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Experiential marketing and its virtual extension
Experiential marketing is a growing trend which involves marketing a product or a service through experiences that engage the customers and create emotional attachment to the product/service. Physical and interactive experiences are used to reinforce the offer of a product and make customers feel as being part of them. Experiences are positively related to customer’s attitudes, mood and behaviours. They also represent a means through which a company can gain competitive advantage by differentiating itself from competitors. To achieve success, an experience should be engaging, compelling and able to touch the customer’s senses and capture his/her loyalty.

There are many aspects which differentiate traditional marketing from the experiential one. First, experiential marketing focuses on providing sensory, emotional, cognitive and rational values to the consumers. Second, experiential marketing aims to create synergies among meaning, perception, consumption and brand loyalty. Furthermore, experiential marketing requires a more diverse range of research methods in order to understand consumers.

Smith has developed a six-step process to develop an effective experiential branding strategy. The first step includes carrying out a customer experience audit in order to analyse the current experience of the brand. The second step is to create a brand platform and develop a touchpoint with customers. The following step includes designing the brand experience; coordinating the brand’s people, products and processes against the brand proposition. The next steps involve communicating the brand proposition internally and externally. The last step consists of monitoring performance in order to ensure that the brand is meeting its objectives.

Nowadays, experiential marketing is getting more technologically advanced and personalised. The wide spread of the Internet and the increasing competition among online retailers has led to the rise of virtual experiential marketing (VEM). VEM uses the Internet and its various channels to create an enriched and engaging experience by using visual and audio tools. VEM relies on an electronic environment that engages customers and arouses their emotional responses to create an unparalleled experience and consequently capture their loyalty. The elements which characterize virtual experiential marketing are: sense, interaction, pleasure, flow and community relationship. Furthermore, affective involvement has been identified as a key factor which affects online purchase intention. Thus, the online experience must emphasize an emotional appeal to the consumer in order to build purchase intention.

A model to create high impact virtual customer experience has been developed by the management consultancy, A. T. Kearney. The four basic steps are:
 * 1) Develop a compelling customer value proposition. In developing this, it is important to understand how an online experience can satisfy customer needs.
 * 2) Create the digital customer experience framework to address all areas of interaction between customers and the business.
 * 3) Use proven tools, the “7Cs”, to support the framework. The key tools are: content, customisation, customer care, communication, community, connectivity and convenience.
 * 4) Integrate the online and offline customer experience. In fact, companies can enhance the virtual customer experience through consistent links with the offline world.