When looking to market your brand, it isn’t as simple as taking out ads for your business. Marketing plans require fresh approaches for maximum effectiveness. If you’re looking to attract loyal consumers, integrating experiential marketing into your promotion strategy can make all the difference. But what is experiential marketing? Read on to find out what this new philosophy on marketing can do for your next product launch or brand campaign.
Live Brand Experiences
A traditional ad campaign works online, on the radio, on television, on billboards, and in print to emphasize the functionality and benefits of a brand’s product or service. Ads are built to point consumers towards a product’s main selling features, with a focus on building massive campaigns to maximize the number of consumers reached.
Experiential marketing, however, seeks to actually create a meaningful live brand experience for the consumer. The experiential approach aims to actively capture and sustain consumer interest in person, not only by allowing consumers to interact with your product or service but by creating exciting live brand experiences. By creating immersive experiences for your customer, experiential marketing generates brand loyalty and word-of-mouth awareness.
A Holistic View of the Consumer
With traditional marketing, competition is viewed through the lens of direct comparison of one product or service to another. Traditional marketing campaigns may take on the competition, for example, by adding a new feature to a product, then drawing attention to the marginally-enhanced benefit. Experiential marketing, on the other hand, understands products and services from within a broader view of the consumption experience.
To differentiate your brand from your competition, an experiential approach will take into consideration the entire consumption experience. In other words, experiential marketers don’t see a product for its features and benefits, but for how it fits into your consumer’s life as a whole. The best experiential marketing agency will ask questions about how your product impacts the consumer’s daily life, relationships, sense of belonging, and more.
Emotional Appeal
Generally speaking, traditional marketing techniques appeal to the consumer from a rational viewpoint. The traditional marketing approach sees consumer decisions as the result of rational, carefully considered steps. Traditional marketing understands the consumer has a need and assumes the consumer also has this awareness, will actively search for information, compare their options, and make the most rational buying decision.
Experiential marketing has a leg-up on traditional marketing because it understands the consumer to be both rational and emotional. Experiential marketing sees consumers as people driven as much by spontaneity, fun, fantasy, emotion, and imagination as they are rationality. By understanding and marketing toward the emotional dimension of consumer behavior, experiential marketers are able to create stronger connections between brands and consumers.
The best way to engage with and attract loyal consumers is to consider the consumer from a broader perspective. Creating fun, meaningful brand experiences targets the emotional dimension of the consumer and can leave a lasting impact. That’s why more brands are turning towards experiential marketing to reach their consumers.