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As per the recently published report of Business Research, the global market size of experiential marketing might hit the milestone of USD 63.162 billion by 2030. With the changing advertising landscape, today's companies want to connect with their audience in a more fun and interactive way. Gone are the days when brands used to be super formal and serious.

Companies nowadays are promoting their products and services, trying to engage the audience. This blog delves into the concept of what is experiential marketing and it discusses the various aspects of this marketing strategy that is gaining slow but steady popularity.

What is Experiential marketing?

Also known as Brand Marketing, Experiential Marketing is a new wave creating ripples in the advertising industry. This form of marketing consists of the perfect blend of online and offline efforts where customers are encouraged to interact with the product or service concerned.

Experiential marketing experiences are primarily hosted at offline locations. But they also might have some meaningful digital components to complement their in-store or physical events.

The best marketing automation agency in the US can help you out with automating marketing tasks and executing a seamless operation of your marketing campaigns. But before that, you need to decide what kind of events would work for your brand.

From in-store experiences to mobile kiosks and trade shows to test drives—experiential marketing provides a full-fledged omnichannel experience which enhances brand visibility, creates business opportunities and helps in forming long-term customer loyalty.

Benefits of Experiential Marketing

To make automated marketing work for your business, your campaigns need to have a unique approach. Experiential marketing provides you with just that! Here are the top 5 benefits of the strategy:

• It promotes brand awareness and increases the visibility of the company and the products it sells
• Offers an opportunity for prospective customers to try out a new product or a service before actually opting for and paying for it
• Expands the influence of the brand with the help of social media channels
• Helps to gather relevant data and contact information from interested customers
• Secures attention with a hook and intrigues the audience, making them more invested and involved in experiential marketing events
• Creates more engaging advertisements and promotional materials to develop an actual value for the target audience
• Elicits more emotional responses from the respondents and assists brands in forming more meaningful and deeper connections with their audience

How it works
Experiential marketing attracts audiences by influencing their emotions and giving them a chance to book a demo or use a test product to understand the pros and cons of the actual product.

When customers feel involved in such events, they become loyal and paid users and amplify the products and services of that particular brand. Experiential marketing campaigns offer a unique experience to the users by making them feel like active users and not just passive receptors of the brand's products.

Whether it is a virtual event or a pop-in store, experiential marketing events are all about creating memorable moments.

Strategies to use Experiential Marketing

Brand Connection
Personalisation lies at the heart of marketing. Drawing from the approach 'No size fits all', brand activation connects with the users through a more personalized strategy than just displaying the products on the shelf.

Product Awareness
Through fun and engaging event marketing, you can make your product accessible to a wider audience and also enable them to get a first-hand experience of what it might be like to use the product on a regular basis. Springwood marketing services will help you in this case by providing the necessary details about what worked and what did not for your campaign.

In-store Events
Pop-up shops and such events create brand awareness through product demonstrations. The chief aim is to give the consumers a chance to interact with the product and get an idea about the problem that the brand is trying to solve.

Guerilla Marketing
These are unconventional marketing campaigns and events that gain people's attention and encourage them to participate in fun and engaging activities that they are not prepared for. This is beneficial when the audience fulfills the challenge thrown by the brand and gets introduced to the product.

How to create a campaign for experiential marketing?

• Start off with finding out details about your potential customers. Understand their needs, pain points, and requirements and craft a campaign that addresses the same. Make your event all about the users while subtly promoting your product
• Write down what you want to achieve through your experiential campaigns. While the hype about the event and the product is fine, there should be some concrete goals to work towards. Whether it's boosting sales or creating public awareness, knowing the goals will help you channel your efforts in the right direction
• Use diverse platforms and create content for cross-channel marketing campaigns. From social media to in-person events to interviews—use multiple media sources to generate public interest in your brand
• Carve rich and pleasant memories in your audience's psyche so that your company stands out to them as a memorable brand

Experiential Marketing Examples Across the Globe

Red Bull
Perhaps the most historical advertisement, this experiential campaign from Red Bull in 2012 featured Felix Baumgartner, an Austrian skydiver who experienced a free-fall from the stratosphere in a large helium balloon. The marketing event reiterated the slogan "Red Bull gives you wings" as it conveyed the message as it garnered more than 15M views on YouTube.

Sensodyne
The 2017 Sensodyne #SensitivityTest experiential campaign conducted in New Zealand and Australia created quite a buzz in social media. The company offered free ice creams to the public so that they could find out if they suffered from sensitive teeth. This led customers to know more about the product and themselves as well.

Spotify
The Spotify Wrapped experience in December 2020 shared personalized music recommendations and also allowed users to look back at what they have enjoyed listening to throughout the year. This personalized year-end summary led to a lot of interactive activities on social media. The campaign became a huge success and also influenced other brands who came up with similar ventures.

Volkswagen
The Piano Staircase initiative by Volkswagen in Stockholm is a unique approach to making consumers do difficult things wrapped in fun. By installing a huge piano in the Stockholm subway staircase, the company subtly encouraged people to take the stairs. People enjoyed climbing up the stairs as mellifluous tones came through every step of the piano keys.

Coca Cola
Spreading the message of love and brotherhood, Coca-Cola came up with its excellent campaign idea where it installed high-tech vending machines in South East Asia. Users could connect visually, waving and smiling at each other. The machine rewarded the participants with a free Coca-Cola can on the completion of the interaction.

Warner Bros Pictures
To promote the much-awaited Barbie movie, Warner Bros created a selfie generator using artificial intelligence. Movie-goers visited the BarbieSelfie.ai website where they uploaded their selfies and became instant icons. The marketing campaign was an instant hit as it welcomed its audience into the fantasy world of Barbie through a fun assignment.

Ikea
The brand that thrives on practicality and aesthetic furniture, Ikea launched its Sleepover Experience where customers were given a store visit and complimentary breakfast. The campaign intelligently promoted the brand's latest furniture and accessories and also reinforced the company's identity which is all about providing comfortable and pleasant customer experiences.

Airbnb
In a collaboration with the Louvre Museum in Paris, the brand came up with “The Airbnb Night At The Louvre” in 2019. This experiential campaign was created to offer a unique and unforgettable experience to two lucky winners who were rewarded with a private museum tour and an overnight stay within the iconic Louvre glass pyramid.

KFC
The KFC Hot Tub Experience in 2019 in Japan was an attempt to promote the company's iconic fried chicken product while adding a bit of fun and uniqueness to the customer experience. The campaign featured a hot tub where customers were offered refreshments while enjoying the memorable experience.

Pret A Manger
This iconic British franchise has opened its branches in Asia as well. One of the favorite brands in the West, the company, to launch its new coffee range, served free samples of white coffee to users which worked well for data collection. The campaign could have yielded better results if there would have been a tracking system in place.

Things to keep in mind while leveraging experiential marketing

• Before launching your campaign, have a clear goal in mind. Think whether the time, effort and money involved in the experiential marketing campaign will help you form an authentic fanbase
• Even if you are partnering with the best marketing automation agency in the US to make your campaigns stand out, proper research and planning are required to make your event successful
• Do not make your event a sales pitch. But try to promote a positive user experience surrounding your product
• Focus on brand building and community creation so that the users can take your brand and its offerings forward

Final Thoughts

Experiential marketing has elements of both traditional and digital marketing. However, it attracts multiple senses and not just visual stimulation. It attempts to promote a positive sentiment surrounding the product or the brand and does not only focus on getting the sales done. The go-to marketing strategy for today's brand, this form of marketing taps into positive brand association.

Now that you know what is experiential marketing, it is time to infuse it into your marketing campaigns and execute it successfully. Partner with Springwood and avail of Springwood marketing services so that you can get detailed reports on your marketing campaigns and fine-tune them based on its data-backed analysis. Springwood marketing services. From insightful information to value-driven data, Springwood is the perfect storehouse for all your marketing needs.

Keywords - experiential marketing, marketing strategies, customer retention, customer engagement, marketing automation, automated marketing services in US

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