Business Development - Experiential Marketing

Developing and Marketing Your Tourism Business Using “Experiential Marketing�

Business Development

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“Experiential marketing”1 is a way of developing your marketing, presentation and promotion to gain additional sales and profit.

It is about taking the essence of your product and services and transforming them into a set of tangible, physical, interactive experiences which reinforces your offer. Increasingly consumers are encouraged to feel and engage with products before buying.

Bakery stores, for example, push the smell of warm bread, “old fashioned” recipes and kit out their bakeries with wood-effect fixtures to sell their wares.

1 Pine & Gilmore (1999) The Experience Economy Boston, Harvard Buss School

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Experiential Marketing

Why use it?

• T hanks to the internet, consumers can quickly shop around on price, reducing your competitive advantage and creating the need to make your business stand out from the crowd on other factors.

• C ustomers need to be engaged in a memorable and positive way, whether via a helpful website, reception or phone call or by being friendly to the workman who fixes the tiliing.

• E very action of the organisation contributes to the performance of the experience Tourism business owners who compete solely on price are commoditizing, often making their product indistinguishable from their competitors; those who deliver compelling, memorable, and transformational experiences are pioneering. True experiences provide a value that “lingers in the memory of any individual who was engaged by the event”. These experiences therefore make a true connection and even a transformation with the guest.

Increasingly, consumers want to be defined and known by what they do in their non-work time.

They have a sense of belonging or feeling “part of the club”, even if that is a multi-national, global brand. They will share and tell their friends about the experience they receive, face-to-face and online. So it is critical that you ensure that the quality of the experience is positive and unique and one they’ll remember. But immersive and engaging experiences don’t have to involve expensive capital investment.

The most effective way to be conspicuous is to add service. Whether it is paying for an exclusive personalised coffee experience or branded mobile communications equipment, despite being relatively new, both have become established and well-known brands in the minds of the consumer because of the experience they deliver. Even the more established products are adapting; putting first-names on bottles of a well-known soft drink, tempting the consumer to find their, or their friend’s, names – resulted in a 2.5% hike in sales and half a million pictures of soft drink bottles being posted on social media2. A stronger and almost certainly more cost-effective approach than a TV ad.

Tourism is well placed to take full advantage as experience is such a key component of the product. Tourism marketing has historically focused on confirming the intentions of tourists, rather than persuading them to think again about their choices and actively co-construct their own experiences. For example, suggesting a visit to a location because it is historic, has far less impact than “bring the family to meet an Iron Age warrior” or “50 things to do before you are 11 ¾”3. Recent reports indicate that 54% of marketing clients plan to use experiential marketing in 20154.

UK Tourism also has the opportunity to deliver educational aspects of experience marketing, as well as escapism, culture and entertainment. This could be through the development of historically accurate experiences, cultural engagement, awareness of the natural environment and conservation, or active participation.

2 http://www.wsj.com/articles/share-a-coke-credited-with-a-pop-in-sales-1411661519 3 https://www.50things.org.uk/ 4 Pearlfinder Report (2015) http://standoutmagazine.co.uk/tribe-marketing-square-melon-partner-create-playmaker

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How can I deliver experiential marketing in tourism?

ATTRACTIONS In developing experiential marketing, it has been suggested that “work is theatre”5 and probably not coincidentally one of the first tourism businesses to embrace experiential marketing was Disney.

Disney is a world-leader on branding. While Disney adopts Americanised definitions, “cast-members”, “backstage” and “guests”, the same principles apply to your business. Staff need to know that guests come to experience your products and services and don’t need or want to see how products are delivered to the kitchen. They want a polished and consistent “performance”, with well uniformed “costumed” staff who follow a similar “script” that is helpful and engaging. An open door to service areas could be deemed as “on stage”, emphasising that your venue needs to promote the highest standards everywhere - in staff, facilities, service, reception, as well as service corridors to ensure that guests know they are visiting a well-run and safe establishment, that they want to return and visit again.

The Adnams Tours in Southwold (Suffolk)6 offer a range of experience tours, visitors can follow the production process, enjoy tastings and make their own gin from raw ingredients, complete with personalised label. If the experience is engaging and memorable, people will be more willing to cough up entrance fees.

Many methods are easy to employ and adapt to suit your customers, which will ensure customers leave recommending your establishment, products or services.

5 Pine & Gilmore (1999) The Experience Economy Boston, Harvard Buss School 6 https://tours.adnams.co.uk/

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Experiential Marketing

RETAIL Gift shops have long benefitted from sales of logo branded items, and this will continue and grow under properly delivered experiential marketing. It supports your brand and promotes your services.

Branded goods need to move beyond just a logo, to “I survived the thrilling zip-wire ride at...” or “I have sailed away with a meal at The Ship restaurant…” reinforcing the customer’s experience.

But retailing can go beyond products to more personal interactions. Beyond selling dolls, a doll store chain in America offers doll hairdressing, meals-with-mum and photo-shoots printed on mock magazine covers. In addition to driving sales of dolls and accessories, the average visit is now four hours.

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ENTERTAINMENT In addition to promoting membership schemes, theatres can drive up audience numbers, by offering additional experiences as part of a package. As well as featuring premium seats in a box or with central view, customers could buy welcome drinks, a chance to meet the actors, autographed programme and even a backstage tour. While on-site, you can also highlight fundraising schemes or the need for restoration works with the audience.

RESTAURANTS Experiential marketing has been particularly successful in restaurants. The Rainforest Café is a notable example. It promotes its experience consistently - through the decor, staff safari uniforms, smells and sounds of the rainforest as well as in the menu, marketing and

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staff training. And incorporating experience themes don’t have to be costly; for example • could you focus on local ingredients, feature pictures and short bios of your suppliers on the placemats, use local villages or road names on the menu?

• c onsider customising staff uniforms and allowing staff to personalise some elements (such as badges) • u se equipment that encourages customers to have their picture taken, such as a surf board or old fishing tackle, pictures to be shared online • e ven toilets can be themed with eg the shipping forecast played over the tannoy Importantly: The cues must be consistent with the theme, focusing on all details, and reinforced at all stages.

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ACCOMMODATION Hotels can also use experiential marketing to boost occupancy levels and awareness. Guest room welcome packs should be consistent and well presented, perhaps with a personalised note that says “Welcome Steve, enjoy your stay”, signed by the Duty Manager, through to developing a “theme” or feel for the entire hotel. Linking up with other local business to bring in additional treatments and products to add to and customise their stay is a further option.

Examples include: • C an you theme the hotel in line with a local or famous landmark? One American hotel with a library opposite, names its floors after the library’s subject categories and its rooms in the Dewy Decimal library classification system, giving the customer something different, positively memorable, that can be shared online.

• T ake a coastal theme and apply it throughout, such as making the most of a beautiful beach view by getting it photographed and printed on a large canvas to hang in the non-sea-view rooms, Have you a sea-view window in a hallway that could be opened up, perhaps with a bench seat so non-sea-view residents can be encouraged and inspired to take and share a picture of the view online?

• C an you offer a film-night off-season, with the film delivered into each room, popcorn room service, and an after-film meeting so guests can discuss the film over a buffet?

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Experiential Marketing

Developing Experience The experience can develop by working with other partners to create a more holistic holiday experience. The offer of a membership card, even if just for the duration of the stay, can establish feelings of exclusive access and in turn help ensure the visitor spends more time (and money) on your business’ products or with partner businesses.

Keeping & Sharing a Positive Experience Capturing and monitoring feedback is crucial in any business, and is especially important when using experience marketing. The Guinness factory tour is the most popular attraction in Ireland, it has a comments wall on the exit from their factory tour and crucially they keep the negative (perhaps with a manager’s response added) as well as positive comments to be authentic. Having delivered a positive, memorable, shareable customer experience, you have created brand ambassadors who will undertake free marketing for you – telling their friends and family and sharing online.

Rainforest Café in London, as mentioned above, is located in a basement serving a basic menu, but has had more than 56,500 Facebook check-in’s, the average user has 200-338 friends, a potential reach of 14m, plus the restaurant has those that didn’t tag themselves at the location but mentioned their visit on updates and posts. Research shows that 60% of under 30’s and 45% of 35-44’s share their experiences online7.

Through using Experience based questions in feedback surveys (e.g. using words like meaningfulness, feeling, learning and participation), a better understanding can be gained into customer satisfaction and how to improve the experience.

7 Eventbrite & Harris Research (July 2014)

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Top Tips for developing experiential marketing…

It is important that you first clearly define what experience you want to deliver, what the key memorable things are, then emphasise how to they can be enjoyed at your business Understand your customer’s (and potential customer’s) wants, desires and aspirations.

Concentrate on how your services affect the customer’s emotions, absorption of the experience, engagement and establish ways to control the experience so it is consistent.

Try and offer something unique and authentic. If it’s connected with the local area it makes it harder for a competitor to copy.

Avoid appearing false or manufactured, which could undermine the experience.

It is important to manage the marketing messages to ensure that some of the experience is a “surprise”.

Done well, experience marketing helps businesses differentiate on something other than price and gives business owners an opportunity to communicate why the customer is important and make them feel welcome.

Most importantly the experience must be holistic and taken through to even the smallest of details consistently if it is to be effective.

Further Reading • • •

Pine & Gilmore (1999) The Experience Economy Boston, Harvard Buss School Pine & Gilmore (2002) Differentiating Hospitality Operations via Experiences Cornell Hotel & Restaurant Admin Quarterly. June.

Williams (2006) Tourism & Hospitality marketing: fantasy, feeling and fun, Int Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 18, 6, 482-495