Experiential Marketing Technology: An Event Planner’s Guide

This is a sponsored post written by Kaitlyn Tatulli, Marketing Assistant at Aventri. More information about Event Manager Blog’s sponsored posts.

More and more experiential marketing jobs are popping up to launch experience-based marketing activations and experience of such campaigns are becoming essential. But despite all the chatter around experiential marketing, there’s doesn’t seem to be a lot of discussion or resources for planners to help them take a leap into this new world. In this post, we will break down experiential marketing for today’s planners, as well as show how they can use technology (some of which they may be already be using at their events) to make the transition from experience to experiential.

What is Experiential Marketing?

Since experiential marketing is a fairly new field, it is important to clearly define what experiential marketing is.

Experiential marketing is an authentic, branded engagement between a customer and a company.

In other words, experiential marketing is a two-way-channel of communication between customers and a brand. Experiential marketing advertises a brand to a customer in an interactive and engaging way.

Over the last few years, companies have shifted away from traditional marketing, where brands would advertise and communicate with their customers via a one-way-channel. Experiential marketing has become more of a mainstay in the marketing and the event world.

Although experiential marketing was once seen as an “add-on” that companies or brands implemented to gain more buzz around their product or event, many organizations are now adding experiential marketing roles or departments into their companies. Specifically, companies like Amazon, American Express, Dunkin Donuts, Gatorade, and Marriott, have successfully incorporated experiential marketer roles and exciting campaigns.

Despite all the chatter around experiential marketing, no one is discussing the tools experiential markets use or should be using. Where is the technology for experiential marketers?

Is There Real Value in Experiential Marketing?

Thanks to the age of technology we live in and all the ads thrown at people, consumers are no longer impressed or engaged by print ads or TV commercials. In fact, research has shown that people generally only remember ten percent of what they read (like advertisements), but ninety percent of what they do. The “do” is where experiential marketing comes in.

Experiential marketing allows your consumers to “do” or experience something, in relation to your brand, and form an emotional connection. Creating an emotional connection between your target audience and brand has been shown to increase consumer loyalty.

Examples of experiential marketing to inspire you:

By creating experiential marketing campaigns on social media or by hosting events, you can increase your target audience’s relationship with your company or product.

Have You Got What It Takes For An Experiential Marketing Role?

After reviewing global experiential marketing job postings, we gathered some data to create a profile of the characteristics experiential event marketers will need to succeed.

Demographics

Priorities

Goals

Metrics

Challenges

How Do Experiential Marketers View Events?

An experiential marketer’s role is to provide customers with authentic experiences related to a product or company. In a way, experiential marketing is a form of immersive storytelling, focused on a brand or product’s story.

What Experiential Marketing Technology Is Out There?

In the beginning of experiential marketing, companies would hold sampling shows or events to directly engage the consumers. More specifically, these companies would allow their customers to sample their products, at no or deeply discounted costs, in hopes that their sampling would lead to brand interest and a future purchase.

Thanks to technological innovations in experiential marketing, companies can now use technology to reach consumers or event attendees and digitally implement their experiential marketing campaigns. Experiential marketing technology can also be used to solve some of the challenges listed above.

Email Marketing Products

Experiential marketers can use email marketing products to effectively market and promote email marketing campaigns to promote their experiential event.

Mobile Event Apps

With over 5 billion people using mobile smartphones, experiential marketers can use mobile event apps to help promote their experiential campaigns or events.

Event Registration Apps

Since registration tends to be an attendee’s first experience with an experiential marketers’ event, it is important for you to provide attendees with a good first impression.

Surveys and Polling Products

Experiential marketers can use the survey and polling feature offered in some mobile event apps, to capture their attendees’ reactions before, during, and after the experiential event.

Wearables

Wearables have become essential for event planners, and now for experiential marketers too.

Event Goal and Analytic Products

Some event management software products can help experiential marketers identify what their customers, or event attendees, value.

Experiential marketing technology not only incorporates the most traditional technology tools, emerging technology trends are also used.

Virtual Reality (VR)

Virtual reality, a computerized environment where users can interact with specific content in a three-dimensional manner, can be used by experiential marketers.

Live Streaming

Live streaming, like Facebook Live, can also be used by experiential marketers to build brand awareness and attract more attendees.

Facial Recognition Technology

Facial recognition technology should be added to experiential marketer’s toolkit.

IN CONCLUSION

The uses of event management and event industry technology are not limited to traditional events. Experiential marketers can use the event industry’s best technologies, like mobile event apps, email marketing products, and wearables to further communicate with consumers, making the connection between the customer and the brand stronger.

Also, adding in-house experiential marketing teams and services is critical. Experiential marketers need to be integrated with product and event campaign development. Doing this will help ensure that the company’s story and long-term brand strategy will be advertised in a meaningful, relatable way to the target audience.