The swift growth of the internet and mass media has created a requirement for personalized marketing. As our modern economy runs on the demand of individual customers, to fulfil their wish for personalization, the vendors have incorporated strategies, one of which is ‘experiential marketing’.
What does ‘experiential marketing’ mean?
This form of marketing, when promoting a product, not only talks about the positives of it but combines it with an exclusive and stimulating customer experience. It is often described as an idea of not just selling a product but explain how a brand can add to a customer's life. According to some pioneers, “If you charge for the time customers spend with you, then and only then are you in the experience business.” From Disney to AOL, all believe that profitable experiences come from entertainment, education, aesthetic, and escapist.
This marketing strategy is stated as any form of marketing activity that is entirely customer-focused and can engage a customer emotionally or capture their senses at every possible touchpoint. Five different forms of experiences exist in the world of marketing and are becoming essential for a consumer to form perceptions about a brand.
Types of experiential marketing
Sense marketing: in this form, any performed activity, captures the five senses of the customer. These senses are sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell.
Feel marketing: it answers the question ‘what will it feel like to use the product?’. This type of marketing targets a customer’s inner feelings and emotions and holds an engagement with the brand. The feelings might just be a small mood about the brand a strong feeling. It all depends on how your campaign involves the customer.
Think marketing: here, the marketers try to influence customers’ intellect by offering reasoning or a solution to keep them engaged. It can be done by giving them a demonstration of the product.
Act marketing: Changes in behaviour can be motivational and empowering. So, here you see ‘What behaviours will your product help to facilitate’. Here we focus on a customer’s physical behaviour, lifestyle and interactions.
Relate marketing: Relate marketing takes into account a customer’s wish to be a part of a social context such as a subculture and create experiences based on it. In other words, it’s about ‘how does your product or service link the customer to others, to things or even to a projection of their future self’.
Coca-Cola for example uses experiential marketing to create a closer bond between itself and the customers by providing them with fun and memorable experiences. During the FIFA World Cup, in Zurich, Coca-Cola placed a VR experience in front of a train station. About the experience, people could stand in front of a screen and see a popular soccer player next to them. They could then practice a soccer move with the athlete or compete in their mini-soccer tournament.
Experiential marketing can reinforce a lasting connection between customers and the brand. It also allows the marketers to collect important data about consumer engagement which can then help them improve their strategy. As a result, experiential marketing can be much more effective than any other form of marketing. However, for success, experiential campaigns shouldn’t only have a clear link to the brand but also need to target the consumers at the right time and in the right manner.