Insights

Six Strategies to Slam Dunk the “WOW” Factor Consumers Desire

When was the last time you considered the message you're sending to your audience? Are you focusing on the right areas when promoting your brand? Focusing more on sales can be counterproductive if it means sacrificing quality engagements. Is your marketing strategy delivering the results you expected? What are the secrets to giving your customers the "wow" factor they desire?

Learn as much as you can about your target market

Learn as much as you can about your target market. Before you do anything else, you need become acquainted with your target market. If you're promoting items or services to people of all ages, how do you connect with them?

Live chat service may not be suited for older customers. They may want to work using a toll-free number. Consider how you prefer to interact with businesses. Inquire of other employees to gather a diverse sample of ages and personality types. An extrovert may prefer virtual video conferencing to face-to-face meetings, but an introvert dislikes being on camera.

Are you targeting the right age group with your service or product? Assume you've developed a waterproof sunscreen apparel line. You intend to market the items to teenagers and young adults who frequent the beach.

You're disregarding the impacts of sun damage on middle-aged adults, such as suspicious moles and sunspots. When they're outside in their gardens, walking the dog, or having lunch at an outdoor café, they're seeking for sun protection. By focusing solely on young adults, you're missing out on a sizable market.

Give Them More Than They Expected

Do more than is anticipated when it comes to marketing your brand. If you continue to surprise your consumers, they will tell their friends. Those friends notify their friends, and the news quickly spreads to thousands

A pop-up restaurant set up by a frozen vegetable business was one example of marketing shocks. They invited people to dinner, and when they went to pay, they discovered that they could get the meal for free if they shared it on social media. The news spread swiftly. A free lunch shocked customers, and the company's reputation received a lot of favourable feedback and remarks.

Keep Your Promises

You must follow through on your promises. If your brand's promises aren't being kept, it's time to reevaluate your message. Reduce the size of your brand's message to guarantee that you offer more than you promised. Consumers will be irritated if you make a lot of promises and then fail to keep them.

A shipment of holiday teas arrived with fuzzy black patches of what seemed to be mold, according to one business. Despite having it tested by a lab and being informed that it was not harmful, shoppers were still anxious. The company supplied free tea replacements, which was a fantastic response to the complaints. Customer support, on the other hand, never responded to voicemails, emails, or text messages from customers seeking replacements.

If you make a commitment, make certain you keeps it. You don't want to be the brand that receives a slew of negative reviews and complaints because your customer service and public relations departments failed to respond

Never Delay a Response

Do you have a presence on social media? Is there a "contact us" page on your website that includes an email, phone number, or live chat button that customers can use to contact you? Those are ideal platforms for giving your brand's marketing strategy a personalised touch.

How often does your team read every message that comes into the office? Are there too many questions for the staff to handle? Do they answer within a reasonable amount of time? Your customer service personnel should not take weeks to respond to a customer. Some of your customers will be irritated if you ignore communications or respond slowly.

When dealing with customers, you must be consistent and prompt. If you don't have staff checking those messages, don't have an online contact form. If you post something on social media and enable comments, make sure someone is watching them and responding. If you can't keep up with the comments, hire extra people or temporarily disable commenting.

Personalise The Experience

Have you ever contacted customer care of a brand and received a generic response that you knew was given to everyone? What impression did it leave on you of that brand? Consider your favourite brands and what they do to keep you interested. Why do you keep returning? People frequently rank companies that personalise the experience at the top of their favourites lists.

Do you recall how, a few years ago, Coca-Cola began printing people's names on cans? Customers went to great lengths to locate their identities and purchase the merchandise. It was such a small modification, but it made a big difference. Coca-Cola saw a rise in sales after 11 years of declining sales.

Making an impression with a personal touch goes a long way. When using a social media marketing strategy to engage with customers, be as personal as possible. Make contact with customers by using their names.

Consider UI/UX designs, in which you take a step back and consider the entire user experience with your product or service. Consider what it's like to be in the shoes of the customer when they investigate products,bexamine your brand more closely, try your product or service, and continue the trip from there.

Say Thank You Often And Mean It

Once you've established a loyal customer base, make sure to thank them on a regular basis. Make sure you mean it when you say it! When a marketing strategy includes product sample, be sure to thank customers for taking the time to test it out. Solicit their comments, both positive and negative, so that you may use it to improve future items.

Think beyond simple yes/no questions when asking for input. The use of open-ended questions makes a significant effect. Ask instead, "What three things did you love or would change?" instead of "Did you find the product useful?" In this case, a robust public relations strategy is beneficial.

With open-ended inquiries, you'll obtain better feedback on the components of marketing that need to be changed as well as what's doing well. Thank customers for their feedback with a thank you present, such as a 10% discount on a future purchase. Make certain that customers are thanked for their time.

Improving Brand Experience Through Experiential Marketing

Experiential marketing has shown to be the most effective strategy to improve brand experience time and time again. The brand experience refers to how a consumer feels when interacting or engaging with your brand and its products. What one consumer thinks of your brand may not be the same as what another thinks. Nonetheless, all of that feedback is critical. It helps you understand how to best get your message over, whether it's good or terrible.

The Benefits of Experiential Marketing

It had been proven that experiential marketing is 5 times more affective than traditional marketing.

Following an experiential marketing event, 98 percent of guests wrote blog post post or made a video about their experience, which they all posted on social media.

Attendees or viewers of an experiential marketing campaign report feeling more hopeful about a brand 91% of the time. Following their encounter, nearly three-quarters are more likely to purchase a product or service. Half of people say that getting a sample or trying a product before buying it makes them more likely to buy it. Finally, over other marketing tactics, 65 percent of consumers believe that an experience helps them better comprehend the product.

What are the most effective strategies for marketing departments to deliver a memorable experience? An informative social media, live or virtual events and demos, and in-store deals are the top three. These are the most effective solutions for store-based experiential marketing efforts.

Discounts such as in-store coupons - 64%
Food and beverage options while shopping – 30%
Personalised shopping experiences - 18%
Demonstrations of product - 18%
Live entertainment - 17%

How do you meet consumers' desires if that's what they want? This is where your campaign must consider the various methods in which consumers might interact with your brand.

Explore the different types of Experiential Marketing

You must devise an experiential marketing strategy that makes sense and is within your budget. There are so many possibilities, and you can choose from as many as you like. You have a lot of room to wow your target audience with experiential marketing.

Events - Live/Virtual

In-person (live) or virtual(online) events are both possible. It allows you to engage with your consumers through Q&A sessions, instructional seminars, or enjoyable events such as live concerts or trade exhibits. During the pandemic, virtual events gained popularity, and many companies are now offering them.

When a group of sellers in the United Kingdom realised that the epidemic was closing the town's outdoor market, they decided to bring the market online in the form of a virtual trade show/exposition. The Aylesbury Virtual Market was so successful for the sellers that it quickly grew to over 200 enterprises and 3,000 other members marketing and selling their wares through the online farmer's market.

Geurrilla Marketing

A guerrilla marketing event draws the consumer's attention in an unexpected way. This marketing strategy may go into the realm of installations or be something entirely new. The idea is to surprise consumers and leave them eager to take photos and tell others about what they've witnessed. FOMO.

Crayola created a magnificent guerrilla marketing campaign. A big box of crayons lies on the rooftop, tipped such that the crayons appear to be falling to the ground. The large crayons are attached to the crayon box, but the connectors are difficult to see.

Installations

A brand installation can go into the realm of guerrilla marketing. It's a type of marketing in which a company constructs a structure in a public space. This installation draws people's attention and encourages them to photograph and share what they've observed.

Pantene used a clever marketing strategy to promote their anti-breakage hair care range. Giant braids were designed by the marketing team and hung from third-story windows in chosen places. A man was halfway up the braid, heading towards the open window. The anti-breakage products were given out as samples to the throng.

Mobile Tours

Consumers are introduced to brands through mobile tours. Set up your event in areas where your target audience is likely to be shopping or running errands, and you'll reach more people.

Wyman's put on a successful mobile tour that took them to businesses, parks, and festivals. They transformed a van into an old truck with a large load of wild blueberries. Consumers were given vouchers and samples of Wyman's products. Consumers could also spin a wheel for a chance to win prizes such as branded playing cards or t-shirts. In addition, brand advocates were on hand to find out which fruits consumers wanted to see included in future Wyman's Just Fruit Cup offerings.

PR Stunts

PR stunts, like guerilla marketing, are meant to capture people's attention in a big way.

Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty" is an example of a successful public relations stunt in which regular ladies took the place of professional models in advertising campaigns. This campaign resulted in a 700% increase in sales.

Sampling

When you enter a warehouse shop, the first thing you'll notice is a cart with a product demonstrator handing out samples. If the marketing campaign is for a food product, the product demonstrator may prepare a meal and serve bite-sized portions. Others may distribute pre-packaged laundry detergent or cleaner samples. Consumers can try out products at home to see how they taste and how well they operate. If the marketing event is a success, it will encourage more people to buy the product.

Phratboys Experiential - RSA

Why Companies Are Using Experiential Marketing More Than Ever

Consumers are engaged with experiential marketing when they are given the opportunity to interact with your product or brand. Experiential marketing is the most effective marketing strategy for any company.

When an experience marketing campaign works well, 100% of consumers share information with their friends, 98 percent post on social media, and 91% report having stronger, favourable thoughts about a brand after connecting with them. Consumers who visit live events or other experiential marketing campaigns are more likely to buy your goods or service by 74 percent. These are the primary reasons why experiential marketing is being used by more businesses than ever before.

During the epidemic, businesses focused on internet marketing events. People who don't like going out into large crowds could attend an experiential marketing event, which proved just as successful, if not more so. Experiential marketing has a tremendous reach.

What Kind Of Experiential Marketing Events Work Best

The three most common forms of events organised by brands are conferences, trade exhibitions, and webinars. Is that a good match for customers? Maybe not. Consumers think they learn the most about a company from its website, experiential marketing events, and store displays. These are some considerations to make as you prepare your marketing event.

Whatever type of event you are planning, you'll need to think outside the box. Consider what consumers would like to see and do, and then create a website or social media page that provides them with any additional information they require. Here are a couple of recent examples of successful experiential marketing campaigns.

Simmons & TikTok

Simmons has been making mattresses for almost a century. People were unable to attend live events because to the pandemic, so Simmons created the #snoozzzapalooza campaign, which encouraged people to conduct a "stage dive" in their own homes on their beds and share the videos on TikTok.

The campaign was a huge success, with over six billion views and over a million videos shared. With this marketing strategy, Simmons' website traffic climbed by 104 percent. It also assisted the century-old corporation in reaching out to a younger demographic.

Travis Scott & Fortnight

When COVID halted all live performances, Fortnite's creators joined up with rapper Travis Scott to create an event that both gamers and music fans would enjoy. Astronomical was made into a live online event for Fortnite gamers to celebrate the release of his new single.

Anyone who downloaded the free online game from Epic Games was able to see Scott's game icon performing the song. Attendees received free gifts within the game.

Nearly 30 million people tuned in for the 15-minute concert. Scott received more money and viewers as a result of it than he would have received from a typical concert performance.

What Do Consumers Want From An Experiential Brand Campaign

Attendee-only discounts are the most efficient techniques to get customers to purchase your product at your marketing event. Other popular ways to attract consumers include food and beverages, live entertainment, personalised shopping experiences, and product demonstrations.

Keep the following tips in mind when it comes to experiential marketing. Consumers will pay to attend a marketing event in about 33% of cases. After trying a brand's goods, approximately 8.5 out of 10 customers bought it. A trial of some kind, according to half of consumers, enhances the likelihood of purchasing a product.

What are the greatest marketing methods to use in order to achieve your objectives? You can choose from a variety of choices, including:

Events/Virtual
Geurilla Marketing
Installations
Pop Ups
PR Stunts
Sampling

There is a better solution if you are concerned about not being able to afford a complete marketing crew. Discuss your objectives with Phratboys Experiential.

Martin Napiane - MD Phratboys Experiential RSA

How To Do An Experiential Marketing Campaign

Marketers all across the world are beginning to recognise the immense power of experiences as a marketing tool. Experiential marketing, rather than using more traditional media, leaves a lasting impression and builds closer relationships with consumers.

Here's everything you need to know about making memorable experiences:

You may ask what is Experiential Marketing?

Experiential marketing focuses on allowing consumers to have a unique experience with a brand by immersing them in the product. This strategy is increasingly becoming an engrained concept among marketers and one that may be used by any brand. The overarching strategy's main goal is to involve consumer in the marketing and sales process in a way that is convenient for them.

This enables consumers to form a more intimate connection with a brand when they are immersed in an experience rather than being talked to by a billboard ad.

So you think you're up for the challenge? Let's dig deeper into why this method works.

An experiential marketing campaign has several moving elements, including research, planning, execution, and measurement. It then becomes crucial in working with the right agency partners who will be able to tick off on all the boxes. The following are the most important points to be aware of:

Budget:

For any new campaign, the budget should always be your top priority. You'll be able to strategise more efficiently and successfully if you know the size and scope of the campaign.

Strategy:

Gather all of your stakeholders to talk about your event's goals, as well as logistics, tactics, and measurement. Determine what they consider to be a successful event.

Operations:

Define team responsibilities and a plan of action. Frequently and successfully communicate with your staff, vendors, and show organisers.

Giveaways:

Promos let you stand out from the crowd. Choose the incentives that will most effectively communicate your Unique Value Proposition to the target audience

Promotional Incentives:

Make a buzz about your event by focusing on what makes it unique. Perhaps the draw will be for a good cause, with special prizes, never seen before tech or celebrity appearances.

Measuring:

Measure the outcomes after the event to gauge your success. Did you achieve your objectives? What can you do to improve? Sponsors, stakeholders, clients, and other partners should be informed about best practices and critical learnings.

Martin Napiane - MD Phratboys Experiential RSA

Innovations Based on Trends We Notice

Rewind to April 2020, when the experiential landscape shifted dramatically, forcing marketing and brand professionals to adopt new communication strategies. We all wanted to "return to the way things were" back then. The pivot, however, is only temporary: the greatest marketers are now converting their strategies to be a hybrid of the old (mostly IRL) and the new (totally VIRTUAL), in order to become the new normal: HYBRID

This creates both opportunities and difficulties. So let's prepare to embrace the new normal of the hybrid world to come.

Opportunity: Create experiences that are scalable across multiple interactions and have a higher return on investment.

The challenge was to provide the experience to diverse audiences while staying within a set budget.

Here are two strategies for bolstering our foresight:

Take a human-first approach, which means putting oneself into the lives of your audiences and participants. Consider the difference between a TV viewer and a stadium spectator in sports. The in-person fan gets the intensity of the crowd, the bourie, and the chance to be on the stadium big screen, while the TV watcher gets replays, stats, and new views. Both are valuable, but each is tailored to the media. Pointing a couple of cameras at a live event isn't enough to produce a viable remote experience, and it's probably bad for the brand.

Budget - So, how can you produce two distinct experiences within the same budget? Consider a longer-term CapEx investment to support your virtual initiatives, where the same live streaming machinery can be simply adapted for events of all sizes. Because virtualisation isn't going away anytime soon, making an investment - over time and across numerous projects - could be a sensible sell to your Finance Director. In terms of physical activity, now is the time to employ our imaginations and use settings that need attention and are thus more cost-effective.

We at Phratboys are looking forward to the new hybrid experiential norm!

Experiential Marketing Explained

Experiential marketing, often known as "interaction marketing," is a type of marketing that allows customers to connect with a Brand in a real-world setting. The Brand can show consumers not just what it sells, but also what it stands for, by using interactive, hands-on, and tactile branding materials.

Experiential marketing may sound similar to event marketing, which is understandable given that experiential campaigns are typically event-based. However, as the instances we chose demonstrate, there are times when they have nothing to do with a specific event.

When an engagement marketing strategy is event-centric, it focuses on interactions between the brand and the customer rather than the type of event (concert, festival, conference, etc.). If you already have an event planned, have a look at this approach to incorporating experiential aspects.

What Do Experiential Marketers do:

A live, interactive marketing campaign or in-person event's plan is created and executed by an experiential[experience] marketer.

The responsibilities of an experience marketer are comparable to those of a brand ambassador, event planner, or brand manager, and often include the following:

Create new experiential marketing campaigns that raise brand recognition, engage with the consumer, and promote a good brand discernment.
Conduct market research to determine which types of experiential marketing initiatives will be most effective with a particular target audience.
Create live, interactive campaigns or events to help businesses connect with their target audience more successfully.
Take charge and lead in event management and planning.
Track and provide analytics on the performance of experiential campaigns.
Collaborate with multi-functional teams such as brand, creative, digital, social, and public relations.
As needed, go to events to guarantee vendor compliance and execution, as well as sales assistance and overall event success.

Experiential marketing can help customers form long-lasting bonds with brands. It also enables you to collect critical data about participating consumers, which can then be used to improve your strategy.

The main goal is to have a physical, offline experience with a business, but you'll also want to have an online conversation about it.

It makes sense to include a digital aspect when 49 percent of people create smartphone video during branded events, with 39 percent of that footage being shared on Twitter. For example, a branded hashtag can get people talking about the event.

So, when it comes to developing a brand experience, don't be scared to go outside the box — and don't be hesitant to collaborate with others.

Spend some time considering how people might interact with you, even if it seems a little crazy. People will talk about it in the greatest possible way if it's in line with what you do and executed thoughtfully.

Martin Napiane - MD Phratboys Experiential RSA

Tracking Consumer Emotions From Experience Into Sales

While we are pleased about the creative challenges and opportunities that hybrid events have brought, we are perhaps even more excited about the increased measurability of experiential marketing.

Phratboys' strategy efforts have always been centred on connecting final creative production to marketing ROI. Trackability is simple for some projects: time of stay for B2B experiences, number of posts beyond contracted amounts for influencer campaigns; but, larger consumer experiences might be difficult to follow. While social mentions are a good indicator of whether or not an in-person experience reached the proper target audience and evoked the desired emotion, tracing the word-of-mouth influence of a new brand fan is a difficult task.

Digital advertising has clear tools to evaluate cost-per-click. While less precise, traditional marketing has well-established tools to estimate reach, ranging from the Nilson ratings to the Kanter research of the world. Of course, experiential still being in its infancy, tools are still bubbling up and standards have yet to gain industry-wide recognition.While some solutions, such as Network Ninja, have evolved over time, the expansion of IRL event audiences to digital audiences via hybrid is a huge potential for ROI tracking. The incorporation of hybrid-focused solutions, such as Glisser's, will provide ROI-focused experiential marketers with a real opportunity to reduce the gap between the emotionally-inducing event and the quantitative transaction.

We aren't quite there yet, but we are confident that the convergence of physical and digital marketing will further strengthen experiential marketing's growing influence as its outcomes become more and more visible to those clever marketers who keep watch. It's incredibly thrilling to think that we'll soon be able to track the formation of human connections to actual sales! Until then, we'll continue to evaluate all new tools that will improve the quantifiability of clients' experiences.

Martin Napiane - MD Phratboys Experiential RSA

The Greatest Pitches Never See The Light Of Day

Many agencies and creative people have a common complaint, they can’t sell their best work and wastes away sitting on hard-drives and cloud services. The mistake that we tend to make is to think and have the notion that great work will sell itself because we are dope at what we do and the work we produce. This however is a false assumption.

Great work has to be sold and at times can be extremely difficult to do so. Great work is unexpected, its different, its bold, daring and a game changer. As a game changer, it's unlike anything that client has ever seen before. Client expects the work to be mediocre, look just like most of the other work in the category, won’t ruffle any feathers, won’t get anyone fired(at least not right away) and in most part, it is safe.

As difficult as it may be to swallow the reality sandwich, if you want to do great work, you need to learn how to sell. As a creative I start getting heart palpitations just thinking about “selling”. All I want to do is tell you about this new and amazing work and how consumers are going to react to it and ultimately fall in love with.

However, for any chance for consumers to see this work I first need to sell it to client and make her believe and buy into it.

I must involve client in participating in the development of this game changer of an idea. Clients are looking for insight, conviction, wisdom and courage. To successfully capture your client you need to engage with her in the creative process and find ways to give her a chance to shine and sell yourself as a likeable collaborator.

Martin Napiane - MD Phratboys Experiential RSA