How your brand builds relationships with customers and prospects in 2019 is critical.
Here is the rub, while social media is still a low-cost brand reach tool and email still helps with retention and conversion, there is likely a missing element in your marketing strategy. EXPERIENCE.
Social media has adapted to pay-to-play; sure this helps marketers target better but is it enough? Social media is the top of your sales funnel, which means its major role is to increase brand reach and click through. While you may read a lot about social media’s potential to drive sales, this isn’t true for every industry. One thing that is true for most industries is the need for face-to-face interactions in 2019.
Experiential marketing allows brands to build face to face relationships for both retention and lead generation.
Kerry Smith and Dan Hanover’s study of experiential marketing shares insights using hundreds of case studies, exclusive research, and interviews with more than 150 global brands spanning a decade.
What Smith and Hanover have learned is the human connection cannot be tuned out.
In 2019, nearly every major brand uses experiential marketing in their marketing mix. For many brands, experiential is the lead marketing component and other channels drive the experience. The reason is that experience cannot be swiped away, turned off by settings, or ignored.
Smith and Hanover discovered that when comparing traditional multi-silo marketing campaigns to an experiential campaign, experiential marketing converts a consumer into customers faster than any other form of marketing!
What this means for you, is that your current marketing mix should not be tossed aside, but you should consider adding experiential marketing as a major driver for relationship.
I anticipate that some business owners will be thinking, well I’ve done: booths, meet and greets, luncheons and I never saw great ROI. My response is that we need to shake things up!
When Evian wanted to launch their new bottle, they launched an experiential campaign using Twitter. On a hot day in Manhattan, they told their social following that if they tweeted #EvianBottleService an Evian rep would bring them a cold bottle of water. Talk about an experience! This campaign launched the new design, expanded brand reach, and cemented the brand into the consumer’s memory with an unforgettable memory!
As you ruminate over this info, think about going to your target audience instead of bringing them to you for an experiential campaign.
If your target audience is Moms, maybe you host a free playdate in the park every week where you get to form relationships. Are you trying to target people who like the arts? What if an opera company used social media to offer #serenademydate and deployed their company to sing to love birds on Valentine’s day? These ideas could use some work, but you get the point! Go to where your target is and meet their needs with an experience related to your brand.
If you’d like to talk about how to implement an experiential marketing event for your brand, contact our team!
