What is Experiential Marketing? How Field Marketing Brings Brand Experiences to Life


Written by 
Dee Set Staff
 on 
31 January, 2025

What is experiential marketing? It’s a popular form of field marketing at the moment, but if you’re new to the world of advertising, it’s understandable that you may need some help getting started.

In layman's terms, experiential marketing is all about creating immersive, memorable experiences for your customers. These events enable them to connect with your brand on a much deeper level than other, more traditional forms of marketing. Instead of conventional advertising (which focuses largely on telling a brand’s story), experiential marketing lets people live it, making for a truly unique experience for all.

From interactive events through to pop-up activations, experiential marketing agencies aim to spark emotional connections and foster customer loyalty, one event at a time. But how does field marketing tie into the experiential approach? Let’s find out!

In this blog, we'll explore the crucial role experiential marketing has in bringing your brand experiences to life, showing you how this form of marketing can take your brand to new heights.

If that sounds good, you can also enquire with our team here for more information on incorporating our unique approach to marketing into your brand's strategy.

The Importance of Experiential Marketing: Beyond the Conventional

Experiential marketing is remarkably different from most traditional forms of marketing, instead shifting the focus from passive engagement (for example, if you're watching an ad), through to active participation in an event. It’s sometimes considered to be a part of the field marketing umbrella, but many people also classify experiential marketing as its own distinct entity.

By engaging with multiple senses at once, these strategies help to create a more lasting impression, keeping your brand in the minds of your customers for days to come. 

This is one of the main reasons why experiential marketing is so important, helping to raise brand awareness and boost customer loyalty by sparking an emotional connection with potential shoppers. This form of brand storytelling can also be utilised to raise brand engagement and boost the consumer experience, keeping people coming back for more, long into the future.

Interactive events also create memorable experiences, which can lead to your shoppers participating in social sharing, bringing even more attention to your events and products. Customer participation really makes people feel involved, spreading your brand further afterwards due to word-of-mouth marketing.

No matter whether it’s a branded event, a product demonstration, or an interactive installation, the goal is to make consumers feel part of the brand’s journey. By doing so, you can build brand awareness and loyalty in no time, showing how effective this form of marketing really is!

How Effective is Experiential Marketing?

Before diving into your first experiential marketing campaign, one of your key questions is likely to be: How effective is it?

The good news is that this form of marketing can be incredibly productive if used correctly. However, like any such initiative, your campaign’s success depends on the time and effort you put into it. Without the proper planning and execution, your campaign is unlikely to be as successful as expected.

Put simply: Experiential marketing is the backbone of any modern marketing campaign, allowing brands to create live immersive experiences that build audience engagement. Your shoppers are automatically promoted as tangible brand ambassadors, fostering an emotional connection to your brand. The statistics really speak for themselves too, with Statista finding that experiential marketing spending has increased steadily over the past few years.

According to Forbes, experiential marketing is much more successful than other forms of marketing, with the odds of success increasing the more people experience your brand in person. This research seems to be backed up by a range of ROI insights from other marketing agencies and firms too, showing just how effective this form of marketing can be.

It's also particularly useful when combined with field marketing strategies - the latter acts as the on-the-ground force that brings experiential marketing to life. By connecting directly with customers in their everyday environments, field marketers can create personal interactions that leave a lasting impact, making for a seamless experience for all. 

From hosting events in local communities through to setting up product activations in high-traffic areas, combining these two popular forms of modern marketing will ensure your brand message always resonates with shoppers on a personal level.

What Are the Benefits of Experiential Marketing?

We've already covered some of the main benefits of experiential marketing above, but the fun doesn't stop there! For one, experiential marketing really drives results, gathering valuable actionable data and insights that can be measured and analysed to improve your future campaigns for the better.

Experiential marketing creates tangible emotional bonds for your customers that traditional marketing methods often can’t achieve. These experiences boost brand recall, build customer loyalty, and generate organic word-of-mouth marketing, reducing the amount of money you need to spend to get your name out there.

Creating fun in-store experiences and hosting product demos don't just entertain shoppers either - instead, they drive consumer engagement, guiding your shoppers towards the point of purchase with joy. You can highlight prominent product features and benefits in real time too, promoting the very best aspects of your items to reel people in.

Lead generation can also be maximised with experiential marketing, as brands can now nurture the purchase journey all the way through the sales funnel, turning leads into those much-needed conversions.

Experiential marketing also allows brands to communicate directly with their customers, giving you the chance to answer questions in person, as well as gain instant customer feedback. This means you can change your campaigns on the fly, reacting to feedback as and when you receive it. Your events marketing strategies will also help to distinguish you from the rest of your rivals, ensuring your brand is the first name on your customers' lips.

As you can see, combining the many benefits of experiential marketing with field marketing’s targeted approach and our powerful data analytics tech ensures your campaigns will always reach the right audience at the right time.

Experiential Field Marketing Strategies in Action

So, how exactly can you successfully implement experiential marketing strategies into your business operations? There's nothing to worry about, as Dee Set is here to take you through some of our favourite approaches to events marketing, hoping to inspire you further!

Launching a successful campaign (regardless of the type of marketing you're using) requires clear goals, creative concepts, and flawless execution. A good marketing strategy involves finding the perfect location for your campaign, as well as creating engaging activities for your customers - every detail matters! Our field marketing teams are essential in executing these plans, creating face-to-face connections that make the entire experience seem authentic and impactful.

It's important to have a strong promotional plan of action in place first, so you must create measurable objectives for all of your active marketing channels. You also need to conduct market research to secure customer data for audience segmentation, fuelling your marketing channels with razor-sharp data insights.

Popular experiential marketing examples include:

  • AR or VR experiences: AR (augmented reality) or VR (virtual reality) technology has become increasingly popular of late, able to give consumers an extremely realistic and immersive experience.
  • Guerilla marketing: Guerilla marketing techniques usually involve the element of surprise, using unconventional methods to quickly attract attention and create a buzz around your brand.
  • Test drive events: If you're a brand that manufactures vehicles or you make products for the automobile industry, arranging test drives of flashy sports cars could draw people in, giving them a unique experience that they'll remember for years to come.
  • Mobile tours and pop-up bars: Pop-up events and mobile tours are limited-time events, usually hosted in places or areas that brands wouldn't normally use to advertise. These approaches are particularly popular for food and drink companies, but just about any type of business can benefit from them.

Some of the most successful experiential marketing campaigns seamlessly integrate field marketing into their strategies, using a combination of tactics to surprise and delight their audience. These real-world engagements can turn everyday consumers into brand advocates, providing a wealth of benefits for your business.

Get Ready to Experience Dee Set

Experiential marketing (powered by field marketing) is a dynamic way to connect with modern consumers in today’s competitive retail landscape. Standing out and attracting attention can be difficult in the 21st century, as there are so many brands begging for attention.

However, by delivering memorable experiences and fostering genuine interactions with their customers, brands and retailers can build stronger relationships with their audiences, spreading news quickly through word-of-mouth advertising. Field marketing ensures that your experiential campaigns truly come to life, bringing you to success in no time.

At Dee Set, we’re one of the UK’s premier field marketing agencies, able to help you devise a cunning strategy that will appeal to the hearts and minds of today’s discerning consumers. 

Ready to get started? Get in touch and we’ll show you how it’s done!

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