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Building customer relationships through experiential marketing

Sally Durcan, Director of Hotcow Experiential Agency blog
By Sally Durcan  //  Mon 25th March 2013
With consumers growing skeptical about the ways that brands are marketing to them, live experiences will ensure that your marketing efforts don’t fade into the background.

The main point of experiential marketing is to establish a stronger relationship between a brand and a consumer through one-to-one interaction. This form of marketing covers a wide-range of 'experiences', which triggers consumers’ senses and emotions and influences behaviour. Brands such as Red Bull and Disney use this as the base of their communication, whilst others use it to support specific promotions.

There is a famous quote by Confucius (551-479 BC) that says: “Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I will understand;'' We now live in the experience economy where brands are required to be more authentic in their approach, and come up with new ideas, concepts and solutions to make consumers lives easy and interesting. Brands that are constantly encouraging participation, creativity and collaboration of consumers are those that are wining the pounds.

Experiential marketing is more than just slapping on an event or handing out a product sample. It is designed to build an emotional connection with consumers in ways that are more memorable and relevant for both the brand and the audience. Consumers value brands that pull out all the stops to create unique experiences; and with social media empowering consumers to share their own experiences, they are aware of how their actions can impact on brand development.

Many big brands have been using crowdsourcing and embracing the co-creation trend to build customer relationships for the long term. However, no matter how loyal your customers may be, temptations from competitors are never far away. Ensure that you are listening to and engaging with your consumers in two way communications.

Experiential gets people talking about your brand. With word of mouth being the most trusted source of information, experiential activities can be highly beneficial to your brand presence and sales. Focusing on delivering experiences is an ideal way of developing relationships and bonds that then enable the brand to grow over time. Thus, to build a solid customer experience, a truly unique and consistent creative elements will make your brand prevail within the consumers mind.

Experiential marketing works best when:
- Your activity is appealing, engaging and personal
- Your staff are well briefed
- The activity is part of an integrated marketing campaign
- The right customer groups are accurately targeted
- The product is easily demonstrated

Visit Hot Cow's website here
Building customer relationship through experiential marketing Sally Durcan Hotcow Blog
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