What should the real goal behind your brand event be?

While experiential marketing may give you a platform for brand exposure or a product launch, the overarching goal of any such event should be to build positive emotional connections.

The question of brand loyalty

Establishing brand loyalty forges a pathway for customer retention and subsequent sales and exposure. Photograph: Lion’s Tour.

The single most important aspect of experiential marketing is the establishment of brand loyalty.

A report by the Event Marketing Institute/Mosaic states that 72 per cent of consumers say they have a positive view of brands that put together quality events and experiences. Meanwhile 74 per cent admit that they are more likely to purchase the products being promoted after attending an event. In the report, it was revealed that 65 per cent of people made a purchase of a product or service promoted at an event, though 87 percent of these consumers said they went on to buy the same product or service again at a later date. Most importantly, around 70 per cent of event attendees become regular customers.

Why do these figures matter?

Repeat customers fuel successful businesses, with 25 to 40 per cent of revenue generated from repeat customers, according to statistics collated by SumAll. The value of returning customers grows over time. The top quarter of e-commerce companies worldwide get half of their revenue from returning customers after two years in business, and after three years more than 60 per cent of revenue comes from repeat customers, says RJ Metrics. All of these facts and figures tell the same story: Put simply, brand loyalty will drive sales.

Once you have a solid foundation of brand loyalty, you will be able to achieve your other goals, such as generating repeat sales and gaining widespread exposure.

The importance of customer engagement at events

Engaging with customers at events is the key to growing positive emotional connections that tie them to your brand. Photo: Hyundai Beach Cricket.

Brand loyalty is inspired by engagement.

Engaging consumers at events reaches them in a way that passive marketing doesn’t. Experiential marketing gives consumers a chance to see, touch and interact with your brand. This personal engagement has a huge amount of sway over whether people continue to align themselves with your brand’s products or services.

Emotions play a significant role in marketing, with some kind of emotional attachment influencing most purchases. However, as we move away from human interaction, there are fewer opportunities to engage in a positive, human way with a brand. Events are filling the void left by online shopping and automated checkouts, in the sense that they allow consumers to engage with a brand, forging the connections and loyalty that will influence their purchase habits in the future.

Customer engagement at events is the key to capturing positive emotions and direct customers toward a lifetime of loyalty. Physically experiencing the brand can help them retain core messages and form emotional connections that have flow-on effects such as word-of-mouth recommendations and repeat sales.

Ultimately, the goal behind your brand event shouldn’t be to make sales on the day, create a brief hashtag storm or introduce a new product to consumers – it should be to capitalise on face-to-face interaction to build lasting loyalty.

Orange can assist with creating the kind of brand experiences that will have customers coming back to you over and over again. Get in touch with us today to find out more about what we can do for you.