What Is Experiential Marketing?

Experiential marketing is a dynamic strategy designed to captivate audiences by creating memorable, immersive experiences. More marketers are turning to this approach as traditional ads are becoming less effective in helping them stand out.

In our guide, we’ll discuss the basics of experiential marketing, its types, benefits, and six steps on how you can develop your own experiential marketing strategy.

What Is Experiential Marketing?

Experiential marketing, often referred to as engagement marketing or event marketing, is an advertising strategy that focuses on creating immersive and interactive experiences to engage consumers with a brand. Unlike traditional advertising methods that rely on one-way communication, experiential marketing aims to involve consumers actively, allowing them to touch, feel, and experience the brand in a memorable way.

This approach focuses on forming a deep emotional connection between the consumer and the brand by providing unique and engaging experiences. Some of the goals of experiential marketing are to:

• Leave a lasting impression
• Generate positive word-of-mouth
• Foster brand loyalty
• Boost brand awareness and create buzz
• Actively involve consumers in the brand’s story
• Create a strong brand association with positive emotions and memorable experiences.

Experiential marketing focuses on real-life, firsthand experiences of a brand’s offerings, surpassing the mere tactics of flashy and unsubstantiated self-promotion. It often takes the form of:

• Live events
• Pop-up activations
• Product demonstrations
• Interactive installations
• Guerilla marketing
• Immersive technology
• Personalized brand experiences

4 Types of Experiential Marketing

These are the most common types of experiential advertising:

1. Event Marketing
2. Workshops and Classes
3. Brand Activations
4. Technology-Inspired Experiential Marketing

1. Event Marketing

The most used type of experiential advertising involves organizing events. You can go for conventional events like conferences, presentations, or meetups to promote and talk about your brand or products directly to the audience. However, these events lack two-way interactions and can risk becoming traditional, one-way self-promotion. To prevent this, consider engaging your audience in a question-and-answer portion.

Alternatively, a more effective approach is to host events about your industry or a certain cause, with your company merely serving as the sponsor and initiator. This will leave more room for a quality exchange of ideas, creating a memorable experience for guests that gives them value beyond simply promoting your product or company.

Less conventional events such as parties, picnics, festivals, or competitions are also great options to foster more engagement and interactions. However, make sure that the event aligns with your brand. For example, organizing a music festival to promote a law office can be interpreted as a desperate attempt to appear trendy, which can undermine the seriousness and credibility of your business.

2. Workshops and Classes

Offering free or affordable workshops or classes is a great way to boost customer engagement. This approach also depends on your industry and the message your brand wants to convey. Make sure they’re related to your field and offer more than just how to use your products. Moreover, if you want these lessons or workshops to be effective marketing-wise, they should provide real value to participants.

3. Brand Activations

Brand activations are usually employed when a company introduces a new product or product line, or when a new company wants to present itself to the public. The goal of brand activations is to gain initial recognition for the product and encourage people to try it.

You can do this by simply organizing free tastings or samplings of the product. However, using the full potential of this strategy involves more innovation that goes beyond the common approach.

You can engage potential customers in an immersive experience that showcases your new product and everything your brand stands for, such as your values and the story of your business. Moreover, instead of simply approaching them and offering the product, create a situation where people see the benefits and usefulness of your products firsthand.

4. Technology-Inspired Experiential Marketing

Using highly engaging technology to create unique experiences for consumers is the future of experiential marketing. Traditionally, experiential marketing involves real-life interactions with the brand. However, recent innovations in technology have blurred the lines between reality and simulation, making it possible to create digital experiences with comparable impact to authentic physical events.

Virtual and augmented reality are among the most used technologies in this regard. They allow you to show your customers how your production process works, share company or product stories, create interactive catalogs and menus, or even bring your products to life.

Whether you aim to simply entertain users or provide them with additional info about your products (or both), these technologies offer a highly effective approach. For instance, marketing campaigns that use AR technology have an average dwell time of 75 seconds, which is 30 times longer than traditional TV or radio ads.

This is why top digital agencies are increasingly incorporating AR into their marketing strategies. They recognize its ability to captivate audiences for extended periods compared to traditional media.

Experiential Advertising Benefits

As a unique marketing approach, experiential advertising brings several benefits:

1. Experiential Marketing Can Make Your Business Stand Out
2. Experiential Marketing Involves Two-Way Communication
3. Experiential Marketing Can Boost Brand Awareness
4. Experiential Marketing Helps Build Emotional Relationships With Customers

1. Experiential Marketing Can Make Your Business Stand Out

Nowadays, people are flooded by all sorts of commercials and ads across all platforms. Naturally, this makes most indifferent and skeptical towards traditional marketing. This is why experiential marketing is becoming increasingly popular — 79% of marketers now use it as a vital part of their advertising strategy.

By letting your customers experience and interact with your brand firsthand, you can draw their attention and set you apart from the multitude of brands vying for their attention.

2. Experiential Marketing Involves Two-Way Communication

Experiential marketing radically changes the way companies interact with their audience. In fact, 74% of consumers have a higher chance of buying a product after engaging with a branded event marketing experience.

With experiential marketing, customers will generally have a much easier time recognizing your brand if you engage them in activities and events rather than just showing them your billboards, TV commercials, and banner ads. Of course, it’s crucial to not only offer amusement at your events or workshops but also to creatively associate these experiences with your brand or product.

Moreover, this interactive approach is also supported by many renowned educators and psychologists, such as Edgar Dale. His learning model, the Cone of Experience, illustrates that people remember 90% of what they do, but only 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, and 30% of what they see.

3. Experiential Marketing Can Boost Brand Awareness

Experiential marketing is a great way to build brand awareness. Here are several ways this normally happens:

• Word of mouth: A person fascinated by your experiential campaign will be more inclined to tell others about it — and your brand as well. This is hugely important since 88% of consumers trust their friends and peers’ recommendations more than any advertisement.
• Attracting media interest: Following word of mouth, a unique campaign with a lot of hype or consumer interest surrounding it will attract media attention. Getting proper, unpaid media coverage is the best way to spread the word about your company without spending a dime on promotion.
• Boosts your online presence through virality: A quality experiential campaign that engages many people in a real-life environment often leads to social media posts about the event. This opens the opportunity for your event to go viral and boost your online presence.

4. Experiential Marketing Helps Build Emotional Relationships With Customers

To gain a truly loyal customer or fan base, people need to develop an emotional attachment to your brand. You can achieve this by letting them try your product and experience what you offer first-hand. This also helps them become more familiar with your brand’s philosophy, ideas, and values.

Additionally, by letting them partake in the advertising process, you present your company as being open, approachable, and helpful. This is the first step in building an emotional relationship with your customers, which, in turn, boosts their loyalty. A report claims that 75% of consumers feel that having a personal experience with a brand encourages them to remain loyal.

You’ll also have a chance to gather live feedback about your product or campaign from ordinary, everyday folks. These initiatives help humanize your brand and improve its image among consumers.

6 Steps on How To Develop an Experiential Marketing Strategy

Experiential marketing is about creating meaningful connections with consumers. You must be authentic and align your campaign with your values to deliver exceptional moments that resonate with your audience.

To develop an effective experiential marketing strategy, we’ve provided a general framework to get you started:

• Step #1: Set Clear Objectives
• Step #2: Understand Your Target Audience
• Step #3: Craft the Experience
• Step #4: Choose the Right Channels and Touchpoints
• Step #5: Plan and Execute
• Step #6: Measure and Evaluate

Step #1: Set Clear Objectives

Define the specific goals you want to achieve through your experiential marketing efforts. Whether it's increasing brand awareness, driving product sales, or enhancing customer loyalty, having clear objectives will guide your strategy and help you measure your results.

If you're unsure where to begin, ad agencies can help you dabble in experiential marketing.

Step #2: Understand Your Target Audience

Conduct thorough research to understand your target audience's preferences, behaviors, and interests. Identify what experiences would resonate with them and align with their values. This insight will help you create experiences that are relevant and engaging.

Step #3: Craft the Experience

Develop a concept for your experiential marketing campaign that aligns with your brand identity and objectives. Consider how you can create unique and memorable experiences that will captivate your audience. Think about the sensory elements, interactive components, and emotional triggers you can incorporate.

Step #4: Choose the Right Channels and Touchpoints

Determine the most effective channels and touchpoints to reach your target audience. This could include live events, pop-up installations, social media campaigns, or collaborations with influencers. Choose the channels that will provide the best opportunity to engage your audience and amplify your message.

Step #5: Plan and Execute

Create a detailed plan for executing your experiential marketing campaign. Define timelines, allocate resources, and establish clear roles and responsibilities. Consider logistics, such as venue selection, production requirements, staffing, and technology needs. Ensure all aspects are well-coordinated and aligned with your overall strategy.

Step #6: Measure and Evaluate

Establish metrics and methods to measure the success of your experiential marketing campaign. To measure its effectiveness, you can:

• Track the number of participants or attendees to gauge the reach and exposure of your campaign
• Monitor social media platforms for mentions, shares, likes, and comments related to your campaign. Assess the level of engagement and analyze the sentiment of conversations.
• Collect feedback from participants through surveys or feedback forms to gain qualitative insights into their experience and brand perception.
• Track any direct impact on sales or conversions resulting from your campaign. Analyze the correlation between the campaign and an increase in sales or conversions.
• Conduct brand awareness studies or perception surveys to measure changes in brand awareness, recall, sentiment, or loyalty resulting from the campaign.
• Analyze website and app traffic, engagement metrics, and conversion rates during the campaign.
• Look for changes in user behavior and track metrics like visits, time spent, click-through rates, and online conversions
• Monitor media coverage and calculate the estimated PR value gained through the campaign
• Assess the financial impact by comparing campaign costs with tangible outcomes like increased sales, new customers, or enhanced brand value

4 Experiential Marketing Examples

Here are some winning examples of brands using experiential marketing the right way:

1. Event Marketing in Action: Sensodyne
2. Workshops & Classes in Action: Lululemon Athletica
3. Brand Activations in Action: Tribord
4. Immersive Technology in Action: City Social

1. Event Marketing in Action: Sensodyne

A good example of successful event marketing comes from the toothpaste and mouthwash brand Sensodyne. The company organized an all-day event to put emphasis on the protection of sensitive teeth.

It took place in Potters Field Park in London, which was divided into three zones, where people could play games, take photos with a huge molar, have a dental check-up, and partake in a Guinness record-breaking attempt for the World’s Largest Oral Hygiene Lesson.

Through the event, Sensodyne raised awareness about the importance of oral hygiene, provided people with amusing experiences, and gained substantial social media visibility.

2. Workshops & Classes in Action: Lululemon Athletica

One of the most successful examples of experiential marketing through workshops and classes is Lululemon Athletica’s weekly offering of free yoga classes.

This experiential campaign was a great opportunity for the sports clothing retailer to promote its business, build up its community, and engage new customers who are interested in yoga but aren’t loyal to any brand of yoga clothing.

Offering consumers the chance to attend a yoga class for free and connect with like-minded people surely created a memorable experience with the company — a great initiative to boost brand loyalty and contribute to the well-being of the community.

3. Brand Activations in Action: Tribord

Tribord, a water sports equipment brand, devised an innovative experiential campaign by creating a fake drink called “Wave” and offering it to passersby. However, the catch was that the drink was actually 100% seawater.

The campaign aimed to remind people of the dangers of not wearing a life jacket at sea by giving them a taste of drowning, quite literally. Following the tasting, the brand handed out Tribord’s innovative buoyant vest to the participants to emphasize the importance of using quality watersports gear.

4. Immersive Technology in Action: City Social

A great example of clever AR usage comes from City Social restaurant in London. The restaurant launched Mirage, the world’s first augmented reality cocktail menu that takes the cocktail-drinking experience to a new level.

With Mirage, patrons can experience their cocktails coming to life with amazing 3D animations by simply pointing their phones at the coaster that goes with the cocktail. These animations are related to the history and tradition of the cocktail or its ingredients.

Beyond cocktail menus, there are various other ways to use AR and VR technologies in your marketing and business efforts. For expert guidance, consider consulting the best AR/VR companies to help you brainstorm your innovative experiential campaigns.

Experiential Marketing Takeaways

In a highly competitive digital market, businesses must find new, creative ways to reach consumers and make them interested in their products. This is where experiential marketing comes into play. This innovative marketing strategy opens a whole new world of opportunities for marketers to come up with fresh and original advertising ideas.

A well-thought-out experiential marketing campaign can be hugely beneficial for your brand. It can make your brand stand out, enhance customer engagement and brand awareness, and help you build emotional relationships with your customers.

Moreover, consider reaching out to the top experiential marketing agencies to help strategize your experiential marketing campaign.