10 May Five Event Marketing Trends to Reach Your Customers in 2023

Incorporating these five event marketing trends into your customer experiences and community outreach programs will help you reach your customers and put you ahead of the curve in 2023 and beyond.

In today’s fast-paced digital world, traditional marketing methods may no longer cut it. That’s where experiential marketing comes in.

Interacting with consumers directly at events provides a unique opportunity to connect with your target audience, build relationships, and create memorable experiences that leave a lasting impression.

With so much competing for consumers’ attention, how do you ensure your brand stands out and reaches your target audience effectively?

From artificial intelligence to personalized experiences, we’ll cover the top five event marketing trends your brand experiences need that resonate with your audience and drive business results. So, let’s dive in!

1. VIDEO CONTENT

There’s a reason video content tops our list of the five event marketing trends we’re seeing right now! According to a study, one in five marketers plan to use short-form video for the first time in 2023. Even more promising, 90% of marketers already using short-form videos plan to maintain or increase their investment this year.

Get consumers to do the work for you! Did you know that 98% of people who participate in live marketing events create digital content? Not only that but 100% share that content!

Short-form video content works to hold the short attention span of a range of audiences, especially at events. As a result, platforms such as TikTok, Reels, and Snapchat have experienced rapid growth in recent years.

Our experiential marketing programs capitalize on consumers’ desire to create sharable content by executing amazing experiences guests can’t resist posting – like this activation we created for Nationwide at a Columbus Blue Jackets Game. Fans created pregame reels and TikToks with a giant Nationwide-branded hockey stick and puck to share with followers which in turn promoted the brand.

2. SOCIAL MEDIA AUTOMATION

Social media has become an essential part of experiential marketing campaigns, allowing brands to connect with their target audiences and share their messages in real-time.

However, managing multiple social media accounts can be time-consuming and overwhelming, especially when you’re running an experiential marketing campaign. That’s where social media automation comes in.

Research shows that social media automation is a powerful tool that can help businesses of all sizes improve their online presence.

Using specialized software to schedule, automate and manage social media accounts can save you time, money, and resources, while also helping to increase your brand’s social media presence and engagement.

Moreover, social media allows you to track metrics such as likes, shares, comments, reach, impressions, and clickable links to determine which content is performing well. You can use this data to create better strategies for future social media campaigns.

There are a ton of ways you can incorporate more social media automation into your event marketing programs.

Offering digital photo and video opportunities at on-site activations is a simple way to track the number of photos taken and prompts customers to share via social channels immediately.

Through our four-year program with AEP Ohio, we created a unique photo opp enticing guests to take photos on-site. Utilizing a #Hastag Printer, guests who snapped a photo and posted the content to their social media channels with the hashtag #AEPOhio received a printed photo within 30 seconds of posting.

To date, this has been one of our most successful social media automation tools to date. At the end of each activation, clients received data and metrics on how many posted photos and the reach beyond the event the content provided.

By using social media automation tools, you can streamline your marketing efforts and, increase your reach while creating a memorable and impactful experiential marketing experience.

3. PERSONALIZATION

Today’s customers are clear: they want to be in control of their experience. Customers want to discover brands organically on the platforms they’re already using and define their own experiences. This means it’s up to brands to create a targeted approach to attract their desired audience and utilizing the event marketing trend of personalization will allow you to do just that.

Instead of using a one-size-fits-all approach to promote products or services, companies are now prioritizing the creation of personalized experiences tailored to individual customers. By understanding and catering to a customer’s specific preferences and interests, companies are able to foster a more meaningful connection with their audience, leaving a memorable impact.

In order to succeed, you need to tailor your messaging to your target audiences.

Personalization can be a powerful tool in any marketing strategy, from personalized emails to customized content. Personalization in experiential might involve offering customized products or messaging or creating an experience that is tailored to the customer’s interests and preferences.

One way EMS regularly incorporates this trend in our programs is through feedback and surveys. Our field team on-site at events can collect feedback and insights from customers during an experiential marketing event to understand their preferences, interests, and feedback. This data can be used to further personalize future marketing experiences and enhance customer engagement.

Take our work with Bye Bye Mattress as an example: The program, launched in 2017, seeks to educate California residents on proper mattresses recycling, help residents locate their nearest recycling facility, discuss the environmental impacts of mattresses in landfills and illegal dumping, and share how recycled mattresses might be repurposed.

In the years since the program began, our Brand Ambassador Team has surveryed thousands of guests to help Bye Bye Mattress to determine the public’s awareness. The survey results indicated that more and more people are becoming aware of the brand and its initiative.

When creating the surverys, we were mindful of the diversity of the area the events were in, so we made sure to make the surveys available in Spanish and Chinese, in addition to the English surveys.

4. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the power to streamline your process and make writing content faster than ever, which is why this marketing trend is quickly taking off.

Resources such as ChatGPT are incredibly powerful tools to have at your disposal, but they must be used wisely.

It’s important to note that AI is trained by looking at tons of pieces of data to “learn” how to write whatever you prompt it to. That means it’s technically using other people’s writing to produce its content. For this reason, experts say AI is best used “in collaboration” with marketers. Use AI to create a framework and avoid blank-canvas anxiety, but remember to make it unique to your brand.

The last of these five event marketing trends may seem like a thing of the future, but brands are utilizing it now, and so should you. AI is no longer just a buzzword, experiential campaigns are using AI at events to better connect and customize content for the audience reached.

Incorporating AI into experiential marketing programs can help brands create more personalized, interactive, and engaging experiences for their customers.

You can use AI to analyze your customer’s data to make personalized recommendations or create interactive experiences that educate consumers about your brand. allowing customers to engage in immersive and interactive brand activations. For example, AI can create virtual product demonstrations, simulations, or gamified experiences that provide unique and memorable interactions with the brand.

As part of our Smart Energy Experience with AEP Ohio, we created an Augmented Reality (AR) experience that allowed guests to uncover beneficial energy information plus tips and tricks to save on electric bills throughout the home by looking at different rooms in a home while wearing AR glasses.

5. EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING

We may be a bit biased, but our list of the top five event marketing trends wouldn’t be complete without mentioning experiential marketing!

Experiential marketing is a powerful tool that allows brands to connect with their target audience and create memorable experiences that leave a lasting impression. With so many brands competing for consumers’ attention, experiential marketing has become an essential part of many brands’ marketing strategies.

Studies show that both customer satisfaction and brand loyalty benefit from experiential marketing.

Creating an experience that is tailored to your audience is a great way to build awareness and loyalty for your brand.

Check out this experiential campaign we did when Z Gallerie had a new store opening up in Columbus. Combining the power of social media with in-person marketing, EMS was able to build brand awareness and generate buzz for the grand opening!

These five event marketing trends are shaping the world of experiential marketing in 2023 and beyond. Brands that want to stay ahead of the curve and create memorable experiences for their target audience should consider incorporating these trends into their marketing strategies.

SO WHY SHOULD YOU CARE ABOUT THESE FIVE MARKETING TRENDS?

Event marketing remains a powerful tool for brands to connect with their target audience, build relationships, and create memorable experiences. Incorporating these top five event marketing trends – Short-form video, social media automation, experiential marketing, personalization, and artificial intelligence – will ensure your brand stands out from the competition so you can reach your customers in new and innovative ways.

Whether it’s video content or an on-site social media engagement that allows event attendees to become ambassadors for your brand or personalized targeted experiences, we can help you create experiential marketing programs that will establish positive connections to your brand and unforgettable experiences for your consumers.

Let us help you integrate these five event marketing trends into your next community outreach program and experiential campaign!