Networking meet-and-greets, trade shows and conferences are some of the most tried-and-true events in the business world. However, those traditional events can feel somewhat bland and uninspiring for veteran attendees. In recent years, many brands have turned to experiential marketing fabrication as a tactic for creating memorable, engaging events.
What Is Experiential Marketing?
If you’ve ever been to a traditional trade show, you’re probably familiar with the idea of stopping by various companies’ booths and collecting brochures or other promotional materials. While you might chat briefly with the exhibitors, those interactions are probably not exciting or thought-provoking.
In contrast, a brand that uses experiential marketing at events is deliberately crafting an opportunity for participants to interact with their business. Companies that invest in experiential marketing know that events are about more than selling a specific number of tickets or reaching a target headcount. Instead, the goal should be to treat attendees to a compelling, memorable experience that gets people talking.
What Makes Experiential Marketing Such a Valuable Strategy?
According to Forbes, experiential marketing can build a lasting connection between customers and your brand. It can also let you collect details about your attendees’ demographics and interests, which you can then use to refine your audience segmentation and craft more compelling messaging.
In marketing, one of your primary goals is to educate people about your unique value proposition, but your message won’t resonate with your audience if it doesn’t stand out amid the sea of information surrounding everyone at every waking moment. If you’re wondering why you should try investing in experiential marketing, consider this: Most people automatically ignore or actively avoid advertising, but they will go out of their way to seek new and interesting experiences.
If you’ve never tried experiential marketing before, here are some tips for making your next event unforgettable.
1. Promote It Online
Conventional marketing efforts like mass emails will only reach a small fraction of your audience, at best. Most people receive hundreds of emails per day, many of which get blocked by increasingly stringent spam filters. If you’re planning an interactive event, try marketing via social media instead.
Create a unique hashtag for the event, use it frequently and ask any sponsors or partners to do the same. Designate someone on your team to live-tweet from the event, using the same hashtag for each tweet. Make sure to promote the hashtag to event participants and encourage them to share it with their followers, too. And, if you want to go viral, reach out to our team to build you custom props for attendees to pose with. You can look forward to photo opportunities galore, leading to free promotion for your brand!
2. Commission a Custom Trade Show Booth
Pop-up displays might be convenient, but they’re hardly eye-catching. Why be like everyone else when your goal in exhibiting at a show is to stand out from everyone else in a crowded convention space? At MadeFirst, we specialize in building custom displays and event installations for companies of all sizes. No matter how adventurous your vision is, we’ll help bring it to life.
3. Find a Reliable Partner
If you’re gearing up to host an event this year and would like to incorporate experiential marketing, contact us at MadeFirst. We are proud to provide full-service creative design and fabrication with a detail-oriented, customer-first mindset. Our team will be your trusted partner from concept to installation. View our project portfolio to learn more about our capabilities.