► and what are the points of contact with your brand that you want to take advantage of.
Knowing all of this will help you think about a good brand activation that truly line database connects with your target audience, and also help you understand what you should make your main objective. Trying to make an activation cover everything will only force you to invest more resources with unfavorable results.
2. The objectives of the strategy
Sometimes people outside of marketing have a hard time understanding that it's not all about qualitative goals. That is, a higher number of sales is the goal of every effort, but sometimes you need to use other goals so that the inbound cycle doesn't lose momentum.
Once you figure out which aspect of your brand you should focus on, you can determine if your brand activation will be aimed at brand recognition , to introduce a new or existing product line, to enter another market, to capture leads that will feed your database, or even to get to know your buyer personas better.
The important thing is that you decide what matters at that moment and what you need to achieve to achieve it.
3. A creative team
Aim for a creative team that understands what you want to get to work, whether they're part of your company or you've hired an outside agency.
First, understand your goals and then find an idea that will put that into practice in an engaging, positive, and memorable way. Plus, you can adapt in-person events to digital ones (for example, the experiential marketing summit we talked about will be virtual this year ).
When the plan they want to implement is announced, make sure that they explain its development point by point and that at each stage of the process there is a way to verify that what you asked for from the beginning is being fulfilled.
Which brings us to the next point.
4. The KPIs you are going to measure
Find a key performance indicator (or KPI) that helps you measure the success of your strategy, in line with your main objective.
If you also have other goals in mind (perhaps your brand activation seeks to capture leads from potential influencers for future efforts, but it was also a success in terms of engagement on your social networks and your audience grew), record the corresponding indicators.
☛ 9 examples of experiential marketing campaigns ☚
1. Lean Cuisine: #WeighThis
As part of the campaign, Lean Cuisine featured a gallery of “scales” at New York’s Grand Central Station and invited women to “weigh themselves.”
But here's the interesting part: The scales were actually little whiteboards on which women could write how they wanted to weigh themselves. Instead of measuring their weight in pounds (or any other body-image measure), women chose to "weigh" their accomplishments, such as returning to college at age 55, caring for 200 homeless children every day, or being a single mother of four.
The best thing about this experience is that none of the participants interacted with a Lean Cuisine product. They were not interrupted or invited to try a product, nor were they stopped to ask questions. In fact, no one asked them for anything in particular.
What was shown was enough for them to decide to stop, observe and interact with the content voluntarily.
Lean Cuisine figured out the message they wanted to convey: “We sell products that fit into a healthy lifestyle; that’s true. But you shouldn’t forget your achievements. That’s much more important than the number on the scale.” However, instead of saying it so openly, they created an interactive experience to convey that message.
Still, the experience had a very clear brand identity to ensure that everyone associated it with Lean Cuisine. The main wall featured the company’s Twitter handle and a branded hashtag in large letters, allowing attendees to easily share the experience on social media. The effect was entirely positive: in total, the #WeighThis campaign generated more than 204 million impressions .
Lean Cuisine Video
☛Key points for marketers:
Don't interrupt, especially if you're trying to get people's attention in a city, like Lean Cuisine did. If you create an experience that offers value to visitors to the place, they're more likely to want to participate.
Define the message you want to send with your brand – it could be directly related to a product or something your brand hasn’t said yet. Then, create an experience based on that message.
2. Google: “Improving the San Francisco Bay Area”
There is no doubt that corporate philanthropy is on the rise these days, and Google is no exception. When the search giant decided to give $5.5 million to nonprofits in the San Francisco Bay Area, it did so in an unconventional, interactive way, allowing the public to decide where the money should ultimately go.
Google allowed online voting, but it also wanted users to get involved in a more tangible way. So they installed large interactive signs (in places like bus stops, food trucks, and restaurants) that neighbors could use to vote for a cause.
