Brand Activation: Vital Qualities of A Brand Activation Agency

The customers of today expect to be delighted by brands and need to be aligned with what the brand stands for. This can be attained with the help of brand activation. A brand activation agency helps create an emotional connection between the brand and the audience. This can take multiple forms and can be attained with the help of a range of channels. No matter what method of activation is utilized, the objective stays the same- inspire engagement, drive action and create long-lasting relationships with customers.

Let’s have a look at the vital qualities that define a brand activation agency:

Begins with the ‘Why’

Reliable brand activation companies do not simply jump into the creative ideas. The ideas might be exciting and fun but it is vital to start off with a strategy prior to any tactics in case you want your brand activation to be successful. This is why a good agency begins with the ‘why’ behind their customer campaigns. The agency defines the objectives and goals before it creates a strategy of activation that resonates with its customers.

The success of a campaign cannot just be measured by an increase in sales. No doubt, the ultimate goal of a marketing campaign is revenue generation but brand activation is more focused on building deep customer relationships. This is why the chief success measure for an activation campaign is engagement instead of just sales.

Comprehends the Real-World Applications

Brand activation is not limited to only the main brands of the world. A reliable agency takes into consideration the budget and scope for customers of all sizes. Small scale activation campaigns are generally among the most creative campaigns. Such campaigns present great opportunities to brands to engage their audience and build deeper connections. A brand activation agency is adept at solving challenges and utilizing multiple channels to create an impactful campaign.

What Makes Experiential Marketing So Effective?

Experiential marketing services are effective and powerful for businesses as consumers get to immerse themselves in the brand experience. With the help of word-of-mouth advertising, social engagements from customers increase and this further motivates brands to craft new experiences for their customers.

Let us understand what makes experiential marketing so effective:

People respond better to experiences

Multiple studies have depicted that people respond better to the experience of a brand compared to other form of traditional advertising. This boosts the likelihood of people buying the products/services of a brand. Product sampling is an effective method to get people to buy your product. It also helps in brand perception. A lot of people that have been immersed in a brand experience via the brand’s experiential marketing company have positively altered their perception of that brand.

Creation of an immersive brand experience

A lot of immersive brand experiences created by a reliable experiential marketing service results in good sales and favorable brand perception. People prefer experiencing things before they can commit. Some people who might not ever have considered buying a product might consider buying it after an immersive experience of that brand.

Word of mouth advertising

If you are able to create a great brand experience for people who desire to interact with your brand, those people would talk about your brand with their friends and share the experiences. Word of mouth acts as a great tool of promotion in today’s world. People constantly share the stuff they do on their social media platforms.

Brands can utilize an experiential marketing campaign to craft an exclusive experience for their customers to share. When you craft an experience that is worth sharing, your potential customers will share it in big numbers which will eventually boost your brand reach. Giving out free products or merchandise in exchange for social shares can also be an effective method for making way for more engagement.

Why Does Your Brand Need Experiential Marketing?

The customers of today expect more than the services and products from the brands they like. They need experiences that accompany their purchases. Thus, if you want to make your customers happy and satisfied and stay ahead of the competition, it is vital that you utilize the services of a top experiential marketing agency.

Experiential Marketing

Experiential marketing accounts for a marketing strategy that offers customers first-hand experiences that are concerned with your brand. This can be any experience that offers a customer with an original, remarkable or unexpected moment. This can include the following:

• Taking part in an in-store design or production of the product
• Attending an in-person demonstration or live event
• Taking a photograph with an interesting or dramatic element
• Participating in or playing a game
• Receiving a VIP treatment
• Being a part of a brand evolution or change

There is no dearth of options when it comes to experiential marketing. The moments can be utilized to help move customers through buyer’s journey or for providing an upgraded experience while the customers are in the midst of the purchase funnel. Also, the moments can be created by an experiential marketing service in either the real or digital world. Customers get to have experiences with brands while using apps or being on their websites or while visiting the physical stores of the brand.

Why you should use experiential marketing?

Experiential marketing helps in creating moments that have a long-lasting impact. However, this is just one of the multiple reasons why experiential marketing is vital for customer and brands. Customers are fond of experiences. The buying preferences of customers are changing and shoppers no longer want to spend their money just on things. They want to spend time and money on moments. This is especially true for millennials. Experiential marketing helps a brand tap into the customer demand for purchasing memorable moments, not just physical things.

Every customer loves personalized experiences. When a customer plans to engage with a brand, they are not looking for the same experience that every other customer has. They need a customized experience that is suited for them. According to a report, 46 percent of shoppers will purchase more from a retailer when they customize the consumer experience. It is not important that the customer experience you create is over-the-top or extravagant. As long as the experiences are personalized or customized, your customers will respond.  

How to use Experiential Marketing?

Experiential marketing is the best way to invite customers to your store, engage with them and provide them a reason to revisit you. Here’s a look at some important ways in which you can create fun in-store experiences for your customers:

Offer Customers Hands-on Experience with your Products

Experiential marketing tied to products acts as a great way to draw in customers while promoting the products. With the help of an event marketing agency, conduct a hands-on event like product demo days or workshops that utilize your products.

Host in-Store Events

Hosting events is the most common method of crafting an experience. Such events can include open houses or extended hours for special customers. These can also include speaker series or educational workshops.

Add an in-Store Activity

As customers are looking for places where they go and engage in activity or do something engaging or interesting, it is important that you add an activity to your store. Offer your customers something to do instead of just shop.

When you are equipped with in-store marketing tools, like overhead music, video walls, and free customer WiFi, you get to boost the environment in your store to make it a place for experiences, not just services/products.

Experiential Marketing – 3 Ways It Is More Than Just Promotion

With the best experiential marketing agency by your side, you can achieve several of your company objectives. It is all about vibing with your audience at the right time and in the right place. A successful experiential marketing event can do a lot more than just promote your offerings to your prospects:

• Live Comparisons With Your Competitors

You can create a very positive impression about your brand and its image among your customers by connecting with them in person. This will drive them to make comparisons with your competitors. They will realize just how different and approachable you as a brand have become. This is going to further incline their purchase decisions in your favor. 

• Tell Them A Story They Will Never Forget

The right experiential agency will encourage and train you on how to engage your audience with your story. Share your experiences with them and narrate your failures as well as success to establish a deeper connection with your prospects. The human aspect of your brand will help your audience relate to you even better. To be able to identify with their favorite brand is something they are going to cherish for a long time.

• Educate Your Customers About Your Uniqueness

There will always be a few features and aspects that are going to set you apart from your competitors. A significant portion of your customers and prospects wouldn’t necessarily know about those aspects. This is the perfect opportunity to connect with them and educate them about the uniqueness of your brand. Tell them about your purpose and the motive with which you had conceptualized the product/service that has made you successful today.

Finally, there can be several ways to connect with your audience and develop a friendly equation that is going to last you a lifetime. The Experiential marketing is one of those tried and tested methods. The biggest thing that makes it so efficient is the personal touch you can add to your presentations, events, and activities. This is what resonates with your prospects and consumers alike. This is where you come across as a more approachable and considerate brand.

Experiential Marketing: Why is it so Crucial?

What Is Experiential Marketing?

Experiential marketing is a kind of marketing that includes crafting physical experiences with customers. It is also known as engagement marketing. Experiential marketing service is different than the traditional forms of marketing in which companies put out advertisements, posters and other messages with a hope that customers will engage with them.

The methodology used in experiential marketing is like a two-way street in which the audience engages because they are actively being a part of the experience that you have created for them. At times, the term ‘event marketing’ is used interchangeably with experiential marketing but it is vital to note that not all events can be considered as full-fledged experiences. Generally, event marketing is a one-way solution.

Advantages of Experiential Marketing

Experiential marketing is a unique methodology that has the capability of creating long-lasting advantages. A top experiential marketing agency will help you create authentic connections with your customers, experiences that have a great social impact and effective word-of-the mouth results.

Authentic Connections with Customers

Modern customers have less faith in the traditional ways of advertising. They need enriching experiences to form their decisions about a product/service. This is especially true for millennials. A study has depicted that around 85 percent of millennials do not have faith in the traditional media. Another study has shown that 72 percent of the millennials preferred spending their money on having a great time than over material stuff. When these two findings are clubbed together, it shows that experiential marketing is an effective tool in forging deeper connections.

Word-of-Mouth and Social Impact

Experiential marketing is highly valuable for a brand as it helps in building relationships with customers and also helps create a great social impact. This is because, in a lot of cases, customers that have a great time at an experiential marketing event will gladly share their experiences with others, both in-person and online. This assists the brand in building credibility.

Is It Possible to Achieve More than Just Loyalty with Experiential Marketing

Experiential marketing is basically just a different advertising strategy that you employ to enable your consumers to experience your brand / product / service in person for the very first time. You can easily use this venue / setting to broadcast the entire range of features and aspects of your products and services to a very large audience. Experiential marketing is done to create immersive experiences for your potential consumer base. There are not just one but several ways by which you can engage your customers and finally get to know their honest and unbiased feedback about your product. A highly recommended and reputable experiential marketing company will be able to help you connect with your customers on a more emotional level. You will be able to deliver a brand new and exemplary experience to your audience by becoming more approachable and more human.

How to Become More Customer-Centric when using Experiential Marketing Services

The leading experiential marketing companies can help you understand the psychology of your customers. This is true for practically every marketing strategy out there. If you want to create an immersive experience for your consumers, you must first put yourself in their shoes and walk a mile or two. In fact, doing this will help you pick out the right brand ambassador as well. Any random personality or celebrity is not going to help you establish a connection with your audience. You need someone who is easily relatable to your brand and can put forth and address the pain points of your audience without much effort. This is also a very easy and practical way to improve your brand loyalty without trying too hard.

Don’t Underestimate the Power of Storytelling

Experiential marketing services give you an opportunity of a lifetime where you can narrate your experiences and your brand development story to your audience. Your customers will love listening to what you have been through and what odds you stood up against to build this company from scratch. It is not only going to be a chance for them to experience your brand but also to learn something from your story and take back home a lot of valuable lessons.

A Look at the Important Strengths of Experiential Marketing

Experiential marketing is a great technique that helps in creating unique brand experiences between brand and customers. Experiential marketing companies utilize activations to bring brands to life so that they get to directly connect with their target audience. The common examples of brand activations include stunts, product sampling, events and immersive experiences.

Strengths of Experiential Marketing

Increase brand awareness and social media engagement

Experiential marketing acts as a great way of building brand awareness and boosting social media engagement. The idea behind this kind of marketing is to build unique and memorable experiences that further act as a great tool to partner social media marketing. With the help of hashtags, images and videos, you get to share events by utilizing experiential marketing and boost the reach of the brand both online and offline.

Customers get to have a direct interaction with the brand

Experiential marketing permits customers to directly interact with the brand. This acts as a ‘hands on’ approach compared to other marketing tools that are more passive in their approach. Instead of just watching an online advertisement or walking past a poster on an escalator, direct brand interaction implies audience get the chance to know the brand more intimately and include more senses than mere sight. Experiential marketing services create a loyal and strong bond between the brand and the customer.

Value for money

Brands get to run cost-effective and targeted experiential marketing campaigns. You might feel that it costs a lot to run such campaigns but the real value lies in the ROI. Brands get to reap benefits of a campaign that is well-executed event long after the campaign has ended. Word of mouth, great content and press allow a campaign to live way beyond the live activity and continue to connect with new customers. This in turn builds brand reliability.