The Best Experiential Marketing Strategies

You have a digital marketing strategy, a social media strategy, and a print media strategy, but does your brand have an experiential marketing strategy? If not, it’s time to get going.

Your customer base knows who your brand is. They flock to your Instagram, and they read your blog. But how can you get them even more engaged?

Do they know what it feels like to be IN your brand? Do they know how your brand tastes and smells?

These questions are central when it comes to experiential events and strategic marketing. In the words of Business News Daily, “Experiential marketing, or engagement marketing, is a marketing strategy that directly engages consumers and encourages them to participate in a brand experience.”

With that in mind, let’s take a look at 5 of our favorite experiential marketing strategies and tactics.

Be goal-oriented

The best experiential marketing strategy examples are deeply goal oriented. They plan KPIs and determine how to know if they were met. Consider, for example, that you were planning an experiential campaign to encourage long-term customer loyalty. The indicators of success would look very different from an event designed to raise brand awareness.

For each experiential marketing campaign consider your target audience, and how you can engage them in a memorable experience. Plan and execute your experiential strategy accordingly.

Be immersive

If you want to turn passersby into brand ambassadors, you’ll need to give them a truly memorable experience. An immersive event is a wonderful way to do just that.

You might opt for a pop-up store in the real world like the one we created for Clinique. Or you might plan a live event in virtual reality like we helped create for Basil Hayden's.

No matter which dimension you pick, be as immersive as possible.

Match your brand

A great experiential marketing strategy isn’t just about event management. It’s about making sure those events match your customers’ expectations from their engagement with your other marketing channels.

When we helped TikTok plan their global relaunch, we needed to help create an event that felt like what their deeply engaged “creator” audience expected the brand to feel like. 217 million social impressions told us we got it right.

Think outside the box

Don’t get lured into limiting your experiential strategy to just one type of predictable party, or one style of trade show. Think bigger, think more exclusive.

Plan events outside, plan them inside. Create experiences in your city and online, and plan augmented reality events in the Metaverse. Event marketing can be so much more than happy hours.

Bring in the pros

But we think that the best experiential marketing strategy is to bring in the pros. Creating moments for your audience is challenging, and that’s where GRADIENT can help. With over 14 years of experience creating memories, we’re confident we can help you to craft the perfect experiential marketing strategy.

Looking for some creative marketing help? Contact us today.