So a brand has just planned and executed a winning experiential marketing campaign that engaged with consumers on a personal level and left them feeling positive about it. Now what?
If boosting long-term sales is the objective, brands must invest to nurture this fledgling relationship.
One of the best ways to maintain the momentum is to offer an incentive to visit a website or communicate via email, according to Phil Boas, head of sponsorship and events at energy company E.ON. 'If personal data has been captured, it's a great opportunity to kick-start an enduring relationship with your customers,' he says.
This follow-up, however, must be relevant and something that consumers will be happy to receive. Ice-cream brand Ben & Jerry's, for example, uses loyalty measures, such as vouchers - rather than emails or texts - to prevent people feeling pestered into giving their details.
Integration is also essential. Ben Reed, head of experiential at sales promotion and brand experience specialist Woo, says: 'Digital and experiential is the fastest-growing integrated activity because they work so well together. For example, through posting photography on a microsite or offering the opportunity to win tickets online.'
A prime example was Sky Sports' work with RPM on its Sky Sports Freewheel event last September. The centre of London, was closed to traffic to encourage people to cycle in the city and, post-event, photos of cyclists were uploaded so they could be viewed online.
Strongbow, which also works with RPM, has used similar tactics at music festivals, where attendees can upload photos online and vote for acts to play in the Strongbow tent.
Video game producer Electronic Arts (EA) has opted for vouchers as part of its integrated work, created by Circle Agency. Once consumers sign up at an event, they receive a personalised email, a VIP card for future events and regular email offers.
Virgin Mobile, meanwhile, has integrated its experiential work into a broader campaign, through strategic event-marketing agency ITCH. This includes online engagement with its Battle of the Bands competition in the run-up to the V Festival, the distribution of SIM cards at the event, and subsequent direct marketing drivers, alongside ad-funded TV activity.
For some brands, experiential sits at the heart of their campaigns. Red Bull's annual Flugtag event, for example, at which participants attempt to take to the air in home-made flying machines, is central to the brand's marketing, and is where much of its promotional activity originates.
Deriving data
Central to all successful follow-up activity is the capture of data from potential customers at events. The best way to carry this out during experiential campaigns is by using brand ambassadors to secure data digitally, via PDAs, according to Ben Daldry, managing director of experiential data management firm Hand-i.
Data capture is not just fundamental to forging a long-term relationship with consumers, it also allows brands to follow up their work to discover how well it worked, as well as providing insight for future activity.
'It enables post-campaign evaluation of the activity in terms of recall, likelihood to purchase and whether they actually bought the product. This allows the brand to find out whether its experiential activity actually worked,' says Sharon Richey, managing director of experiential agency BEcause.
Experiential specialist TouchDDB uses an online tool that monitors consumers' activity on websites with experiential tie-ups. From this, it can find out which elements of the activity had the most positive impact on driving purchase and brand awareness.
Such activity is vital. By collecting the right data after the event and using it in the most relevant way, potential customers are not only able to bond further with brands, they can also help to create better experiential campaigns.
RIGHT GUARD: IN TUNE
Right Guard wanted to connect with 25- to 44-year-old men, so TouchDDB created an experiential campaign based on music, in association with Yahoo!
'The Off-Guard Gigs' campaign included online and experiential work and involved a series of intimate performances by well-known bands. The gigs themselves took place inside a revamped 1965 Volkswagen camper van and were attended by three winning entrants to a monthly competition on the Right Guard-sponsored 'Yahoo! 24 Hour Music Festival Guide' website.
Right Guard also used mobile to contact festival-goers to remind them of performance times. Across three months, 5.5m people were exposed to the content of the campaign.