What is Experiential Marketing?

Experiential Marketing – Your Most Valuable Tool

Sponsorship marketing has many moving parts, each of which must complement the others:

• -       Brand association, commonly called “the sponsorship”
• -       Media marketing support
• -       Sales activity support
• -       Experiential marketing

For a marketer, perhaps the most valuable of these on a per unit basis is experiential marketing, sometimes called “event marketing,” because it most frequently is associated with one or more events.

It’s more valuable simply because it’s far more impactful for a consumer to experience a brand than to hear or see information.

This goes back to that old adage:

Tell me, I’ll forget.
Show me, I’ll remember.
Involve me, I’ll understand.

The better you can help your target customer to understand your brand, the more value you create. This is reflected in the Return on Investment calculations we use.

When planning an experiential marketing program, ask yourself these questions:

• -       Does the activity complement the sponsorship?
• -       Are we exposing not only our brand, but our specific products and services?
• -       To what degree can consumers get hands-on with our offerings?
• -       Can we use the consumer’s affinity with the sponsorship to create an ongoing relationship?
• -       Is it possible to extend the impact beyond attendees using social and other media?
• -       As a consumer, what’s in it for me?

The better you integrate these elements, the more value you will realize from each event.

Therefore, static signage will have less value than an interactive kiosk, which will have less value than a display staffed by professional marketers, which will have less value than a display which provides each participant with real, tangible value that is directly related to the products and services you are offering.

Higher numbers of people may see the static signage, but it is nearly impossible to make up the reduced value in sheer volume.

However, since signage can be a relatively small line item in the budget, and can both extend the exposure to those who couldn’t attend your display and reinforce the experience for those who did, it can provide positive value.

Mine all of the value you can, and you’ll realize a strong ROI on your experiential marketing investment.