The holidays are approaching quickly. Do you have your experiential holiday marketing plan ready?
Are you asking yourself questions like:
- Is it too late to start thinking about experiential marketing for Christmas?
- Is it too early to consider a marketing activation for the holidays?
- What kind of event activation is right to promote my brand’s product?
- How do I choose an experiential marketing agency for my holiday marketing event activation? (Shocker, we’ve written a blog to answer this question.)
Don’t wait until you see Halloween Candy in the store. Consider starting your experiential holiday marketing planning between July through September. If you want to have the best field staff for the holidays you need to book them early. If your plans require a partnership with a business or a space rental, the prime locations are booked early. Lastly, consider the materials that you need to order for the event activation. For example, we needed to order wrapping paper that had the brand’s logo for a marketing activation. Important to realize that this type of program collateral takes time to create, approve, and ship.
If you are wondering what is the right event activation to promote your brand this holiday season, consider these 7 strategies for experiential holiday marketing.
Street Team Brand Activation:
We work with brands to develop strategies for getting your product in front of new and diverse markets. Notably, street team and guerrilla marketing are excellent strategies for last-minute activations that need to be mobile to capture the right audience. For example, consider beverage sampling at subway stops or mass transit hubs. As a result, this product sampling activation captures the much-coveted holiday shopper traffic when they are on the move and need your product the most. Guerrilla Marketing can also put you in a space without other brands to compete with for attention. Hence, a street team marketing activation might be the perfect fit for your brand if you want a targeted, mobile, and flexible event marketing solution.
Product Sampling Marketing:
The season of pumpkin spice everything is a great time to get people to try your newest or favorite products. When consumers are considering gift ideas, our trained field samplers help consumers decide what to buy for holiday parties. Sampling products during the holidays influence potential customers to include your product in their festivities when you give them a taste of your offerings. You may want to create a mobile tour to increase the territory where you sample your goods. While this might seem daunting, an experiential marketing agency can help you handle the logistics to achieve your promotional goals. We’ve sampled everything from beverages to cheese. Therefore, we know the special care required for each storage and transport for each type of product sample.
Retail In-Store Demo Marketing:
Being at the point of sale where your product is placed is a considerable value to increase holiday sales. Does your product sell itself, or does it need some explanation? Has your brand had a refresh and needs to be reintroduced to your target consumer? Our brand ambassadors provide education while representing your product as a brand advocate. People buy from people and our people are the best brand reps in event marketing. Finally, when you choose an experienced experiential marketing agency like Evolve Activation, you benefit from a network of retail stores, event managers, and field staff to ensure a successful event activation.
Military Base Event Activation:
One often overlooked place to market during the holidays is on military bases. The military is a tight-knit community, and creating a brand activation is an effective strategy for introducing your business to the people serving the United States. While military bases are a great place for marketing, there are many rules and guidelines that must be followed perfectly to ensure access to the base. Accordingly, you’ll need a top experiential marketing agency on your side for this type of event marketing strategy.
College Campus Marketing Activation:
A massive advantage to reaching college students ahead of the holidays is that they often travel home to visit family. This means that if you effectively convert them to your brand, they could help to spread your message. College students act as Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) among their friends and family. Additionally, you might create a survey for data collection. Therefore, you can follow up with your target audience and amplify your ROI. Finally, college students make great brand representatives, so find students with a brand affinity and hire them.
Pop-Up Store Event Activation and Product Sampling:
Strategically located temporary retail locations are an excellent way to capitalize on the buzz created by FOMO. With well-trained brand ambassadors and a strategic plan, you can make a big impression by creating a time-sensitive retail experience. Consider taking over an unused retail space or building a temporary store. Evolve Activation has experience in both pop-up retail store strategies.
Experiential Holiday Marketing Private Event:
‘Tis the season for parties, and the intimacy of a private event might be just the right thing to market your business. This kind of event could be great for B2B or B2C marketing plans. While more limited in reach, the exclusivity of this kind of event could elevate your brand awareness through an exclusivity marketing strategy.
In reality, there is almost a limitless number of effective ways to interact with the public using a well-trained team of event staff. Additionally, no matter what time of the year there is a holiday to consider executing a layered annual marketing strategy.
Whatever you choose to do this year to market during the holidays, contact Evolve Activation. We can help you to develop and execute an effective strategy beyond these 7 experiential holiday marketing ideas. Contact us to bring your brand to your target consumer.
