How to Give Your Customers an Unforgettable Experience

By  Shannon Willoby

June 26, 2014

The biggest and most profitable shopping days of the year are still months away, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be advantageous to start thinking now about what your holiday marketing strategy is going to be.

Trying something new this year, like experiential marketing, is a smart move because it'll shake up what your regular customers expect from you and encourage new customers to check out what you have to offer.

But what exactly is experiential marketing and how can it make your business stand out amongst all the holiday shopping madness?

Find out how you can put this unexpected, attention-grabbing technique to work for you this holiday season.

Experience the Experiential

You can consider experiential marketing as live marketing. Basically, it's marketing happening in real-time that encourages people to interact with it. (Which gives it its particularly eye-catching and effective qualities.)

But, since this marketing tactic actively seeks out consumer interaction, it also opens up the door for criticism and possibly even a little bit of bad press. That’s why if you’re going to go down the experiential marketing route, you better make sure your idea is fantastic or you could literally watch your company fall flat on its face -- in front of a crowd.

The goal of this marketing technique is for consumers to interact with your product and then associate their immediate emotional response with your brand. But how can you pull it off?

How about trying your hand at:

• A pop-up fashion show
• Giving away your product for free with no warning (other than possibly a tweet with your location)
• An impromptu concert
• A live window display where people models clothes or your product

If you’re going to give away your product, this marketing technique can definitely get a little pricier than others. But if it works, it might pay off in the form of many new customers.

Be as creative as possible when it comes to experiential marketing to help make your event a success.

Creating a Unique Shopping Experience

To help you get inspired, here’s a great example of how Honey Baked Ham used experiential marketing to turn their dreaded holiday lines into an enjoyable learning experience for their customers (as well as a profitable one for them).

Honey Baked Ham identified a problem (customers hate waiting in their long lines) and came up with a solution (make the wait fun and interesting, while providing a learning experience for their customers).

Here's how they did it:

When customers first walked into their store, they saw a sign that said, "The Dinner Event." While they waited in line, a man handed out samples of two different types of turkey breast along with one of their holiday-themed relishes. (A discount for these items was offered as well.)

As the line moved along, there were more samples and happy staff members readily available to assist customers with questions and information. When each customer finally arrived at the counter, they were served by their own ham expert who told them exactly what makes their product so great and recommended the size they should purchase based on how many people it needed to serve.

In addition, customers watched as the expert hand-wrapped their ham in some kind of fancy gift wrap and then presented them with coupons for a return visit.

See? Now that's an unforgettable, unexpected shopping experience that will keep those customers coming back for more -- and encourage new customers through the subsequent word of mouth that was sure to follow.

How to Make It Work on a Budget

You may not be able to create quite as intricate, and expensive, of a shopping experience for your own business, (if you can, great!), but you can still do something similar to what Honey Baked Ham did -- just on a smaller scale.

For example: Why not serve cookies and pumpkin-spice coffee to keep your customers in a good mood while they wait in line? Under each cup you could tape a coupon for an instant discount. To make it fun, why not make each discount different? Some customers might get 5% off, while others might get 25%.

Another idea is to create a live, interactive window display where one of your employees dresses up in costume -- perhaps a ghost for Halloween, a pilgrim for Thanksgiving, or an elf for the holidays. Put a sign up that encourages people to step inside your window display (or have him or her step out) to get a photo with the costumed character. (Make sure there is some sort of branding or logo in the background to ensure your business' name makes it into each photo.)

Everyone loves taking pictures with costumed characters -- and they love sharing them on social media even more. Imagine all the pictures that will hit Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+, etc., of people having a great time at your business. This means a whole lot of free publicity for you and it'll instantly boost your chances of your shop becoming a popular shopping destination throughout the holidays.

You could even take it one step further and have each person show you proof on their smartphone that they've shared their photo on at least one social media site for an immediate discount at your store.

With a little creativity, these experiential marketing tips can be done, quite effectively, on a budget.

And if a tight budget isn't an issue for you, you'll have even more room to get creative and unexpected with your marketing to help ensure your customers remember you throughout the holiday season and beyond.

Have you ever

 

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