Traditional conference formats can come off as lackluster and even boring. With so many companies and conferences each year, audiences want a change of pace and something fresh and unique.

In the past, corporate conferences typically included speakers, some brochures or pamphlets, and maybe some snacks and beverages or full meals depending on the length. A traditional format doesn’t work for everyone. It can be hard to capture and hold people’s attention when they’re being bombarded with speaker, after speaker, after speaker.

If you’re holding corporate conferences that continue on a path of tell, tell, tell without offering a chance to experience your message, you’re missing a golden opportunity. This is where experiential marketing can turn a conference into an amazing experience that keeps attendees talking.

What Is Experiential Marketing?

Experiential marketing, sometimes referred to as engagement marketing, is a form of marketing where you’re engaging your target audience and creating a memorable experience. They get to interact with you, which helps establish a connection. Because there’s constant interaction, it’s a useful tool in turning a corporate conference from hours of boring lectures into a hands-on event where people learn, gain inspiration, and walk away with valuable insights.

How Does Experiential Marketing Help Make a Conference Shine?

A corporate conference is packed with like-minded individuals in a specific industry or who want to gain insights into specific topics. That gives you a foundation to build upon. Most conferences use passive techniques like speakers, Q&A sessions, and some random demonstrations with audience members. For the most part, people sit down, listen, and don’t do much else.

It’s that “don’t do much else” that becomes boring. Once someone starts to feel bored, they’ll notice they’re uncomfortable in that seat. At this point, they want to get up and stretch, and that could mean they leave the event early.

When they’re engaged, they’re going to be distracted from other elements like an uncomfortable seat or room that’s colder or warmer than they like. Keeping everyone engaged can seem hard, but with experiential marketing, it’s not. There are numerous benefits to using experiential marketing in your corporate conference.

Build Strong Professional Networks

As people are engaged and active in a corporate conference, they start to meet and get to know others in their field or niche. That helps them build strong networks that will last throughout their careers.

Form Deeper Connections to Your Event’s Message and Takeaways

When the attendees have hands-on activities, they’ll form a deeper connection to the message the conference intends to share. They’ll learn more and have lasting memories of what they did, what they said, and what they learned.

Improve Your Conference’s Branding

Any venue, event planning team, or brand has to keep focused on how others perceive them. When you establish a conference that captures the audience’s attention and leaves them feeling that “wow,” they’ll tell others how much fun they had.

Whether you’re the event planner, host of a corporate conference, or venue hosting the event, branding matters. It’s what gets others to come to you having heard what an amazing conference was held. Attendees will talk to others, which generates interest for future events. Your brand gets the recognition it deserves and draws fresh interest.

Increase Attendees’ Collaboration and Participation

When you’re coming up with activities that draw the audience in, they’ll share more ideas and take the feedback they get to heart. Instead of being bombarded with information and no practical chance to use it, they get to explore, learn from their strengths and weaknesses, adjust perspectives, and learn more. The sharing of insights and information drives messages home in powerful, lasting ways.

Receive Trackable ROI and Measurable Results

Any company, organization, or venue needs to keep track of its ROI. You’ve spent thousands on a corporate conference, and you need to know the money was well spent. It’s hard to track how well you did when you used a traditional format for your conference.

Unlike traditional conference formats, experiential marketing allows you to track and measure its impact.  By analyzing engagement metrics, social media activity, and attendee feedback, you can gauge the effectiveness of your initiatives and make adjustments for future events.

You have social media posts that tag you and make it easy to see what attendees thought of the experience. If there are any negatives, you can use that information to tweak future conferences. You’ll know immediately what worked, what didn’t, and what to do next time.

Strategies for Incorporating Experiential Marketing Into a Conference

Those are the benefits of incorporating experiential marketing strategies into your corporate conference. How do you integrate them?

Brainstorm Ideas

Any experiential marketing campaign involves brainstorming sessions to determine what approaches might work. As you generate several ideas, you can bounce them around and narrow down your list. You have to start by identifying your goals.

Is your conference meant to teach sales professionals about the benefits and use of a new line of appliances? Are you looking to raise awareness of the values your company has? Are you helping industry leaders discover the value of personalized customer service?

Once you have defined your goals, it’s easier to figure out the best experiential marketing approaches.

Do Some Research on Your Attendees

You can’t develop an experience if you don’t know your target audience. Get to know your attendees. What’s the average age range or are you going to have all ages at your conference? If they’re older, they may not appreciate having influencers for talks as much as a younger audience member would. A younger member may not enjoy longer video presentations and prefer TikTok-length snippets.

Attendees who have decades of experience in their field won’t need the same build-up that someone just starting out needs. You have to figure out how to meet everyone in the audience to ensure they don’t feel left out at any point.

Tap Into the Senses

An experience is more than seeing something or getting to touch it. Make sure your event taps into every possible sense. They can hear a presentation, but the use of VR headsets could draw them into the setting in an exciting, hands-on way. It’s harder to tap into senses like smell and taste, but the foods you serve can do that. If you opt for reminiscent scents, it will go a long way to establishing a connection that attendees won’t forget.

Tell a Story

Your entire conference has to be cohesive and tell a story. When you use a storytelling method, you create touch points along the way that the audience won’t forget. They might not remember every little detail of your conference, but they’ll remember the key points and can keep sharing them to build excitement for your next conference.

Use Social Media to Your Benefit

Have attendees who are encouraged to join you on social media and share your hashtag in images they share with friends and colleagues. That makes it easy to see how far the buzz you generate travels. It also gives them the chance to interact with you once the conference is over. The goal should be to form a lasting connection.

Experiential Marketing Ideas That Help Build Memorable Events

Coming up with the perfect approach is tough, but it’s not impossible. Be creative. Some corporate event organizers have had great success with VR stations for sales teams to explore a new product line before it’s fully hands-on.

Another idea is a skill-building workshop where teams compete in fun trivia events and win prizes along the way. The idea is to think of things you would find entertaining and memorable and incorporate them.