Do you want to know more about marketing, one of the professions with the greatest future? Have you heard of experiential marketing? Surely you have ever come across brand stands that go far beyond putting a small table and a screen with a promotional video that nobody sees.
And it is that in the time in which we live, the so-called information age, consumers tend to lose attention faster than ever. Therefore, for your own business to make a marketing that leaves its mark, it is essential to go beyond the classic sales model and reach a new level through experience.
But hey, without going any further, read on to find out what experiential marketing is, how to design a strategy, and some examples to get inspiration and brainstorm your own ideas.
Experiential marketing is a marketing strategy that seeks to build a positive emotional bond with customers/users through creative and memorable experiences associated with a brand.
Words more, words less, experiential marketing is about creating a positive memory in the minds of your consumers, putting yourself in their shoes and giving a business more humanity. In the end, they say that people don’t remember what you said, but how you made them feel.
In this strategy, the focus is not on your brand, much less on your product or service. Rather it is in your client, mainly in his perceptions and emotions of him, that is, matters related to the senses and feelings.
It’s like a couple of relationships. Do you remember how you felt on your first date, but you have no idea what you talked about? We can say that you used experiential marketing at its best. This applies to brands, businesses, entrepreneurship, etc. So let’s talk about what you should take into account when designing a marketing experience.
The alpha and omega of experiential marketing are to arouse emotion and fall in love with the senses… oh yes, fall in love. Remember that quote we talked about; the atmosphere, the food, the attention in the service, and the outfit of your partner. Everything was set up to put your heart to a thousand and not miss the opportunity to set a date for the next meeting.
Likewise, brands should make their customers fall in love. They must bring out all the artillery to arouse their excitement at the thought that they can buy one of your products. And it is that, in reality, it is proven that feelings have a great impact on the purchase decision.
And speaking of thinking, in experiential marketing you will have to give your brain a good squeeze to devise a business plan that involves a creative sensory experience, without neglecting that the product you sell must also respond to a customer's need.
In other words, if we told you before that emotions are a trigger for the purchase decision, we must not forget that customers also value the functionality of what they buy.
To create your experiential marketing strategy, it is incredibly crucial that you stay up to date with the preferences and interests of your audience. Turns out these can change at the speed of light! And just as one day you didn’t like reggaeton, today you can be singing J Balvin’s songs at the top of your lungs.
In the world we live in, change is constant and trends appear and disappear with such speed that you must be updating yourself all the time. You can follow blogs, listen to podcasts, or follow Instagram accounts for entrepreneurs.
Now, after all the theory, do you think if we get down to work? Well, bring a notebook, and a pencil and put on the music that inspires you, it’s time to get creative! Next, we are going to give you a simple 4-step guide to designing your own experiential marketing strategy. We continue.
We already told you that to create a memorable experience for your audience, you must first know who they are. For example, Coca-Cola will not want to talk to people whose primary value is health care. They look for those audiences that value family moments and associate their product with those moments.
This is even more important if you want to start your own business. In the beginning, since you will not have clients, your work tool will be market research and competition. This way you will begin to outline who your clients could be and how you should talk to them.
It is very boring to go around shouting left and right why your product is the best and why everyone should buy it. Neither you nor anyone else wants to hear that, much less your clients! So, what to do?
One of the most used alternatives in marketing is storytelling. And it is that a good story catches, excites, and awakens empathy in those who listen to it. Some of the best books in history are storytelling masterclasses, and some brands have mastered this art to perfection.
Now, knowing your customer and knowing what story to tell them is essential for experiential marketing, but if you want to take the strategy further you can take advantage of technology to make your customers really surprised.
Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) can really build a memorable experience. However, you do not need to invest large sums of money to create a memory that will last in the minds of your consumers.
For example, by creating a professional-looking and perfectly functional website, app, or e-commerce, you will already be moving forward. Remember that as a consumer, the internet is your primary source of information, so it is better to have your home organized in the digital world. Learn how to do it with this course on Web Development with JavaScript!
One of the advantages of experiential marketing is that once the experience is happening, you can record the reactions of your customers, ask them to share their experience, and create a new campaign from it.
