03.06.23
By Lisa Major
Garnering reach and impressions is one of the most valuable aspects of experiential marketing efforts. Brands want to get in front of their target consumers in the most impactful way. Of course, awareness is the priority, but making a positive impression is just as crucial for audiences to remember your brand and their experience after the live activation. When executing an experiential marketing event, these four things can help you maximize your reach and create high-impact exposure for your brand.
But not just any event or venue. Find the festival, expo, fan convention, retail outlet, sporting event, etc., that aligns best with your target audience. Remember that if you have a niche target, a large-scale, mass-appeal event might not be the right fit since there is a potential for wasted impressions. But, if you’re seeking more eyes on your brand, integrating your message within a larger venue is a strong play for reaching highly engaged, enthusiastic fans with an infrastructure for brand marketing already in place.
If you want all the attention on your brand – rather than sharing the spotlight at larger events – look for opportunities to present your brand in a public space that invites conversations. For example, pop-up experiences and branded art installations are popular stand-alone tactics that rely on a unique public experience with a share-worthy appeal. But you can’t depend on the physical experience itself to see success. You need brand ambassador teams to convey messaging, create conversations, encourage social sharing, facilitate photo ops, and provide support for the activation.
The best experiential marketing campaigns produce a lot of shareable moments for exponential reach. It’s essential to consider how to use the power of social media during and after your activation. Start by planting seeds with your consumers for future touchpoints or occasions to engage. This is where tactics like digital swag or discounts, sweepstakes, or teasing future events can send consumers on a brand journey giving them multiple opportunities to engage with your brand along the way. While experiential marketing certainly benefits from creative social integrations to capture the attention of those not in attendance, social media should only be used to deliver a message; it shouldn’t be the extension tactic AND the message.
Finally, when considering experiential extensions and future touchpoints on the customer journey, make sure there is a clear call to action during each brand interaction. For example, if reach and impressions are the most important goals in your strategy, then the call to action should align with that (i.e., ask audiences to share, post, and tag). Also, consider if your brand could benefit from a referral program as a campaign integration. Or promotional rewards? Event marketing and brand activations are excellent vessels for storytelling that introduce ways to connect down the road – and having those calls to action ready to deliver upfront is the way to go.
With the fractured media landscape revolving around many hyper-targeted digital campaigns, high reach among a large target audience is rare. The investment needed to impact a large target is unattainable for most brands; thus, the appeal of experiential marketing has grown. With the right strategy, brands can expect high-impact results from events and activations that puts key messaging in front of the right people.
ATN Event Staffing delivers top-tier talent to generate brand engagement among your target customers. Our expertise makes the hiring process of event teams and brand ambassadors a seamless part of your planning process. Our partners look to us for regional and national events, where we’ve provided experiential professionals for over two decades.
