Is experiential marketing worth the spend?
November 2022
Experiential campaigns are big investments for your business. Not just financially, but in terms of resources, time and people too. Understandably, you need to see quantifiable tangible results to justify the spend. And many business leaders may be reticent to front a cost without the certainty of seeing a strong ROI.
In this post, we want to break down exactly what you’ll be investing in when you partake in experiential marketing. By the end of this post, you should have an understanding of the bigger picture in terms of hard ROI and soft ROI, and how experiential activation can be the precursor to long-term success and customer loyalty.
So, if you’re considering investing in an experiential campaign, here’s exactly what that investment will bring you:
Brand exposure and awareness
Brand awareness is an example of soft ROI. By that we mean, a return on investment that isn’t immediately quantifiable or measurable but will directly feed tangible results to your business in the future. Here’s why it’s so important:
- 72% of consumers say they positively view brands that provide quality event experiences
- 74% are more likely to buy products promoted during event marketing experiences
- 98% of consumers participating in event or brand experiences create digital social content as a result
A brand experience can dictate how consumers perceive, interact, and therefore share knowledge about your brand. This can promote word of mouth and develop brand advocates. But the brand awareness goes further than the event. As stated above, 98% of consumers participating in the event share their experience on social media. And with 92% of consumers stating that they trust word of mouth, you can’t argue with those statistics!
An experiential event can also be tailored towards targeting new customers. For example, if you’d like to raise your brand awareness amongst younger audiences, a fun and immersive experience connected to social media can be a great way to entice younger demographics.
See also our blog post: ROI in experiential marketing
Memorable experiences
An experiential event is designed to be highly targeted and tailored to your specific audiences. So, if for example, that is existing customers and you wish for them to try a new product, the tailored elements help create more meaningful and memorable experiences. This promotes a more positive experience and interaction with your brand, nurturing the customer-brand connection. Why is this so crucial? Positive emotional connections are often more important to customers than satisfaction and result in increased customer loyalty. Investing in these experiences can also make it easier for customers to forgive your brand when mistakes are made because they already have an emotional affinity linked to your brand through memorable experiences.
Customer loyalty and recurring business
Experiential campaigns are a great opportunity to gather unfiltered insights and feedback from your targeted customers. This can help you define and understand customer perception, further supporting your long-term strategy and aligning your marketing with expectations. All of this is incredibly valuable in creating customer loyalty and recurring business. This is what soft ROI really is about; recognising the value of the long-term investment, and that while many campaigns can generate quick spikes in sales, brands need those insights to maintain that momentum and harness the initial engagement for the better of their business.
Sales are the end goal of any business, but experiential marketing allows you to mould the future of your business and its relationships with your customers. Customer loyalty is the key to longevity, so should be at the forefront of your strategy. The tangible returns will follow.
All of the above ultimately contributes to hard ROI in the form of sales increases and increased website traffic. Experiential activation is a holistic approach to any marketing strategy and works to build relationships, connections and brand awareness among your targeted audience. All of this ultimately results in tangible results and hard ROI, but the investment brings longevity with it too. Before you invest in experiential marketing, it’s important to identify the nuances between hard ROI and soft ROI, and how they are expected to impact your business. While sales spikes may not be immediate, they are likely to be more consistent over a longer period of time and encourage further engagement with your brand, which in our eyes, is harder to achieve through traditional marketing and is definitely a worthwhile investment!
If you’re interested in working with an experiential agency like Purity, feel free to get in touch with our team.
We’re always excited to hear from our readers and it’s great to learn more about your business and its objectives.
