Social media is at the center of our lives today. As such, brands use it to find more meaningful ways to stand out and connect with modern consumers. In the event space, that means finding ways to encourage the kind of organic social presence that resonates with a customer long after an event concludes.

Marketers know this, which is why brands host events at all. An Aventri/Little Bird Media joint study estimates that 96% of events use social media to spark their brand awareness. And yet, a Splash/Harvard Business Review joint report shows only 52% of events actually have repeated social media engagement throughout the day.

Innovative technology solutions have emerged in a number of fields, boosting employee productivity and enhancing the customer experience. In the past 10-plus years of experiential marketing, technology's influence on customer engagement has evolved almost beyond recognition.

Technology now allows customers to experience and evaluate brands on their own terms. That's why experiential marketing is important for building relationships with your audience. 

Dipping a toe in the experiential waters can be exciting. Few initiatives come close to matching the immersive feel of an experiential marketing campaign, but there's one component that can negate that enthusiasm and personal feel: logistics.

Just look at how logistics affect an event's momentum. At times, design prep gets well behind schedule and causes delays in both delivery and installation. Other times, approvals waylay the process, and you're left with a short turnaround. Suddenly, your team finds itself in firefighter mode where every task becomes urgent and it is key that your actions are methodical and swift at the same time.

Experiential marketing is quickly becoming one of the industry’s most formidable strategies. As the Event Marketing Institute noted, 77% of brands see it as a critical part of their marketing approach that caters to Millennials’ hunger for experiences.

If brand experiences are the new marketing front lines, then they also serve as the new creative frontier for marketers. Brands that embrace experiential don’t just commit to providing customers an experience — they commit to innovating and revamping their approach whenever the time comes.

The relationship between brands and their audiences is quickly evolving, thanks in no small part to the power of experiential marketing.

Experiential marketing enables audiences to taste, touch, or smell brands up close. No other marketing strategy is able to form that direct level of personal connection with its audience.