MARKETING IN BUSINESS

Marketing In Business



Marketing In Business

Introduction

The marketing industry appears to be embracing the power of experience marketing in an effort to cut through clutter.

Yet even as its power is recognized, questions remain about what it is exactly, what distinguishes the good from the bad, and what kind of agency partner is best suited to help you execute. The recent Event View 2007: North America report - sponsored through collaboration between the Event Marketing Institute, Meeting Professionals International Foundation and George P. Johnson (GPJ) - reveals that 82% of more than 1,000 senior sales and marketing executives in large enterprises worldwide have implemented some form of experience marketing (Weilbacher, 1993).

Discussion

Experience marketing is the practice of engaging target audiences in personal experiences in which they internalize a sense of how their personal or professional life is improved by the brand. The result is a powerful increase in the depth and volume of brand differentiation, conversion and loyalty (Hoyer, 2001).

If you don't look too deeply you might think that bringing the brand to life means product sampling or headline-making stunts. But while experience marketing can include these tactics, they are not a necessity and some types need to be avoided. Product sampling offers participants momentary product exposure but no long lasting brand affinity. Too often, live experiences that use these tactics dangerously dilute the brand by using techniques that are wildly misaligned with the brand's attributes. Moreover, not all products lend themselves to sampling. Experience marketing however can apply to the promotion of any product or service, and always does so in a faithful context of the brand and the life of the audience. So it's not necessarily about sampling, nor about stunts for stunt sake; it is about building the brand attributes into the entire experience, in every way possible (Assael, 1992).

Actually, just the opposite: experience marketing may just be the best enabler of integrated marketing communications in the marketer's tool kit. Companies frustrated by the silo nature of their marketing channels, find that effective experience marketing drives integration because it inherently relies on the natural interdependency among the disciplines. For instance, since pre and post event communications create audiences for face-to-face events and extend their experiences beyond the physical interaction, integrating these tactics isn't a nice-to-have, but a must-have, and professionals in this space plan and execute on this model unfailingly.

Word Of Mouth

I had an interesting exchange a few days ago regarding social media and the power of word-of-mouth. I was at my car dealership and one of their senior people was looking at a problem with my car. When he asked what I did for a living we started talking about social media. To set this up right, let me point out that this gent is a vet of the business, has seen a lot of changes and has tons of customer interaction and service experience.

When I mentioned how word-of-mouth has been turbo charged by social media and too many businesses out there aren't catching on fast ...