Experiential Marketing 101: How To Engage Customers

Experiential marketing offers an alternative marketing method that cultivates emotional connections and drives deeper customer engagement.

If we’re being honest, there’s a lot of marketing noise out there. With ads spanning anywhere from outside your door to your TV or anywhere on the internet, the competition is as fierce as it is plentiful. In fact, we see around 10,000 ads a day between physical and digital. Sheesh! With that in mind, marketers will need a little more than “hey buddy, buy my product!” to stand out and earn your money. 

But the question remains: if the world is so inundated with ads and customers are so jaded from the constant “sell, sell, sell…”  — then how can you connect with customers?

Do you just give up, then? Well, no, of course not! But sometimes, easing up on the “selling” gas pedal and approaching it differently does wonders.

Let’s talk about Experiential Marketing.

What is Experiential Marketing?

Experiential Marketing is a strategic marketing approach that involves crafting a specific experience for a customer to genuinely engage them on a deeper, emotional level. This creates a customer who is willing to learn more about your brand and what it offers of their own volition, which is key to developing lifelong champions of your brand.

Experiential Marketing is sort of like selling without selling. In simplest terms, it’s like a soft sell. You give your customers an event or an experience to remember, and their takeaway is (ideally) an improved perception of the brand and its products/services.

It’s sort of like making friends, right? You wouldn’t walk up to someone you’re interested in befriending and say, “Hey, we should be friends because we both have something the other person wants.” — that’d be weird… at least, if the goal is to make a long-term genuine connection. Instead, you might instead opt to ask them if they want to hang out with you and experience something together (see a movie, go to dinner, play some sports… whatever floats your boat).

Fundamentally, with experiential marketing, you’re looking to do the same thing. You’re creating opportunities for authentic interactions where the value exchange feels natural and enjoyable. This approach builds trust and fosters a sense of community around your brand, as customers feel like they are part of something special. 

By focusing on creating meaningful experiences, experiential marketing helps “humanize” your brand, making it more relatable and approachable. This emotional connection is the key to turning occasional customers into loyal advocates who return and actively promote your brand to others.

Is Experiential Marketing Effective?

The short answer? Hell, yeah brother.

Experiential marketing works because it’s an immersive experience where you’re not talking at your customer — you’re involving them. Why is that important? Well, for four big reasons.

• Boost Brand Awareness: engaging experiences help spread the word about a brand by giving people fun and memorable moments they won’t forget.
• Customer Loyalty: When brands create experiences people love, they’re more likely to keep coming back for more, building loyalty.
• Genuine Connection: These experiences make people interested in a brand and make them feel involved and excited.
• Going Viral: Awesome experiences can make a brand go viral online when people share their amazing moments with friends, spreading the buzz.

At the core of it all, what sticks with you most about a brand isn’t necessarily what you bought from them but how they made you feel while interacting. Those feelings and experiences tend to stay in your memory long after the purchase is made.

The Big Three of Experiential Marketing

There are three principles that serve experiential marketing above all others: engagement, emotional connection, and authenticity.

1. Emotional Connection: In my opinion, this should be the first priority. If your campaign’s experience can evoke a genuine emotional response from your customers, you’ve earned your brand a long-lasting bond.
2. Engagement: Naturally, experiential marketing doesn’t work without experience. The goal is to actively engage your customers and encourage them to be active participants rather than passive observer.
3. Authenticity: Experiential marketing only works its best when you are genuinely trying to engage your audience. Don’t try to BS customers — they’ll be able to tell from a mile away. The more genuine the interaction, the more likely the experience will stay top of mind for that customer. 

Experiential Marketing Examples:

If you aren’t already familiar with real-life examples of experiential marketing, it’s entirely reasonable that this all may be sounding a bit vague. Marketing “experiences” can mean a whole lot of different things, after all. Let’s make this a bit more concrete.

While these are by no means exhaustive, let’s go over the most common types of implementing experiential marketing. 

Customer Centric Marketing – Red Bull Full Throttle!

Red Bull stands out as a prime example of experiential marketing excellence. With a history spanning over three decades, Red Bull has emerged as the top energy drink globally. The staggering consumption of approximately 7.9 billion cans worldwide in 2022 underscores its immense popularity and resonance with its loyal customer base. In the same year, its sales reached nearly $16.5 billion, overshadowing its closest rival, Monster Energy drink, which garnered just over $6 billion in sales. What’s truly remarkable is that Red Bull allocates a modest 20% of its marketing budget to paid advertisements!

When executed effectively, experiential events have the power to enhance brand perception and drive profitability. Red Bull understands this concept well and goes all out by creating captivating spectacles that leave a lasting impression. While not every company can orchestrate an extravagant Flugtag race like Red Bull does, there are ways to scale down and capture the essence of such engaging experiences. The key objective is to connect with customers on a deeper level so they can grasp and resonate with the brand’s ethos.

Red Bull’s involvement in mountain biking has significantly impacted the sport, particularly through events like the Red Bull Rampage that push boundaries and thrill enthusiasts. The athletes at Rampage showcase their skills on challenging terrains, executing daring tricks like backflips over daunting obstacles.

Not only does Red Bull cater to the desires of its audience, but it also enhances the X Type Games by prominently featuring its logo across various platforms, including mountain slopes.

Although Red Bull may not enjoy the same widespread fame as Coca Cola, it has established a unique position in the energy drink industry. Its recognizable branding and affiliation with extreme sports and excitement continue to differentiate it from its rivals.

Product Sampling & Demonstrations

This is one of the most tried-and-true examples of experiential marketing. It’s an oldie, but it’s worked for a long time. I’d be willing to bet that you’ve participated in many—like getting a free sample at Costco or your local grocery store. 

Of course, this strategy heavily relies on the context of what’s being promoted. Food is an easier thing to get people to try and leave with a good taste in their mouth (both figuratively and literally). Eating is an experience, so that in itself is pretty engaging. Just keep that in mind when considering this approach; otherwise, it can come across as pretty lifeless if there isn’t anything particularly engaging or enticing.

I’ve been buying certain grocery items for many years based on a simple interaction: being given a sample.

Live Events Marketing / Activations

Live events and activities are cornerstones of experiential marketing strategies. Their goal is to create immersive experiences by bringing brands to life—whether through brand-sponsored festivals, product launches, or even pop-up shops. 

For example, take Blizzard Entertainment, a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, a video game developer and publisher most known for their game, World Of Warcraft — and their yearly live event, BlizzCon.

Blizzcon has become more than just a convention — it’s a legitimate cultural phenomenon in the gaming world. In 2023, the event attracted over 40,000 attendees, all explicitly to celebrate the franchise, dressing up, playing games, and more. The event is filled with activated spaces themed around their video games, immersing fans like no other and creating an unforgettable experience. The event also serves as a direct channel for Blizzard to connect with its fans, providing exclusive insights, announcements, and access to the creators of their favorite games.

And in turn, the fans show up for Blizzard Entertainment as well. In addition to spending money to access the event — tickets often sell out within minutes, generating millions in revenue — and any merchandise they purchase there, Blizzcon generates an insane amount of media buzz, consistently trending on social media platforms with millions of mentions and interactions. Offering this space to their fans allows Blizzard to strengthen the bond between them and their community. There’s a reason people have been playing World of Warcraft for nearly two decades, boasting over 100 million lifetime accounts.

Branded Marketing Experiences: Immersive Physical Environments & Installations

Successful physical branded experiences have an atmosphere that resonates with people by offering something unique and engaging. For example, imagine you’re a kid again. Going into a Walmart is one thing and having your parents buy you some LEGOs. Now imagine if, instead, you went to a LEGO shop filled with colorful installations and Play Stations of the product. Naturally, the excitement level will be much different between the two.

This is how brands can turn casual observers into passionate advocates who will remember and share their experience long after it’s over — if you can evoke that sense of childlike wonder and magic in your branded experiences, you’re golden!

These installations cross generations and allow families to have the same level of fun whether you’re 10 or 30. For instance, LEGO’s flagship store in New York City attracts over 2 million visitors annually, showcasing the power of immersive brand experiences.

Plus, these installations also naturally encourage social sharing. Visitors who are engaged and making an event out of their day are likely to take photos and videos of their experience and share them on social media, spreading the word to their networks. In fact, user-generated content from these experiences can increase brand engagement by up to 28%. Now, that’s a recipe for success!

Interactive Online Branded Experience

While the most obvious examples of experiential marketing involve the physical space… does this mean that’s the only way? Not by a long shot, man!

One of my personal favorite examples of a widely successful digital, experiential marketing campaign comes from Spotify. Specifically — Spotify Wrapped. And it’s almost so simple in concept you’d think there’s no way it’d work. But it does. Year after year! Around 10 years straight.

In case you don’t know what Spotify Wrapped is, it’s a yearly digital event for Spotify where they show users data regarding their personalized listening activity on the platform. It gives you fun little tidbits like “Your Most Listened To Artist” or “Favorite Genre” and even creates playlists based on your year of listening.

Over the years, it’s evolved to include even more personalized data points. It gets pretty granular. There are no additional payments, tickets, or requirements of any sort. It’s just freely available to all Spotify users every year.

And the best part is that it virtually promotes itself.

People are naturally excited to share their music tastes — it’s a form of self-expression, after all. Spotify has brilliantly capitalized on this by including data points that show how users compare to the rest of Spotify listeners, such as “you were in the top 1% of Kendrick Lamar listeners.” In 2022, over 90 million Spotify users engaged with Wrapped, with millions sharing their results on social media. Spotify also prompts users to share these data points, encouraging a wave of organic, user-generated content. This communal sharing turns Wrapped into a viral spectacle online every year without fail.s

Guerilla Marketing

Guerilla marketing is an experiential strategy that employs attention-grabbing and unexpected stunts to captivate and intrigue nearby observers by using curiosity to lure them in. But while guerilla marketing typically seems ad-hoc and off-the-cuff by the participants, the irony is that they are anything but. In actuality, guerilla marketing usually involves a lot of planning and curation to be used to the fullest extent.

For example, location and context matter a lot when it comes to this method of experiential marketing. You can’t very well set up an event for a deluxe designer brand watch company on a modest college campus full of students who are trying to stretch their dollars. However, something attractive, practical, and, most importantly, affordable could do pretty well there.

Netflix’s guerilla promotion of the fourth Stranger Things season was a successful global endeavor. Across over 14 counties, it included a combination of projection mapping and physical installations to give the impression that portals were forming to the “Upside Down” (a fictional alternate dimension within the show where everything is inverted). They even got paid actors in hazmat suits to “investigate” these portals — adding to the stunt.

Third Places: You have Probably Been to a Third Place Recently

Public parks, cozy cafes and friendly neighborhood bars are what sociologist Ray Oldenburg refers to as “Third Places” in his book Celebrating the Third Place published in 2000. These are spots where people gather informally and joyfully outside their homes and workplaces.

Personally, I love starting my day at the local coffee shop to break the monotony. It’s a welcoming space where I chat with familiar faces, including the staff and neighbors. The decor is charming, featuring locally made items that add character to the place.

What makes this coffee shop even better is that they’ve set up a small dog park nearby. This adds an extra layer of joy as I spend quality time with my furry companion, Tuck.

When done thoughtfully, with unique branded touchpoints, these third places can create a sense of belonging that keeps you coming back for more. It’s a form of experiential marketing that focuses on building customer relationships and offering tailored activities for their clientele.

To Summarize:

• Customer Centric Marketing
  • Presenting captivating shows with strategic branding to connect with viewers
  • Organizing events that challenge the norm with a specific target audience in mind
• Trying out products and demonstrations
  • Although traditional, product sampling remains effective. Who wouldn’t enjoy trying something they’re interested in and leaving with that item?
• Live Events / Activations
  • Events such as festivals, new product introductions and temporary stores breathe life into brands, delivering unforgettable experiences
  • Immersive events immerse fans in a vibrant, themed world, forming enduring memories and strong ties to the brand
• Branded Experiences (Physical AND Digital)
  • Immersive Physical Environments / Installations
  • Interactive online experiences (VR/AR), social media campaigns
  • Blurring the distinction between entertainment and marketing
• Guerilla Marketing
  • Stunt driven tactics leveraging surprise and intrigue to captivate audiences
  • It seems unplanned to the audience, but needs to be carefully curated to work well
• Third Places
  • Establishing a welcoming environment with branded elements and interactive activities to encourage repeat visits
  • Crafting a customer focused setting with local decorations and community events to become a cherished gathering spot

How do I get started with experiential marketing?

Getting started with experiential marketing can feel like a lot. Especially when juggling multiple facets of your marketing campaign — between research and strategy, planning and coordination, logistics and execution, marketing and promotion, and even on-site management… well, it’s a lot. It’s pretty easy to throw money in trash if you’re not planning your experiential marketing campaign correctly.

So, let’s break it down into manageable steps and make the process smoother. 

1. Determine Your Audience – Developing a Persona for Experiential Marketing

The first step is knowing who you’re targeting. Understanding your audience is crucial. Who are they, truly? What are their interests and behaviors?

Start by gathering data through surveys, interviews, and feedback. Focus on demographics (age, gender, occupation) and psychographics (interests, values). Analyze this data to find patterns and trends. Identify your customers’ goals, challenges, and preferences. Understanding these aspects will help you create detailed personas that guide your experiential marketing efforts, making them more targeted and effective.

2. Create Memorable Marketing Experiences

Now we can get to the fun part — crafting the experience. This is where creativity shines, and having a creative team that has your back becomes paramount. Think about how you can create an immersive, engaging, and memorable experience. Would interactive technology like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), or any other technologies that are applicable? Is there a way to tailor the event to the individual (like Spotify Wrapped, for example)? Can you engage all of their senses with the design? The list goes on. But the goal should always be to create a narrative that resonates with your audience and leaves a lasting impression.

Now we can get to the fun part — crafting the experience. This is where creativity shines, and having a supportive creative team becomes paramount. Think about how you can create an immersive, engaging, and memorable experience. Consider hands-on activities, such as a hand-building workshop, to engage your audience. Can you tailor the event to the individual, similar to how Spotify Wrapped does? Engage all their senses with thoughtful design elements.

The details are in the design and architecture of the experiences. Create a narrative that resonates with your audience and leaves a lasting impression. For example, you could sponsor a hoop-shooting event. However, the details matter: how will you wrap the event space, such as covering fences or courts to boost enthusiasm?

How will the space be activated beyond the activity itself? How do you create buzz before it happens. Most importantly, how will you make an emotional connection with your audience?

These events are about connecting with your audience in a meaningful way, which creates brand awareness. By focusing on their needs and interests, you can ensure the experience is memorable and impactful.

3. Plan It & Launch It

Real-world (and digital) events can be stressful to plan, and life can be unpredictable, so thorough planning and contingencies are essential. Before going live, your agency should conduct a mock setup to resolve any last-minute issues. During the campaign, be ready to address problems immediately, and continuously monitor and improve the activation. It’s also important to measure your success metrics as the event is ongoing: eg. tracking footfall, interactions, and social media posts. This way, you can adjust the activation as needed while it is live, and you’ll have a goalpost to research and evaluate how it can be improved afterwards. And speaking of…

Finally, Measure and Optimize

After completing your campaign, collect feedback and assess the outcomes. Did you achieve your goals? What aspects were effective and where is there room for improvement? Utilize these insights to enhance your approach for upcoming campaigns.

By following these steps, you’ll be well on your way to launching a successful experiential marketing campaign that not only stands out but also makes a lasting impression on your target audience. If your team requires assistance with experiential marketing, Mighty Fine is here to support you. We specialize in crafting distinctive experiences that captivate audiences. Whether you’re starting anew or aiming to enhance your current strategies, our team is ready to lend a hand.