Influencer and experiential marketing are both methods that can bring a lot of life to your marketing plan. With that being said, a lot of brands don’t necessarily understand how to combine these two methods and create something truly unforgettable. Firstly, influencer marketing is where you leverage a personality for your brand that has a strong social following, in order to get your brand in front of thousands of faces that wouldn’t have normally seen your brand. Experiential marketing is the method of using real-life events or immersive events to bring more memorability and interaction to your marketing strategy. Let’s dive in and look at how you can merge the two together to create a powerhouse of a marketing strategy. 

Why Does Merging Influencer and Experiential Marketing Work? 

Influencer marketing and experiential marketing merge together authenticity and experience in order to create stronger customer trust. One thing that is important to know when it comes to consumer behavior is that people buy from brands that they trust, and both of these marketing strategies help to build that trust. Influencers are able to extend the reach of live events beyond just the physical attendees of the event by sharing on social media. Their influence alone is enough for people to want to support you. Audiences often crave those shareable and interactive moments that aren’t coming from regular marketing strategies. Something else to consider is the fact that this content will live well beyond the event, meaning that it will stay on their page, and it will be something that people can go back to and see your business or brand for years to come. 

How to Merge Influencer and Experiential Marketing?

Now, let’s get into how exactly this can be done and what steps you need to follow in order to get the most out of your marketing strategy. There are a few different things to consider, and overall, it’s important to look into what exactly you might want to know before opting for this strategy. 

Choose the Right Influencers for Experiential Campaigns

Not all influencers are created equally, and some of them would be better for online events, while others might be better for in-person events. It’s important to look at the relevance, authenticity, engaged following, and brand alignment of the influencer before settling on who you want to join in on the campaign. Then we need to look at macro-influencers vs micro-influencers. Macro-influencers often have a much larger following than micro-influencers. Look at their audience and determine which one would be best for experiential marketing, specifically. Overall, you should choose an influencer who is well-versed in in-person storytelling and content creation in order to get the most out of this partnership for experiential marketing. 

Design Your Campaign With Influencers in Mind

Because you’re adding an influencer to the mix, it’s important to create a campaign that stems from this. Creating an ‘Instagrammable” event is something that will be top of mind when working with an influencer, because you’re expecting them to share the event on social, shoot videos and photos, and get as many eyes on it as possible. 

Remember not to force the content on them and to let them interpret the experience authentically to their audience, but ensure that your brand message is clear. Some ways that you can create social-post worthy events is by adding in interactive zones, product demos, and immersive storytelling events, or you could even add in VR or AR to the event. The main point is just to ensure that your event is set up for social posts so the influencer can feel more confident in posting, and you are happy with the results of the content going out. 

Best Practices for Influencer and Experiential Marketing Merge

If you are considering merging these two marketing strategies, we have compiled some of our biggest tips and best practices for ensuring that you get the most out of the marketing campaign. Here are the best practices for merging influencer and experiential marketing: 

• Ensure you have your goals set for what you want out of the marketing campaign 
• Keep authenticity at the forefront and allow natural expression from the influencer instead of scripting 
• Ensure cohesive brand messaging across all areas 
• Leverage technology to make the experience more interactive, fun, and memorable 
• Consider exclusivity like VIP perks, influencer meet and greet, or product reveals

How Exactly Can Influencers Elevate an Experiential Marketing Campaign?

Now that you know how to set up your campaign for success, let’s look at how influencers can benefit and elevate your experiential campaign. There are many areas that they will bring benefits to when it comes to experiential campaigns. 

Pre-Event: When looking at the pre-event, they can help you build anticipation and excitement over the upcoming event. If they are posting about the event prior and ensuring their audience that they will be there, then this can entice more people to show up to the experiential marketing event. 

During Event: During the event, the influencer can do live coverage in the form of stories and LIVEs on different platforms. They will also be there to interact and engage with those who came to the event in person. 

Post-Event: After the event, they can share recaps, behind-the-scenes content, and showcase their own experiences at the event to help vouch for your brand and push people to support you. Then, the content they post will live on their feed and become something that people will see when looking for that influencer. 

Interested in Merging influencer and Experiential Marketing?

If you think that this marketing strategy is right for you, but are looking for a partner to make it all happen, then you’re in the right place. At Factory360, we have a team of skilled marketing experts who know the ins and outs of influencer marketing and experiential marketing to bring the best of both worlds to your brand. If you’re considering this strategy and want to know more about how we can make it happen for you, contact us, and let’s chat about how we can move forward and what your goals are for this campaign so we can bring you the best results possible.