Re-Inventing the Experiential Wheel

The customer-centric brand is the rave of the moment. Consumer experience is now paramount when developing marketing strategies and during implementation. The fact that customers have become brand advocators and indirect product marketers, has increased the need for marketing activities that promote such.  A staggering percentage of consumers have expressed that a great product or brand experience can make them loyal to the product or brand while a negative experience can influence them in considering competing brands or products.

Experiential activities encourage brands in building unforgettable experiences for their consumers, helping them be customer-oriented organizations. Experiential marketing focuses on the target audience, it positions the customer as the center of brand attention. The primary objective of organizing experiential activities is to make the consumer and their interaction with the brand or product a main priority to the business. Every product has its target market as well as its primary and secondary audience. Identifying both can guide the creation process required to provide phenomenal customer experiences.

The customer relationship is prioritized in experiential marketing. Nevertheless, the COVID19 pandemic has put quite a strain on this marketing effort since there have been measures in place to curb to a large extent, interactions between people and large gatherings.

How then are experiential agencies attending to their clients in developing marketing approaches that will fulfil the need and desires of customers? The power of forward thinking and ability to project into the future comes in useful here. An experiential marketing plan that combines both online and offline experience marketing activities could do well to fill this void

Experiential events have been characterized to aid trial, consideration and sales; which, if repeated, could achieve consumer brand affinity in the long term. Individuals yearn for occasions, product sampling events, demo days, etc.

• Embracing digital technology when planning an event, where individuals who cannot be physically present can view the ongoing actions via their screens.
• Product demos events where customers can be randomly selected via online channels to be part of a limited slot of attendees. Consumers who indicate interests in being a part of the customer product demo event can be asked to go through series of activities online, individuals who appropriately participate can make the selection process and attend the event physically.
• There is no ruling out product sampling, it can be done. Product sampling is one experiential marketing strategy that allows for top-of-mind creation particularly for customer acquisition. I taste it, I love it, I purchase it. By recognizing who the audience is, online trial experience can be encouraged.

The goal is to evolve alongside the consumers, which can be achieved by curbing stagnancy and updating marketing strategies with the current times.

One thing Brandlife Limited, as a foremost experiential marketing agency, has done remarkably is to go on to proffer and implement marketing solutions that are timely, right, unique with a combined offering of both online and offline experiences. Our clients love them, and we have, so far, been able to sustain the marketing needs of their businesses.

One of such experiential campaigns is the “HP Be Free to Create Marketing Campaign”, where we incorporated a combination of influencer marketing and instore experience for the target audience. More recently, the influencer for the marketing campaign (who is a popular musician in the country) trended on twitter. Notable feedback witnessed was that his online followers who knew that he was once the face of the brand for an online advert and in-store experience mentioned the product he influenced and that became an online buzz. The Individuals kept talking about the product, how they met him in-store and could relate with him online. This result and others unmentioned in this article are what reinventing the experiential wheel and being forward-thinking could achieve.

Planning marketing experiences should not focus only on today but also consider what could happen in the near future; think long term to build brand equity.