With this entire year having taken the course it has, the buying experience has drastically transitioned from retail to online. And as a result of that, customers are becoming more burdened with digital ads than ever before. Therefore, brands are looking for new ways to reach audiences…or revisiting old ways. Join Movers Development as we take a closer look at the benefits of experiential marketing for service businesses.
The basics – what is Experiential Marketing?
- Experiential marketing presents a way to build brand awareness and establish long-term connections with customers through face-to-face contact.
It is a fast and direct approach to bringing your brand to your customer instead of waiting for them to come to you. However, unlike the framework of guerrilla marketing tactics, this type of marketing focuses on hosting real-time and virtual events, using augmented reality, guest-starring on webinars, conferences, etc.
The idea behind experiential marketing is to create a unique brand experience for target audiences. Not only has it proven to be a great way to boost engagement and increase sales, but it also offers valuable first-hand insight into the behavior of customers and your market.
Five benefits of experiential marketing for service businesses
1. It’s a very immersive approach
Experiential marketing targets all five senses, making it more memorable than other channels of marketing. Customers get to experience something that they can fully embrace the buying experience, making it seem more natural and trusting. It all comes down to creating a warm and friendly atmosphere for your audience, which results in their habituation when it comes to your brand.
2. It offers stronger customer engagement
Every marketer and sales rep understands just how important timing is when interacting with customers. If you catch them in the right state of mind, at the right place and time – you have an opening for a touchdown. Simple as that might sound, getting to that point through traditional or digital marketing channels can require extensive market research.
On the other hand, experiential marketing makes it much easier to take your brand message directly to the customer. Not only that but you get them to a place and during a time where they have the attention span to focus most of their energy on what you have to say. And that is where one of the benefits of experiential marketing for service businesses stands out.
3. It demonstrates corporate responsibility
With various global political and social struggles, consumer awareness is higher than ever. And this leads them to choose brands that demonstrate corporate responsibility. However, carrying that kind of message across can be daunting for traditional and digital marketing channels. One of the benefits of experiential marketing is rooted in the ability to communicate giving back to the community through social responsibility programs. By showing local and global communities that your brand cares, you bring value to your business in the long run.
4. Experiential marketing is memorable
With such an overwhelming amount of data that an average consumer processes through digital marketing channels, it has become a true challenge to create something memorable. Social media marketing offers the best-case scenario for this theory. Ask yourself – from all the posts, stories, or tweets that you see on a daily or weekly basis – how many actually stay with you and for how long.
Yes, one can admire clever wording or a visually enticing ad. However, when you incorporate algorithms that will show you ads for similar products or services, it becomes a drop in the ocean. And there is a far lower risk of that with experiential marketing. What you experience through this channel leads to a stronger connection – a memorable story that you will be able to look back at even after weeks or months.
5. It puts the spotlight on the story behind the brand
It’s very challenging and difficult for a company to create an impactful story behind their business, even for skilled copywriters. With the attention span of modern consumers as limited as it is, most don’t find the time to go through the content, making them miss the entire value of the brand.
With experiential marketing, the situation is slightly easier. Here, you get the opportunity to get into the story behind the products or services, making them more familiar to customers. After all, a good brand development strategy is among the best ways to create a lasting impression on customers, both online and offline.
Experiential marketing tips for service businesses
Despite the many benefits of experiential marketing, it is not a universal solution to your problems. Its success and impact on audiences will depend on a number of factors, starting from your niche and type of audiences and all the way to what you are the way you present your brand and structure your campaign. And another thing to remember here is that there are risks involved when organizing such campaigns. A badly planned and executed experiential marketing campaign can easily backfire, damaging your brand significantly in the process. To prevent such a scenario, we offer you the following guidelines:
- Learn what your customers are looking for in a brand. Knowing your audience gives you the material you need to engage them in the best way possible.
- Structure your experiential marketing campaigns through different stages. Project management is an essential part of successful marketing tactics
- Gather data from leads at live events (names, phone numbers, emails, etc.). A great way to contribute to your customer management and to expand your customer base.
- Use digital marketing channels to advertise your live events.
You don’t have to neglect your digital marketing efforts
Nobody is forcing you to choose between experiential and digital marketing. In fact, we would recommend taking the opposite direction and learning how best to combine the two into a mutually functional way to advertise your business. As we already recommended, you can use digital marketing to promote your live events while you can use live events to give customers a chance to test products or services that they can order online.
Give your audience an innovative approach
In sum, experiential is any marketing that happens in a physical setting:
- Event marketing
- Interactive webinars
- Conferences
- Car shows
- Trade shows
- Sponsorships
- Test drives
- Samplings
- Kiosks
- Contesting
- In-person surveys
- In-store experiences
- Face-to-face marketing
As more consumers are experiencing fatigue from digital ads and not being able to enjoy regular face-to-face shopping as much, the setting is promising for companies to start investing in real-time marketing and buying experiences. And that is where the benefits of experiential marketing can truly shine. Of course, having the experience of a digital marketing company can only come in handy here. So, be sure to reach out and consult with our representatives on this matter.