Experiential marketing is quite evidently picking up pace and becoming the hot favorite style of marketing for brands these days. This marketing form as we all know is about conveying a live brand experience to the consumers that provides them the opportunity to interact with the brand.
Brands have now understood the USP of effective marketing and building connect at the same time. They have realized that social and digital marketing in itself is not enough, experiential marketing is what is best accepted. But in such stiff competition and advancement in technology, brands overlook some basic attributes of marketing. So here at EE we pick few don’ts of experiential marketing.
Make sure you have clear objectives: It is very necessary for brands to realize that being ambiguous in their approach and strategies will lead them nowhere. One should not invest in an activity just because their competitors are, but for their own establishment. A brand should have a SMART approach, meaning- specific about the approach, measurable (should be able to measure performance against objective), achievable objectives, realistic plans of action, time-bound goals. It is always fine to have multiple objectives but there should always be one main focus so that the brand does not go astray in its approach. Now why brands should pay heed to this is because there is often a great deal of wasted money and resources that go into experiential activities. Thus, it is important to have established set of objectives and not involve too many entities in one event.
Experiential marketing is not a tactic but a methodology: Experiential marketing isn’t a tactic and neither it is a fad. Perhaps it’s the worst of all mistakes to think that experiential marketing is merely a tactic. There is a plan, a pre-plan and a post plan to be executed behind an initiative. Experiential marketing is structuring a feeling catering to the point how potential customers see your business and how you convert that feeling into a reliable, unswerving decision to choose you over others. Thus it should never be a hasty decision but to have a smart approach yielding better ROI.
Create activities designed to meet you objectives: All experiential activities that a brand designs and plans should rightly adhere to the audience and satisfy the objectives behind the initiative. Setting objectives is fine, but doing the right things to accomplish these goals is important. If a brand wants to create awareness against women empowerment and hosts a marathon in lieu of that, it won’t solve its purpose and neither would it generate a buzz. Therefore may it be creating awareness about a social cause or celebrating a spirit, the activities should be planned accordingly. One size fits all events hold no good. Hence all events should not be planned in the same manner under the same cloud.
Don’t forget to always generate the right audience: As we talk about generating experiences and building relationships, who do we do it with? Well yes the most important part of any event is certainly the audience that it manages to gather. The challenge that prevails further is to get the right audience together. Agencies should focus on delivering as many people as possible to all exhibitors and sponsors. Brands should intend to promote and focus on reasons that would ultimately compel their target audience to attract. The location also plays an important role in choosing the right audience. The activities can be planned and designed in a manner catering to a specific audience at an event. Topics to be discussed at an event should be persuading enough to trigger the emotions and arouse interest in the audience. It is also vital to show to your audience what different and special they can avail at your event and not anywhere else.
Also choosing the right audience is interlinked with its previous objective of having clarity about the objectives because only then it is possible to gather the most appropriate audience for the brands initiative.
Never overlook the pre and post event details: Social media trending before and after the event is as important as it is during an event. Not only social media but it is essential for brands to create buzz to gain recognition and attract their potential buyers to an extent. Mostly brands overlook on the post event aspect of their marketing initiative. It is important for brands to follow up with their customers quickly and consistently. Generally brands are not prepared as to hoe they will address leads post event. Thus there should be a plan of action to sort and manage queries. Keeping an appropriate track of the acceptance of the event is very significant. Thus pre and post event feedback mechanism should be generated by each brand. No matter it is a negative response or a positive feedback, it should never be ignored because this is what helps a brand to become better every time.
These were a few key points that brands overlook while executing activities and planning events. Hence these were gentle reminders for brands and agencies to have a look at.
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