At SXSW in March, festival attendees were able to join the hunt at Netflix’s experiential feature for its upcoming show “The Highwaymen.” After HBO’s incredible success with its Westworld experience last year, companies like Netflix are pulling out all the stops to capture that marketing magic for themselves. Rising expectations for experiential marketing require marketers to measure the method’s success with real numbers. Should every experiential investment lead to demonstrable ROI? Identify and pursue specific goals ahead of time to get the most from your experiential budget. If your brand needs more attention, spend less time on direct sales and more time on brand awareness tactics. Most experiential campaigns include social enhancements, so set sharing goals on the hashtags you promote. Measure progress against goals. Meade also encourages marketers to measure differences in brand sentiment and sales before and after the event. People loved it, talked about it on social media and shared it with their friends. The choices you make depend on your goals, and the only goals that matter are the goals you can measure.
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Why watch a show about the Texas Rangers who caught Bonnie and Clyde when you could track down the infamous couple yourself?
Netflix hopes you’ll do both. At SXSW in March, festival attendees were able to join the hunt at Netflix’s experiential feature for its upcoming show “The Highwaymen.” After HBO’s incredible success with its Westworld experience last year, companies like Netflix are pulling out all the stops to capture that marketing magic for themselves.
Beyond just show-stoppers at SXSW, the overall experiential marketing space is growing. According to the second annual State of Experiential Study from AgencyEA, 67 percent of B2B brand marketers expect to invest more in experiential campaigns over the next 18 months. In 2018, only 50 percent of marketers expected the same.
Defining success.
Rising expectations for experiential marketing require marketers to measure the method’s success with real numbers. Even the most impressive activations, like those at the 2018 U.S. Open golf tournament, don’t always translate to the bottom line.
If you want to astound your C-suite, as well as your audience, remember that your job isn’t just to impress people — your job is to make money. Maybe your impressive experiential idea will both delight and deliver, but the second is more important (if you want budget approval, anyway).
Nike gets it: The shoe brand’s Nike Live pop-up stores provide unique experiences for visitors, but they also directly impact sales. Does every experiential activation need a cash register? Of course not. Should every experiential investment lead to demonstrable ROI? Absolutely.
If you struggle to draw the line from your experiential activations to your revenue, use a three-step process to make the job a little easier.
1.) Mark objectives in advance.
Never wait until your experience is over to figure out what you gained from your investment. Identify and pursue specific goals ahead of time to get the…
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