Measuring the impact of experiential marketing campaigns: It’s now a reality!

“How is the marketing campaign going,” “how was the event” – these are questions all business leaders ask. In LA, the competition between brands is fierce, and it is only human for entrepreneurs to worry about their brand’s performance in an event. Experiential marketing offers targeted consumer experience. It aims to establish a bond between the consumer and the business. It is easy to believe that experiential marketing involves consumer perception, emotional response, and brand image, so the answer to such questions is purely subjective.

Subjective answers are never good enough to brand leaders, and they are not enough for the experiential marketing companies. The brands in LA need more than vague compliments and opinions. They need answers that depend on data. Therefore, it is time to work with the top experiential marketing agency in LA that has the tools to quantify the reactions of the audience. New technology can now assess the key performance indicators (KPI) that measure the audience reactions to live events and experiential marketing campaigns.

Here’s a glimpse at the five different stages of the typical consumer journey and the KPIs that render each step measurable during an experiential campaign –

1. Measuring awareness

Any new brand in Los Angeles needs to spread the word about the event and exclusive experience. The only reason is to draw the people out of their homes and offices to the location.

Here are the two metrics you need to measure –

• Unique visits – comparing the number of unique visits with the total visits can tell you how many people you have reached. If you have low unique visits, but high total visits, it signifies that people are returning to the event.
• Source of Traffic – is it from your website or social media profile? To find out which channel of promotion works best, you should categorize traffic according to sources.

2. Evaluate the brand image

Attendance is no longer the only measure of success. You need to focus on the finer things including the factors that symbolize the brand image and impact.

• Session duration – how long does the average unique visit last? Do these visits end in registration or subscription on-site? Do these people come back to the store to purchase products? Observing the nature and duration of every session can help you evaluate the quality of each interaction.

3. Measure the decision

It is not enough that people visit the events in LA; they should also be able to make constructive decisions while on site.

Here are the three factors that show the decision making of your target audience:

• Check-in – measuring the metrics of events that do not involve ticketing and registration can be a pain. However, it is essential to keep at least a check-in option on your website or social media page that can give you an idea about the number of people who attend the session.
• Conversion rate – conversion does not have to mean a purchase at all times. Even when people sign up, they take action towards conversion. Therefore, sign-ups, registrations, and sign-ins are great tools for increasing the conversion rate. Any action that can potentially become a source of a new lead is a converting action.
• ROI – measuring the event ROI will give all marketing teams a thorough understanding of the impact they have made through the event. Sadly, with experiential marketing, no one tool or technique can measure the complete ROI. You need to focus on interactions, post-event comments and number of impressions across multiple channels to evaluate the ROI.

4. Retention of audience

Does your crowd return once they leave the premise of the event? Do you see the same faces two days in a row? Not gathering new faces can be a challenge for any event, but not seeing the same faces twice is worse!

• Crowd count – keeping a mechanism for on-site or online registration can help you estimate the number of people who attend every day. Running the sign-ins on a KPI-measuring algorithm can help you find out if the same people signed in twice on two consecutive days. Returning customers is a sign of customer satisfaction, and every brand should focus on factors that promote consumer retention.

5. Quantifying promotion

Any experiential marketing event does not end when the audience leaves. It continues for days on social media. To measure the impact of the event on the audience, here’s what you should measure –

• Hashtags – brand hashtags and mentions on Instagram and Facebook respectively can show what viewers think about your endeavor. Check out social media listening tools for measuring brand mention.
• Follower activity – the followers on social media from LA, is an indication of the reach of your message. Even small followership can be more rewarding than a large one, as long as they are active. Keeping a track on their activity will give brands an understanding of their actual impact.

The measure of success in experiential marketing involves multiple aspects including consumer experience, social media feedback, conversion rates and so on. It is not a one-person job to track and interpret the ROI of any experiential marketing event. You need the best of the best marketing agencies to hold your brand’s hand through the launch and activation.

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