How to Increase Engagement with an Experiential Marketing Program

REEFExperiential Marketing Blog
how to increas engagement with experiential marketing
Increasing brand engagement and profile in the sea of competition is essential to any brand’s success but to do so you’ve got to think big. Bigger than just social media, bigger than just your website, bigger than advertising. We all know that in 2019, if something isn’t on Instagram, then it basically didn’t happen, but how do you differentiate your brand from the rest and break through the algorithms? The answer to these questions is experiential marketing.

What is Experiential Marketing?

Experiential marketing is essentially a mutually beneficial interaction between a brand and the customer. Different than event marketing and separate from a PR stunt, you’re creating a space centred on the type of interaction that people can have with a specific brand. Our experiential marketing team for instance, will work with you to help you discover what it is that you aim to say to your customers and, get this, it doesn’t have to be directly tied to an actual product! We work with you to identify and then build an experience around the message you’d like to convey. Plus we give you some insight on exactly what the masses are demanding along the way.

Tips for an Industry Disrupting Experiential Marketing Campaign

Avoid Interrupting your Audience

No one wants some marketer in their face with a product trying to make them sample something or answer some questions. This type of forceful interaction will get your brand interaction off on the wrong foot. Generally, we say to find people where they already are and integrate your experience into this space, you’ll be much better off. We want customers to engage and partake in the experience we’ve planned for them and to get something from it. Meaning that we want there to be a mutual exchange of benefits. This only happens if they are open and willing to partake.

Add a Digital Element

Go a step beyond the usual when it comes to your digital integration. Social channels are the best way to spread your message.  We know that people enjoy sharing their event experiences online and incorporating a way for them to do that into your event is a winning strategy. What we see most often is a brand creating a hashtag meant to curate all the content from their event into one stream. Go beyond this idea! An example of a successful experiential marketing event that added an extra level of engagement for visitors would be our Flower Wall at this summer’s Rose Picnic. Not only did we employ a hashtag strategy but we created an incredible backdrop for the perfect selfie. By adding something extra, like a location tag or a custom filter, you’re encouraging people to post about their experience in a way that draws attention to your event.

Let People Create Something — Together

How many people, if you asked if they were ‘busy’ would say yes? We would bet, almost every one of them. In 2019, people have a hard time finding or making time in their lives to get creative. So hone in on this idea and design an experience that gives them the opportunity to express themselves and get creative.

Get Your Gamification On

To put it simply, gamification is adding an element of fun and competition to your marketing strategy. By tapping into people’s competitive nature and incorporating a game, you are making an emotional connection with your audience and this can lead to a longer relationship between them and your brand. This is a huge part of experiential marketing because you’re adding an element to the experience that they can engage and have fun with. Companies have launched gamified products on both small and larger scales, for example, Domino’s Pizza added a shake feature to their mobile order app. Customers can shake their phone if they don’t know what to order and the app chooses their toppings for them! Thinking more everyday, have you ever left an office building or store that asks you to rate your experience by using a series of buttons? You can choose to push a green smiling face button if you have  had an awesome experience. This is the essence of gamification. The company is asking for the opinion of the customer in a way that adds an element of fun and value. With the help of the experiential marketing team at Reef, we will be able to design the most eye-catching concept to get your brand the traction it deserves! Get excited, the most fun is yet to come. Let us help you through the creative process and your experiential marketing program is bound to put on the map and to the forefront of your industry.