The main goal of any marketing strategy, regardless of style or scope, is to gain the attention of consumers. Companies want to entice them to purchase their products or services. In this respect, experiential marketing is no different. However, upon closer inspection, experiential marketing proves to be a rather unique form of marketing that can impact buyer behaviors in an interesting way. This guide to how experiential marketing influences consumer behaviors will examine how this unique marketing strategy works to gain the attention of consumers and yield impressive results.
Encourages face-to-face marketing
Face-to-face marketing is a very important factor in securing client trust, and it’s a factor that experiential marketing campaigns do very well. By encouraging consumers to interact with the products and ask questions to company experts, consumers begin to feel more trust in the quality of the product and the reliability of the company as a whole. These in-person interactions also enable companies to deliver a more personal and natural call to action, though it often goes unnoticed by the consumer. The consumer will be more likely to adhere to an in-person call to action than they would if it was an internet pop-up. This is because the consumer now feels a personal connection with the brand.
Improves brand awareness
People tend to remember experiences much longer than they do simple facts, and it is in this respect that experiential marketing excels. By providing consumers with a unique and memorable shopping experience, a company can further improve its brand awareness and recognition. These experiential marketing events, in which companies invite consumers to interact with the products in a fun and innovative way, produce a higher recognition and recall rate. Consumers will forevermore associate the brand with their experience at the event, leading to a higher recall rate and long-lasting brand recognition. Consumers will then be more likely to select products from that particular brand due to their association with positive memories of the event.
Personalizes the shopping experience
Perhaps the most important factor in how experiential marketing influences consumer behaviors is its ability to create a personalized shopping experience. Unlike shopping at a large department store or browsing through online retailers, businesses treat customers at an experiential marketing event to a unique and interactive experience. Here, they can mold the shopping experience to meet buyers’ individual wants and needs. Customers can speak with experts or interact with the products as they see fit. This enables them to form a stronger personal connection with the brand and its offerings. To further the personalized shopping experience, many companies will even adapt their experiential marketing event to cater specifically to their target audience. Companies that design a custom mobile marketing trailer or pop-up shop that suits the individual needs of the target audience can create an even more personalized shopping experience.