Have a new product that you’re getting ready to launch? You can’t just put it on a store shelf or make it available and hope people find it – you’ve got to promote it if you want a shot at it being successful. And while conventional marketing like print, online, television and radio advertising still has a place in any brand awareness plan, newer methods of marketing can help give your product that additional oomph that can really drive engagement and boost sales.
A good experiential marketing campaign can do more than just create positive in-person impressions of your brand or product, it can also drive awareness and sales of new product launches if it’s carried out right. In this post, we’ll discuss how your brand can create buzz for product launches with a well-planned and executed experiential campaign. Read on to learn more:
Experiential Marketing: What to Know
Before we get into some of the specifics of how to build buzz, let’s first review what experiential marketing is. As the name implies, experiential marketing involves creating an immersive experience for the consumer as a means of creating a deeper personal connection. These experiences are often in person, unique and designed to leave a lasting impression that builds loyalty and creates word-of-mouth buzz.
When it’s done right, experiential marketing is highly effective. As we noted, it’s designed to further brand awareness and strengthen customer loyalty. But it can also build buzz, enhance engagement between a brand and its consumers and entice customers to buy, or, at the very least, learn more. Some experiential campaigns even have the potential to go viral, further showcasing a brand or product to a wider audience.
The data behind experiential marketing doesn’t lie. According to studies, up to 90 percent of marketers have noted that experiential campaigns help them get better engagement from consumers. Furthermore, nearly 75 percent of consumers who responded to a survey on experiential marketing indicated that they’re more likely to purchase products promoted via experiential means compared to those that are promoted via conventional marketing means.
Some examples of experiential marketing include:
- Interactive trade show booths
- Pop-up stores or booths
- Campaigns that incorporate virtual reality or augmented reality
- Webinars or virtual tours
- Interactive challenges or contests
How to Plan Successful Product Launches With Experiential Marketing
So you’ve got a new product that’s soon to launch and you want to start building buzz so that sales take off when it becomes officially available? A good experiential marketing campaign can help get your product off the ground and improve sales over the long run if you run the campaign the right way. Here’s a look at some ways to do it:
Tease it
Think of a movie trailer. The point of a movie trailer is to hook the audience so that when the film is released in theaters, they’ll want to buy a ticket and go see it on the big screen. The trailer, or preview, is essentially a big tease – a two or three-minute highlight reel of the movie designed to interest the viewer, but not give the whole plot or all the best scenes away.
A good product tease should follow a similar pattern – intrigue the audience without giving away all the details. This can be as simple or as advanced as you’d prefer. It all starts with announcing the date of the official launch and then planning a campaign to tease the product. It can be as simple as using social media to post updates and key features in the weeks and days leading up to launch.
Or you can take a page out of Apple’s book and strategically leak information to tech journalists, bloggers, online influencers and more about forthcoming product launches to do the work for you. There’s always such a big buzz around the launch of a new iPhone because Apple puts in the work with the media weeks – perhaps even months – before it’s launched. Then, when the product does launch, there’s always a surge in demand for its new offering.
Show it
You’ve teased it, but how are you showing it? Again, Apple is a master of using experiential marketing to its advantage – not just in using the press and influencers to help tease the product and build hype, but in actually showing it when it’s time to launch. Apple is known to host events coinciding with its product launches, which are designed to deliver key information to interested consumers and encourage hands-on experiences with its new products.
Many brands will also plan product launches around large trade shows, where they know they can engage with large numbers of consumers in a more personal way. Good examples of this are automakers releasing new vehicle models at the various Auto Shows that take place throughout the year. The annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is another popular trade show for product releases.
Continue To Build It Up
Now that the product is released, you don’t want to just sit on it and hope sales go OK. It’s important to monitor and adapt to determine where you can build further engagement with your target audience. Make sure to keep a record of any published reviews and address any concerns or criticism. Document the user experience. Look for unique stories of how the product is helping people. This brings us back to another great example featuring Apple, specifically highlighting the Apple Watch. To continue to build buzz and highlight features of the Apple Watch, Apple highlighted its emergency calling feature in its marketing materials to show how it helped address real-life emergencies experienced by real people.
Need Help? Work With An Experiential Marketing Agency
If you’re readying to launch a new product, experiential marketing can help improve awareness, engagement and – ideally – sales. And if your marketing department needs help developing a plan or wants to outsource efforts related to a particular project, working with a qualified experiential marketing agency could be the route to take. When you do this, you can rest assured that you’re working with experiential marketing experts who will work to understand your brand, your product, your target audience and your goals to develop a plan that will deliver results.
Don’t just rely on traditional marketing to get your brand and your product out there. A good experiential campaign can serve as that ace-in-the-hole that can elevate your brand to new levels of success.
The post Creating Buzz For Product Launches Through Experiential Marketing appeared first on Retail Minded.
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