After participating in a brand activation or experience, 91% of consumers said they were more likely to purchase the brand’s product, and 40% said they felt that it had made them more loyal to the brand.
If your brand wants to build long-term relationships with your target audience through a campaign, event, or interaction, this is called brand activation.
Brand activations are not a flash-in-the-pan solution, they have been a tried and tested marketing activity for years. With the right brand activation agency, the sky is the limit. Keep reading to find out more about choosing the right agency for your brand.
Why Brand Activations Are Important
Get past the simple sell-buy relationship and connect with your customers on an emotional level with brand activation.
It is beneficial for your company’s image if this connection grows stronger. In terms of sales, you’ll definitely see positive results. There are many ways to accomplish this, but they all revolve around educating, motivating, and interacting with your audience.
A brand activation should have one of these end goals in mind when being planned. Are you activating your brand through education? Or are you activating your service through motivation? Are you activating your brand by interacting with your target audience?
What Kind of Brand Activations Are There?
When you start considering that your team needs a brand activation agency, it’s important to know what kinds there are out there. You may find certain agencies that specialize in different types of activations!
1. Experiential Marketing
Experiential marketing, also known as engagement marketing, is an activation strategy in which a brand creates a fully immersive, firsthand experience in order to engage with its ideal target audience.
These encounters aren’t always limited to a brand’s specific products. The majority of experiential marketing campaigns entail live participation, which is often part of a larger event or trade show.
2. Digital Activations
Brand activations can also target a broader audience with more targeted campaigns based on the online experience.
After all, the majority of people these days are online and on social media. In fact, almost half the world uses social media. These people are looking to engage with brands and companies that they either already use or could use if they were informed.
Most digital campaigns will work in tandem with a larger brand activation strategy: customers, employees, and general audiences interact with your brand on social media. It’s where you can give your brand a voice and share things like personality, mission, and values while increasing brand awareness.
However, it can assist in bringing attention to events, specific products, or upcoming campaigns, as well as reaching the most important people. Employees and customers who are connected to your brand and products or services are the best way to elevate your message via social platforms. You can broaden your reach and improve the overall success of your activation by using a variety of digital platforms.
3. Sampling Activations
One of the most tried-and-true methods of brand activation is a sample campaign. The goal is simple: you give people the opportunity to try a product for free in the hopes that they will enjoy it and become customers. Consider upcoming events that your target audience is likely to attend if you want to run an in-person sample campaign.
All too often, consumers can find it more irritating than useful when approached by promoters in the wrong setting and at the wrong time. So, by planning your sampling campaign with the right activation agency, you can identify how to avoid this and get the most out of this type of activation.
Why You Need a Brand Activation Agency
As with any marketing agency, you can usually find those that specialize in a certain niche. A trusted brand activation agency will be able to answer these questions or showcase previous work.
1. Do They Know Your Audience?
It’s a good idea to have an in-depth discussion with your potential agency. Ask them if they have worked in your industry before and for which companies.
If they have, it usually means they have experience with engaging directly with the people whose attention you want to grab. If they haven’t worked in your industry, does target market research form part of their offering? A professional agency can go through this stage with ease.
2. Are They Activation Specialists?
Marketing agencies are everywhere. But do they specifically operate in the brand activation space? There can be obstacles if you work with an agency that does too many things or hasn’t worked on brand activations successfully before.
3. Do They Have Good Resources?
Start a discussion around the internal and external resources that they have to make brand activations successful. Do they have a trustworthy network of suppliers? Can they help you create that custom sample box?
Discuss your ideas with transparency in mind and ask if they can deliver.
4. ROI Is a Priority
Because of the live and dynamic nature of experiential marketing technology, it can either exceed your expectations in terms of ROI or completely fail. As a result, you must first decide whether your primary motivation for any marketing effort is to maximize return on investment or to amplify brand awareness.
Define this end result before proceeding with any collaboration with an experiential marketing agency. Being on the same page with your agency about your ROI expectations will set the stage for analyzing the success of your partnership.
Brilliant Brand Activations
Once you’ve shortlisted your options, finding the right brand activation agency should be just an arm’s length away!
Open the floor by discussing your brand’s values, personality, and attributes so that they can make a proposal that is aligned with your brand strategy and marketing strategy. You don’t want to end up with a disjointed brand activation campaign that doesn’t align with your other marketing efforts.
If you want an agency that totally gets on board with your brand and its objectives, you’ve already found it. Contact us to get your brand activation started today.