I’m writing this on a plane coming back from the first two cities of a four city tour. We’ve been measuring the impact of experiential marketing for one Fortune 500 brand for four years now and have most recently found the following areas to be key:
- Identify key consumer psychographics and profile key messaging opportunities with each
- Deconstruct the regional differences among these profiles and how competitive marketing strategies impacts counter messaging
- Monitor industry activities (regulations, new events, etc.) that influence consumer sentiment
In doing this, we’ve been able to deliver key insights, continuously, that are used to fine-tune the program and deliver incremental gains. In doing so we’ve developed a set of experiential metrics that really matter.
Training Brand Ambassadors on Experiential Metrics the Matter
So how did we bring this to the BAs in the field? That’s why I’m on a plan and a four city tour. We organized these insights into market and venue “briefing sheets” that brand ambassadors and their in-market staff can pull out and read as they enter a new market and/ or venue type.
- For example, when one mobile tour team goes into Virginia to work NASCAR, they’ll pull out the Virginia one-page brief and the NASCAR one-page brief and they’ll see that patrons are significantly more likely to own boats or RVs. This information has a direct impact on how consumers view the brand’s offering and therefore gives the brand ambassadors/ in-market staff a unique set of speaking points than they might use at other markets and events.
- They’ll use this information to tailor messaging by focusing on championing the brand traits that we know are most appealing to boat or RV owners. We also know that quality is more important than price in Virginia so they’ll make sure to emphasize the quality messaging over discounts.
I’m flying to each team, meeting at the venue during a break or in the hotel lobby to walk them through the recommendations for each of their routing from now until mid-year. The first two have gone well. The Tour Managers asked good questions. They were grateful for something to use when briefing new in-market staff and appreciated the direction.
Photo Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/husseinabdallah/5551617275/