Make Your Event an Experience that Your Guests will Share

Ever wondered why Harley Davidson owners all are fully covered in tattoos? Are they forced to do it to be part of the gang? No! The brand Harley Davidson managed to appeal to the owners’ individual self-realization and therefore stimulates them to put tattoos on their bodies. Willingly, not forced. Isn’t that amazing? Free branding. What if we could have this for our events as well? Make our guests identify themselves with our brand, company, and event and share the message?

Get free marketing ambassadors by creating experiences

Whether someone will share or identify him-/herself with our event is based on how much of an experience it is for him/her. The more your event delivers a certain social experience, caters to a specific culture or even creates an own event culture, the more likely it is to establish its own identity. An identity to which people can relate to.

Especially if you are organizing social events which aren’t unique in itself and hosted by many organizers, you should work on establishing your events’ own identity to make it stand out and attract more visitors. Your Christmas markets’ distinction towards other competitors will be reached by providing events that deliver beyond merely service quality factors.

By implementing elements into your fair that your visitors can relate to, e. g. performers dressed according to your theme who also interact with your visitors, you help to realize co-creating customer’s own unique experience with your event and company. Everybody will have their own individual experience and story that they can share. The more unique it will be for your guest, the prouder he will feel to share it with his friends and family.

Stimulating your visitors’ senses (see, smell, taste, touch, hear) is the first step to emerge from the vast amount of events out there. Engaging them into an experience around your theme starts building a relationship. This is followed by the activation of their minds, to process your event message and manifest an image regarding your company. The achieved interaction will lead to learning, high emotive content and vivid memories, which all strengthen the relationship between customer and company. You acquired free marketing ambassadors for your brand.

Tips on creating successful event experience that will be shared

Mascots or themed performers at your fair and festival involve guests in conversations around your event theme and start creating a social identity with your company. They become a point of reference and interrelation with people, not only at your event but also around the world. Wherever you might use them again, they will be recognized and identified with your event and brand and can promote your company’s spirit through their behavior. They give your company a face, a physical person to interact with.

Choose your brand icon or performers according to your target audience. If you want to appeal to a younger audience, attract them through Disney-like appearances that they can connect to emotionally. Use your performers or instructed event staff to bring the audience closer to your event, changing them from passive spectator to active participant.

A precise briefing upfront is very essential to inform all involved event staff and suppliers about the message you want to deliver with this event. Only then can they promote the right image and identity by involving and engaging them through positive feelings.

In our current society more and more people live alone or only with a partner or flat mate. This fosters our need for social interaction and feeling part of a group. Cater to these needs and create group experiences that bring your audience closer together and let them feel being part of a bigger culture. Like this, your visitors share their individual experience while other people can still relate to it because of the culture or identity you created.

Involve your attendees by offering incentives for them to dress according to your theme. Organizers could encourage visitors to dress in Christmas hoodie outfits or in Victorian fashion by admitting them for half price. This doesn’t only contribute to your event atmosphere and walking decoration, but also lets the visitors relate to the Christmas spirit or Victorian culture as well as feeling as a community themselves.

You can position your event or product in your customers’ minds and make your Christmas fair the one parents will take their children to, not only for itself but to make it a shared experience that will be included in their everyday conversations following up, which can extend over months. Thus, keeping your fair and event message visible even after the visit is long over.

Another great aim why you should spend some time on reflecting what you want to achieve with your event and how you can make your visitors become part of it rather than just blurring your message out there without any interaction is, to increase the value around your brand, product, company or event itself. The amount that visitors are willing to attach to experience the service also varies due to their culture and their own experience with the event: collectivists spend more on gifts and accommodation and value interaction with other visitors more than individualists. Learn who you are targeting and how to make them relate to your event best.

But remember: although a good intention, your event planning can quickly fail due to bad application, for example, out-of-character staff. Therefore, it requires both service and experience factors to create the optimal event experience that supports positioning of your event and, finally, sharing of the event experience to increase awareness.

What was the last event you shared with your friends and family? What was the key that made you share it? Let us know in the comments below.

Kristin Sammann