Experiential marketing – the next big thing?

How often has the technical possibility to do something been heralded as the demise for existing technologies? CDs and web sites would replace print as the medium of choice for example, podcasts, RSS, experiential marketing are the way forward and so on. We have taken the view that being at the cutting edge is overall a good thing, it makes the company using it look as though it is also forward looking. But what we believe must be avoided is only using one method – our view is to play to the strengths that different marketing tools offer and bring them into the mix in the way they work best. Then there is the problem of explaining the new technology to clients. I suspect Alexander Graham Bell had the same problem – ‘but none of my customers have a telephone, so I don’t need one because they can’t ring anyway’. About ten to fifteen years ago the response to making product data available on CD was, ‘my customers don’t have PCs’. But when we showed their customers the benefits they went and bought a PC – they were just waiting for someone to take the lead. Same with web sites, ‘our competitors don’t have them, so why should we?’ That then changed to, ‘all our competitors have a web site – we need one right now.’ Pioneering new technologies can be tough in the b-2-b market with risk adverse clients who still wonder what happened to response cards from magazines. Much of this thought was prompted by an article in the Sunday Telegraph on the subject of company magazines used as a subliminal sales technique by major retailers to entice consumers – a sector of publishing that is apparently booming. Having belatedly adopted web sites, some clients are now so obsessed by the idea they continue to pour in resource and effort in the belief this is now all they need to do – unfortunately encouraged by ‘experts’ that tell them to spend thousands pounds more making the site search engine optimized – but that’s another subject. The newspaper article ran the following quote – ‘more and more companies are realizing that having got their web sites up and running, it is actually a pretty dead experience.’ Wow! So, back to magazines. By definition it is fresh each time – more than can be said of some web sites – and if correctly targeted will have sufficient retention value for the recipient to stop, review, read then pass on to colleagues. Far more subtle and effective than unsolicited junk mail which is destined straight to the recycling sack. We have long endorsed the value to the client company of a magazine or newsletter for their customers – we have just published the 10th anniversary issue for one client. By showcasing how they solved unusual challenges they have established a reputation for expertise, differentiating them from competitors who are just moving the boxes off the shelf. A good company magazine a couple of times a year works as a valuable part of a successful PR programme. So experiential marketing may not be just the high tech stuff – a good old fashioned read could also provide an interesting experience that makes customers favourably disposed to the company publishing the magazine. Why not take a look now at the various PR tools that could also apply and visit Technical Marketing’s web site.