In-Store Sampling Benchmarks for Experiential Retail Marketing

This report is derived from the field staff event recaps from 8,456 activation days combined with 42,669 consumer exit interviews conducted onsite immediately after a retail experiential engagement.

Report Use Case Scenarios Report Package Details Report Contents

In-store/Retail is defined as an intercept event that included any parking lot or in-store activation including malls and farmers markets (excluding any alcoholic beverage activations).

• Event Days: 8,456 Experiential Retail Activation Days
• Consumer Interviews: A Total of 42,669 Onsite Consumer Exit Interviews
• Interactions: 889,920 Onsite Consumer Engagements
• Samples: 333,252 Wet and/ or Dry Samples Distributed
• Campaign Budgets: Over $6,335,691 in Experiential Retail Marketing Spent
• Attendance: Estimated 1,146,208 Retail Venue Attendance

At the time of this publication, PortMA’s Experiential Benchmarking database (across all industry segments) contains over $87.4 million (USD) spent on experiential brand marketing across 74,990 event days and 17,706,070 consumer interactions.

Business Use Case Scenarios

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Applying this Report to Your Business

Use case scenarios (and how to apply them to your business) are detailed in each report. Below are some of the common applications of experiential ROI benchmarks:

• • Designing a Winning Marketing Campaign
  • Selling Your Experiential Campaign to Stakeholders
  • Negotiate Better Venue and Sponsorship Agreements
  • Validating a Proposal’s Performance Promise and Budget
  • Managing Campaign Performance

Use Case Details

• Designing a Winning Marketing Campaign
  The best predictor of the future is the past. And when you can plan based on a well-organized set of data that benchmarks this history, you can create a campaign that will get it right more often from the start. You’re moving your marketing downriver faster because you can use benchmarks to identify the venues that have your consumer target and strike a stronger balance between “event size” and “event frequency”.
• Selling Your Experiential Campaign to Stakeholders
  We’re all always selling. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Brand Manager talking to your VP or if you’re an Agency Director talking to your Brand Client. You need to demonstrate that your reasoning is sound, and your plan is positioned to be a success. Experiential marketing benchmarks allow you to differentiate yourself from the external and internal competition and demonstrate the value before the money is spent.
• Negotiate Better Venue and Sponsorship Agreements
  The right benchmarks will give you a point of reference when speaking with venue managers or when developing sponsorship agreements. You’ll be in a stronger negotiating position with data on your side because you can validate venue manager and producer performance commitments and choose the best sponsorship package.
• Validating a Proposal’s Performance Promise and Budget
  A solid benchmarking resource will allow you to validate an outside agency or vendor’s plan. We recommend that you consult the right benchmarking tables in your report anytime you’re evaluating an experiential activation strategy; validate agency performance commitments and evaluate a campaign’s budget before committing.
• Managing Campaign Performance
  When you have performance benchmarks from dozens of experiential programs you know what to expect. The proper use and application of experiential benchmarks will allow you to establish the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to evaluate campaign performance during execution and recap your program when it is complete.

Report Package Details

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What Do I Receive When I Purchase a Report?

Each report purchase includes three documents and support from our research team to ensure you get the solution you need.  

1. Experiential Marketing Benchmarks Report (Fully Indexed PDF)
   First, you’ll receive a comprehensive PDF that provides a full background on the data collection methodology and the related experiential marketing strategy. This includes the data points collected, how, and why. This background provides a full outline of PortMA’s proprietary return-on-investment model. The report benchmarks define the reach, impact, and ROI trends across the industry and multiple venue types. These metrics are detailed in tables within this broader context of theory and application. 
2. Data Tables Deck (PowerPoint Document)
   Second, we summarize the experiential marketing strategy and related data with the data tables on individual slides in a PowerPoint document. This document is provided to easily pick and choose the slides that are most relevant to individual efforts. These slides can be repurposed in your own Client recap reports, RFP responses, and individual presentations.
3. A 1-Page Executive Summary (PDF)
   Third, a top-line summary of the experiential marketing report is presented in a one-page executive summary using PortMA’s proprietary “Scorecard Reporting” methodology. This document serves as a quick reference on the key data points and industry ROI segments. The report is designed for easy reading and distribution to internal management. It also serves as a quick reference guide.

A seasoned Experiential Marketing Analyst will be assigned to your account for on-call support by email or phone.

You are encouraged to call on your Account Manager for any of the following. You are provided with one hour of on-call support for the 12 months following your purchase. Additional time can be purchased if/ as needed.

Your account manager would be happy to provide you with any ad-hoc analyses you might need based on the raw data behind the report you purchased.

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