Using experiential marketing requires an integrated team effort since a good strategy is not made with specific actions but a 360º marketing vision.
A set of attitudes involves language, online channels, points of sale and even brand values. Here are some tips for effective sensory marketing!
Bet On Creativity
Innovation is essential for the customer experience. To create memorable memories, it is necessary to think outside the box, both in creating products and services and in the actions that aim to engage the public.
For example, the pay-tv channel AXN produced cinematographic scenes in action in the streets to publicize some of its series. The Swedish furniture company IKEA set up an outdoor library on an Australian beach using its best-selling bookshelf. Both had original ideas.
Involve All Sectors Of The Company
To offer the customer something innovative, the project must start within the company and involve the entire team. After all, there is only one way to gain public engagement with the employees being convinced of the idea, right? Therefore, work towards bringing this culture into the organization.
Redesign Your Point Of Sale
There would be no point in innovating products and campaigns and maintaining points of sale that do not keep up with market developments and consumer desires, right? Livraria Cultura, for example, has been working for years with the strategy of offering comfortable spaces so that customers can spend more time reading in their facilities.
Integrate Online And Offline Strategies
If, before, all post-sales were limited to telephone contacts, today, this can be done over the internet, mainly with social media playing the role of integration tool between brands and customers.
A successful marketing strategy integrates online and offline actions. For this, it is necessary to perceive the purchase journey, starting from individualizing the consumer based on identifying the customer’s profile.
Take Advantage Of Virtual Reality (VR) Capabilities
Tools like virtual reality and 360° videos are constantly growing. It’s an immersive experience that lets the customer control the game to interact with your brand.
Shell, for example, used this technology to virtually turn users into a drop of V-Power fuel and follow the path with the help of an engine. This is something people could never experience in the real world. Cool, isn’t it?
Transform The Space
Indeed, most companies aren’t creating experiences on a big Hollywood studio budget, but that shouldn’t be an obstacle to being creative in the brand space, especially if the place is accessible for the public to participate.
What Practical Tips To Adopt The Customer Experience In Marketing?
For your plan to be fully successful, follow these tips.
Know The Profile Of The Potential Buyer
People have different backgrounds, experiences, problems and worldviews. So, it is essential to realize that your audience is not formed by numbers but by individuals with real needs and problems to be solved. To design new products, services, and ongoing experiences for them, it’s important to understand them first.
Therefore, follow these steps:
- Profile the users your service agents deal with every day;
- Compare the data with your industry insights and the company’s analysis;
- When you collect enough information, create multiple buyer personas (age, social status, hobbies…);
- To maximize the effectiveness of your research, transform the persona into a real-life person with emotions, needs, and aspirations.
From here, your entire strategy will be geared towards these personas.
Have Clear Business Objectives
It’s easier to follow the path when you know your destination, right? Want to enter a new market? Generate more email leads?
If you are familiar with business objectives and combine them with audience research, you will have a clear vision of your customer experience strategy.
Here are other questions that will help you create a perfect user experience strategy:
- What technology, processes, and workforce do you need to meet your business objectives using your customer experience strategy?
- What are the gaps between customer experience and expectations?
- What are the internal processes regarding support and customer experience so far? How do they support your customer experience strategy, and how do you change them to fit a new strategy?
- What tools can you use to support your CX strategy?
Got your answers? Now you have what it takes to create a customer journey map.
Work On The Customer Journey Map
A customer journey map is a resource that provides relevant information about the customer journey. It is the model that represents the fundamentals of the complexity of a real journey. It doesn’t mean it accurately demonstrates the customer’s experience. But it helps designers, managers, copywriters, and marketers walk in the customer’s shoes.
Another way to understand mapping is through the buyer personas you created in step one. Over time, a map expresses a customer’s overall experience rather than moments.
Bet On Omnichannel
If you want to provide a seamless experience, omnichannel support is not an option but a necessity. The feature funnels all customer interactions to a dashboard. Users can contact you using different devices and channels. Providing them with the same level of service on each of these platforms is an omnichannel challenge.
Without becoming fully omnichannel, customers are transferred from one agent to another, or worse, from one communication channel to another with no prior record of interactions. Omnichannel lets you stay on top of communication and, more importantly, track customer progress.
Promote Collaboration Across Departments
Being omnichannel implies the business is available on many different channels: email, phone, social media, third-party retail sites, in-store, etc. Even though the departments are varied, they are all creating customer experiences on behalf of their brand. So, standardize the company’s values and translate them to the team, as they should be familiar with this understanding.
Request Feedback And Act On It
Ask them if you want to know what your customers think of your company or business. Use the site’s feedback form to interact and find out more about their experience with your brand. Plus, you can ask interesting questions to inspire people to share more about themselves and their work and life habits.
Also Read: How To Do SMS Marketing The Smart Way
