Living In The Experience Economy

Living In The Experience Economy

By: Lionel on February 16, 2011

How Experiential Marketing Can Provide The Measure of ROI

“If you can’t measure it you can’t manage it.”
- Peter F. Drucker

Being able to accurately measure return on investment (ROI) has for some time been a leading priority for marketing departments working for large corporations. But being able to identify the means to establish that a budget has been well spent through demonstrable return has left many scratching their heads.

Pine and Gilmore posit in their book The Experience Economy that the consumer’s motivation has evolved beyond simple purchasing and that they now form bonds to branded properties that can offer them a purchasing experience.

In the retail environment, a consumer’s interaction with the brand proposition will either result in a sale or it will not. This is possibly the most basic way of measuring ROI and is largely attributable to the customers experience of the brand whilst in-store.

By way of an obvious example, if you have ever visited an Apple store you will know exactly I mean when I say that you know you’re in an Apple store.

Whatever your opinion may be of the company and their technology, the crafted experience within their stores is both slickly efficient and highly effective. It is no accident that customers are on the sales floor are given to the impression that they’re visiting a popular art gallery rather than an electronics retailer.

Their staff are also organized in a hierarchical system, with their ‘Geniuses’ at the top of the tree, in order to best match the needs of the customer. Through the considered management of the consumer experience there is an overall feeling of natural, forward momentum on the sales floor.

Within the field of advertising, monitoring of sales in parallel with campaign delivery is the most basic way of determining its relative success. According to Nielsen data provided by Old Spice, the overall sales for Old Spice body-wash increased by 107 percent following the delivery of their ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’ campaign in early 2010.

It is, however, far from being this straightforward when you are seeking to create a lasting partnership between your brand and your target consumers.

There is a crucial ingredient missing when using these tools. Being able to produce and evaluate customer profiles, their respective poles of interest and their relative spending power is vital information that can determine company policies.

At a Trade Show, it is possible to extract valuable ROI analysis by combining the effective monetization of exhibition space, superior staff training and data capture implementation. Having a system in place to monitor the impact of an event beyond the day’s conclusion is key to determining its success.

Despite the advantages to businesses, Experiential Marketing strategies are still not being used to their fullest potential in Live Communications environments.

When asked ‘why are you exhibiting’ the answer I most often hear from exhibitors is “I don’t know, we attend every year” or “we are expected to be there so we have to be there”. These companies are missing out on one of the most powerful sales opportunities that is available to them.

Another mistake that I often see being made is when the focus of an exhibition team is solely geared toward the attendance of a specific VIP whilst thousands of potential customers are left to drift aimlessly through their space.

But even when exhibitors do engage with representatives on the show floor, research by the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) has shown that as much as 79% of generated leads are not subsequently followed up.

Consider the cost of all of these wasted opportunities.

The real question marketers need to be asking themselves is ‘how much do we want out of this show?’ Having an answer to this question allows for the right mechanisms to fall in place.

Whilst many companies are exploring the inherent cost-cutting potential of online delivery systems, like virtual showrooms for clients and customers to engage with, these methods are still no substitute for the experiential anchoring of an effective team working within an immersive brand environment in a live context.

Businesses need to be delivering orchestrated and coherent brand ‘events’ that create an emotional reference point that can develop into a powerful and profitable brand association with their target consumers.

This requires the efforts of the client company and their chosen agency working jointly to commit to the long-term plan.

Businesses and Corporations can easily maximize their trade show potential through collaboration with specialist agencies who intrinsically understand the branding relationship and work to ensure that every square foot of the exhibition space is effectively monetized as well as being able to generate essential analytical data during and after the event to accurately measure the ROI.

Lionel Oury – Creative Director at Turquoise Branding.

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If you’re a trade show exhibitor and would like to talk to us about effective ROI measurement we’d love to talk to you