There are so many reasons experiential marketing makes sense for your company. At least 26, in fact! Here is our A to Z guide on what experiential marketing is and does for your brand.

Analytics: With any marketing endeavor it’s important to measure and analyze the success of your efforts. That’s where analytics come in. Experiential marketing experiences can be easier to analyze than other types of campaigns because it’s simpler to record the number of people who stopped by your booth or picked up a sample than the number of people who viewed a television or print ad. Any good experiential marketing firm will discuss analytics with you before and after your event. Make sure you ask them about their process during your initial interview.

Business: Businesses of all kinds can benefit from experiential marketing. Large business, small business, startups, and every business in between should consider this marketing tactic.

Connection: People are more likely to purchase products if they feel connected to a brand. And the best way for customers to feel connected to a brand is to experience it first-hand. That’s the power of experiential marketing: the ability to connect in a meaningful, personal way with customers.

Demographics: Experiential marketing allows you to hone in on certain demographics. If you want to target mothers with young children, you go to family-focused events. If your audience is students, you go to college campuses. If you’re trying to reach high net worth individuals, you go to events like Mercedes Benz Fashion Week (which we did with e-cigarette company NJOY).

Experiential marketing: We define experiential marketing as a form of marketing that focuses on helping consumers experience a brand. We combine time tested marketing principles with cutting edge event experiences to enhance brand awareness.

Feelings: Products sell best when consumers associate a positive feeling or emotion with them. The best way to create positive feelings is to give consumers a quality experience with your brand. People who came to a live event and had fun, met important people or learned about something they cared about with associate that experience with your brand. It will make them feel warm and fuzzy and more likely to buy from you in the future.

Guerilla marketing: Entrepreneur defines guerilla marketing as “an unconventional way of performing marketing activities on a very low budget.” Guerilla marketing can be a form of experiential marketing.

Human interaction: Even though we love emails and smartphones, people still crave human interaction. Experiential marketing is a great way to give it to them.

Interaction: By using their five senses, customers can physically interact with a brand and build a positive association. We believe interaction is one of the most important parts of experiential marketing.

Jukebox: True, jukeboxes have nothing to do with experiential marketing. But part of a good experiential marketing experience is keeping people on their toes and delivering something unexpected.

Knowledge: The best way to turn your customer into brand ambassadors is to educate them about your product. The best way to educate them about your product is to get them to engage with it for longer than it takes to watch a television commercial or read a Facebook post. Events are a great place to share knowledge with your fan base because you already have their undivided attention.

Live events: Most experiential marketing campaigns take place at some kind of live event. That can be a live event that you sponsor, such as a festival or product launch party, or it can be an event that someone else sponsors.

Multicultural marketing: The Wise Marketer defines multicultural marketing as targeting and communication to ethnic segments based on their diverse cultural framework. It’s also been called ethnic marketing and cross-cultural marketing. As diversity in the United States increases, brands that don’t create messages that appeal to a wide group of people risk missing a big part of the market segment. You’ll be encountering diverse groups of people at events, so it’s a good idea to think through how you can appeal to people with many different backgrounds and life experiences.

Nonprofits: Charities can benefit from experiential marketing too! Nonprofits want to spread a message and get customers to take action just like businesses do. Experiential marketing campaigns are great for that. Businesses looking to make giving back part of their experiential marketing campaigns may also want to partner with charitable organizations. It’s a win-win: the organization gets lots of recognition and resources but doesn’t have to do all the work.

Outrageous senses: One of the main goals of experiential marketing is to satisfy the senses and connect a consumer to the brand. A great experiential marketing campaign will leave your five senses feeling outrageous, in a good way!

Photos: Photographs and videos are a huge part of capturing and sharing the experiences people have at events. Make sure any experiential marketing campaign you set up has ample opportunities for people to shoot selfies, snaps and videos on their smartphones. The FactorySnap mobile photo activation app from Factory360 is one example of a platform that can help your brand’s experiential pictures go viral.

Questions: Experiential marketing events are a great time for existing and potential customers to ask questions, but it’s also a great time for you and your team to ask some questions as well. What are your goals with an experiential marketing campaign, and how does it fit within the other things you’re doing? Are you incorporating all the important facets of an experiential marketing campaign (social media, talent, etc.) thoughtfully and thoroughly? Are you putting your marketing dollars in the right place?

Return on engagement: This is one of the new buzz words in marketing. Rather than using “return on investment (ROI)” to measure the success of campaigns, marketers are being encouraged to look at their return on engagement (ROE). As the term implies, the Red Hot Marketing Blender explains that return on engagement means measuring how much your investment in engagement paid off. The figure may not come in dollars, but rather in things like engagement on social media, building loyalty, increasing referrals and ultimately increasing sales.

Social media: Social media is absolutely critical to any experiential marketing campaign. Sites like Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and Vine are how people spread your message for you. Any experiential marketing campaign should have an excellent plan for social media integration.

Talent procurement: You don’t want just anyone hanging out in your booth or distributing your product at an event. You want people who have a high likelihood of engaging and relating to your target audience. Factory360 can help you procure the appropriate talent for an experiential event. Our talent pool includes everyone from young people who speak like millennials to models willing to draw people into conversation.

Utter enjoyment: Positive experiences lead to strong memories. Part of experiential marketing campaigns is making sure consumers have a fun, positive and utterly enjoyable experience to connect them to the brand.

Value: Experiential marketing campaigns don’t have to be expensive. In fact, this piece on Spark Sheet gives several examples of major companies (American Express, Chobani and Converse) that believe a minimal investment in experiential marketing is making a big difference for them – and doesn’t cost any more than traditional methods like advertising.

WOW Factor: Anyone can market their product, but experiential marketing packs the WOW factor. By creating an over-the-top experience, consumers can more deeply connect to a brand and are more likely to become long term and even lifelong customers.

eXperience: Your job at an experiential marketing event is to make sure your user has an amazing time and builds a positive association with your brand. Think hard about your user experience and how you can make it the best event they’ve ever attended.

Y Generation: Better known as Gen Y or millennials. It seems like everyone is trying to target this age group (which includes people from 18 to 34 years old, according to the Pew Research Center). Experiential marketing is a perfect fit for Gen Y for a variety of reasons (link to previous article).

Zzzz: If experiential marketing is done correctly, there will be no “zzz’s” from your audience! Just fond memories, great pictures and perhaps a pocketbook that’s a bit lighter.

Do you need more about the ins and outs of experiential marketing? Do you need experts to help you implement your next experiential marketing campaign? Call Factory 360 today for all your experiential marketing needs!