition, millennials are particularly interested in developing a connection to brands, and experiential events allows them to come face to face with representatives of the brand. The Event Marketing Institute reported that 94 percent of millennials would be more likely to buy a product if they have a good experience at an event. This shows that this marketing campaign is perfect for the millennial generation.

Companies looking to develop their ad campaigns should incorporate experiential marketing into their tactics. This technique attracts millennials, earns the attention of a wider audience, generates buzz for your business, and creates meaningful experiences that help you earn loyal customers.