Experiential Event Ideas To Boost Your Influencer Campaigns

If you’ve been following our blogs, you should know that influencer campaigns involving experiential events help you build stronger, more authentic relationships with them while delivering plenty of photo ops and organic brand exposure. Why wouldn’t they? At events, you’re engaging with them in person rather than just over email or sending PR gifts hoping for (or paying for) a moment in their spotlight. After spending some time together, influencers often gain a deeper understanding of your brand’s values and mission, making them more prepared to represent you. 

But what kind of events would you actually have? What kind of events promotes your product while being fun, engaging, and exciting to attend? There are different types of successful events brands have put on that probably ended up on your Instagram feed. These events give influencers several other (organic) reasons than merely free products to show you off! What route you choose should depend on your brand’s needs, your audience, and what kind of creativity you feel like exploring. 

One notable example of a larger scale influencer event is the Revolve Festival, a music festival with about 140 well-known guests including Kendall Jenner, Aimee Song, and some of the Victoria’s Secret Angels. But with several vendors, celebrity performers, and guests you’ve probably heard of, this can take a lot of time and money to plan. Starting with smaller events, here are some types of influencer events you can plan to supercharge your influencer marketing strategy.

Brunch or Dinner

A small-scale, intimate way to bring influencers together is through a networking brunch or dinner at an Instagrammable, trendy restaurant. This allows the opportunity for  influencers to have face-to-face time with you, each other, and your brand and build a genuine connection to your products and staff over some delicious food. 

You’ve probably seen tons of unpaid brunch posts on Instagram at well-decorated restaurants from your friends, so influencers might do the same if you pick the right restaurants. 

On February 27, we hosted a brunch at Margot to celebrate the launch of Jolii Cosmetics’ new clean beauty line where 40% of the proceeds were to be donated to Love Leo Rescue. The brunch brought together the founder of Jolii, the staff of Love Leo and Irose, and influencer supporters. You can read a blog post recap of it here.

Meet & Greet 

If you’ve got a store location, setting up a day or two for a meet-and-greet with one or more targeted influencers would definitely draw attention to your brand. Unlike brunches or dinners, meet-and-greets are accessible to the public, which means plenty of people posting and tagging you while getting to meet their favorite influencer.  

A benefit of meet-and-greets is to attract new customers in-person, no need for them to have any plans to purchase anything from your store. Once physically in the store, perhaps they wouldn’t be able to resist the sparkling new display of candles by the door that social media hadn’t made them aware of! 

Influencers usually announce these events on their social media so tagging you won’t hurt. Since they’re using your store space, it would allow plenty of geotags due to their followers asking them where the photo was taken at.

Panels & networking events

As we’ve discussed before, some influencers use their platforms to discuss various educational topics and social issues relevant to their field. If you want to take an informational, deeper route with your influencer campaigns, try a panel. These events are great ways for influencers to give advice and discuss interesting, complex topics in-person to attendees. For example, you could host a panel on diversity and inclusion in the fashion and beauty world, something plenty of influencers have first-hand experience with. Other influencers are great picks for discussing entrepreneurship. 

The panel can be part of a networking event complete with food, champagne, photo ops with a step-and-repeat, and gifting. It’s also a fantastic way for the public to get to know their favorite influencers on a more deeply personal level!

Large Scale Parties

A large scale party is a fun way to get everyone together and is the best route to optimizing organic brand exposure. Unlike the previous options, a party will most likely give you a bigger space to set up multiple aesthetic photo ops. And as we all know, influencers love a good photo op!

FabFitFun annually invites several influencers to celebrate alongside their employees at massive holiday parties that involve several gifting brands, photo ops, catered food, and a headliner of an A-list musical performer such as Tyga. These definitely aren’t your typical company party at the office!

Staycation

Even if you and the influencers aren’t jetsetting far away (you might still be in the same city), that doesn’t mean there can’t be some luxury and new experiences involved. Some nearby resorts offer insanely aesthetic pools, spas, restaurants, golf courses, views, and other Instagrammable characteristics on their own. No plane ticket needed! If you’ve ever been to some resorts out there, there’s no way you wouldn’t want to post a photo of you lounging around that 5-star luxury. With this option, you don’t have to put together too much decor yourself, as the resorts will be enough. 

We hosted a staycation a while back at the Ritz Carlton in Laguna Niguel, Orange County. Although we were quite close to our Los Angeles home, we still had plenty of travel influencer-esque photo ops.

Seasonal events

Some moments that are guaranteed to be organically posted on social media are holidays as well as other special events, such as music festivals and fashion weeks. Since attendees often spend a lot of time getting ready for these memorable, usually yearly events, you can host your own events to celebrate. For example, PopSugar hosted a Coachella pre-party at a fancy hotel hosted by Emily Ratajowski. 

In regards to national holidays, you can find a way to promote your brand in a way that relates to those holidays. For example, you can host a pop-up shop with special holiday packaging with stocking-stuffer sized versions of your products.

International travel

They say you don’t really know someone until you’ve traveled with them. An international trip has you with the influencers almost 24/7, giving you plenty of time to get to know them on a deeper level. Stunning beaches, temples, jungles, statues, and other tourist attractions you can’t find at home are pretty much guaranteed photo ops. An international getaway doesn’t just guarantee photos, it’s likely lengthy vlogs will be made as well. Make sure you hit up all the hottest tourist spots as well as some underrated, off-the-beaten-path gems.

Since these trips involve a foreign country, the videos can even attract people who have never heard of you or the influencer but were searching for videos of your destination in general. It’s a great way to get discovered.

In the end, whichever type of activation you choose is up to your brand’s budget and creative direction. If you’re a newer, smaller brand, you might want to start with something smaller such as a brunch or dinner to introduce influencers and staff to each other. Once you have a strong network going on, you can move on to a party or a more costly event. If there’s a social issue you feel really needs to be discussed, gathering the right influencers for a panel would be ideal in this case.

Don’t hesitate to reach out to us for a free consultation on how we can create for you a custom event tailored to your brand’s needs, mission, and aesthetics!

xoxo,

Irose

Why Experiential Marketing is Vital To Your Brand Strategy

You’ve seen marketing in the form of social media posts, flyers, commercials, billboards, and ads. No matter how amazingly and creatively those marketing campaigns they’re made, they’re just for the eyes and maybe ears only. You’re just looking and listening, which only goes so far, even if the visuals and copy are unusually touching.

Experiential marketing goes beyond visuals and text. It’s an interactive form of marketing that touches multiple senses, encapsulating attendees in an experience. If done right, your activation should be immersive and memorable. It’ll invite returning and potential customers to connect with your brand directly. They won’t just be reading about your product, but instead, they could be trying it out for themselves, thus getting a sample of how your product could improve their lives.

It’s a lot of planning, but it works: 74% of activation attendees developed a more positive perception of the brand. And if you invite influencers to your activation, they’ll likely use their reach to spread that positive perception.

If social media is vital to your brand’s growth, experiential activations tend to be pretty Instagrammable as well! Design your activation well enough, and you can expect your attendees to show you off — no requests needed.

Whether your event is a photo booth, a series of games, a virtual reality shopping experience, a funhouse, a fashion show, or a cupcake truck, it’s likely to be exciting, fun, and will keep working for you even after the show’s over.

29 Rooms x Pantene

Mattel x The Grove

Photo Credit: Cara Santana

Here are some reasons why experiential marketing is Vital To Your Brand’s Advertising Strategy:

1. TO PROVIDE IN-DEPTH, PERSONALIZED INFORMATION

Your product’s packaging, commercials, and online product descriptions might not tell people everything they want to know. In an experiential activation, employees will be physically present to discuss your products and answer not-so-frequently-asked questions. You probably won’t find the answer to “can my dog use this?” online. You can see other individuals use your product and what they have to say about it at the moment they’re using it. Their physical presence can allow you to observe their perplexed facial expressions, allowing you to swoop in before they walk away.

One-on-one discussion about your brand can definitely help build a deeper personal connection with the consumer. After all, the information they’re getting on the spot can be more personalized than what an online chat bot or social media reply could give. These in-person conversations can show how your products can improve each individual’s unique situation. This is also an opportunity to show attendees how appreciated they’d be as customers, making them feel included in your brand’s image. Ads can’t do this.

Your influencer guests can discuss this information on their page, increasing the amount of widely seen information about you. Their followers will be exposed to your product, their take on it, and their perception of your business.

2. COMPLIMENTARY SAMPLES

One common part of an experiential activation is complimentary samples, which everyone loves. This way, potential consumers get to try before they buy, giving you the opportunity to persuade those initially uninterested. An activation may further engage the folks who only came for free products, only to find that your brand has much more to offer. Thus turning potential leads into customers.

Of course, it’s much easier for an influencer to rave about your product if they’ve actually used it! This will make the representation more authentic.

3. TO LEARN MORE ABOUT YOUR CONSUMERS

Activations aren’t just for them to learn about you. You should observe and get to know them as well. Surely you have someone doing some analytics to figure out what demographics are buying from you most. However, analytics platforms are only observing online behavior and purchases, which only tells part of the story. During an experiential activation, you have the opportunity to see how different demographics behave around your product as they’re looking at it, talking about it, or interacting with it.

Perhaps the reason why sales are low with the Gen Z crowd is because they see your brand as too aspirational rather than inclusive. A constant pattern of complaints from 20-year-olds will give you some insights that online reviews and statistics can’t. A pattern of 60-year-olds giving your new releases confused looks may give you insight into future design considerations. To make sure this won’t just be anecdotal, your event can require attendees to punch in plenty of personal info either to attend or receive free product. This way, you’ll have another resource outside your website behavior to analyze consumer data.

4. THEY’RE FUN, ENGAGING, AND STIMULATING -- THUS HELPING YOU STAND OUT

Even if you’re stellar at making video ads, chances are that an activation could be even more fun than a funny ad. After all, you’re engaging and stimulating more senses. Your activation could have attendees taking photos against obnoxiously Instagrammable backdrops, fitting filters included. They could be drawing pictures for a contest, jumping in ball pits, crafting their own margaritas, or sipping on coffee at your popup cafe complete with your logo on their latte. There are plenty of ways to delight your attendees and give them opportunities to be filmed or photographed, ensuring some buzz and publicity.

Most brands don’t engage in experiential marketing, so if you choose to pursue this route, the fun you’ll bring will help your brand stand out among your competitors. So next time they’re looking to buy something and are deciding between your brand and a competitor’s, they’ll remember the challenging but fun obstacle course you set up at a festival last year. Your competitor may have similar prices and ingredients, but you’ve become associated with more coolness.

Google Assistant Gum ball Machine in Berlin

Photocredit: Google Instagram

5. THEY BRING A TON OF PUBLICITY, SHAPING YOUR REPUTATION

As stated before, experiential activations can be fun. Many are visually stimulating, which reads as Instagrammable in today’s world. Even if they forget to tag you, your logo will often be visible so viewers know it’s you who set up that amazing LED light display. If influencers with thousands of followers come, that’ll skyrocket your exposureOutside of visual stimulation, a striking enough activation will draw in the press. For example, Refinery 29’s thought-provoking, visually stunning 29 Rooms activation had quite a few articles lauding praise. You don’t have to go this far, but something dazzling or touching enough can attract a journalist or ten. In the long run, press will undoubtedly affect your reputation.

If no one’s writing about your event, you can! An activation can bring an opportunity for you to write a blog post worth sharing. Even without any blog posts or high-profile articles, you’ll still be shared through word-of-mouth! On average, a brand activation gets mentioned 17 times by someone who attends.

29 Room x Mugler

Photo Credit: Ellen V Lora

If carefully curated and designed, it’s clear how experiential marketing can liven up your brand and create lasting memories and impressions.

Here at Irose, we’ve been working to connect influencers to prestigious brands through experiential activations. Our activations are engaging, fun, and educational, providing influencers with personable and memorable experiences designed to curate compelling content that drives plenty of traffic to our partner brands. We’d love to help you connect to targeted influencers that can elevate your brand, so don’t hesitate to reach out for a consultation!

Be sure to follow us on Instagram @irose.social

Best,

Irose Team