How much does experiential marketing cost?

If you want the short answer: it depends on a number of different factors. 

A large experiential marketing campaign can easily go into the hundreds of thousands of pounds depending on the scale. A smaller brand might only need to spend a few thousand pounds to put together a powerful experiential marketing campaign.

For a quality experiential marketing campaign, you’ll want to think ing about £25,000 and up.

Experiential marketing is a form of advertising that allows people to have tangible and memorable experiences with your brand. It is a highly effective way to build brand awareness and loyalty, but it can also come with a significant cost, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. 

In this article, we will cover:

• Different types of experiential marketing campaigns and events 
• The various factors that can influence the cost of an experiential marketing campaign, including the type of campaign, location, and target audience.
• How you can calculate the ROI of an experiential marketing campaign 

Hopefully, you will leave this page with a more complete understanding of the cost of experiential marketing, and how you can best utilise this strategy for your marketing.

Types of experiential marketing campaigns 

So experiential marketing is a nice, fancy word. But what kind of events are we actually referring to when we say that?

Some examples of experiential marketing include

• Event marketing: Organising events such as product launches, trade shows, and festivals. We help to organise events from sourcing staff to brand ambassadors.
• Product sampling: Allowing consumers to try a product before they buy it, such as a food or beauty product sampling event. Can also give you some great content to share online, real-life positive reactions to your product/brand is powerful for marketing.
• Influencer marketing: Partnering with social media influencers to create authentic and engaging experiences, such as a sponsored Instagram post or YouTube video. Reach new audiences and people. 
• Immersive marketing: Creating an immersive environment that allows potential customers to fully engage with a brand, such as a virtual reality experience or a pop-up shop.
• Guerrilla marketing: Unexpected or unconventional experiences that surprise and delight people, such as flash mobs or street performances. This is a speciality of ours.
• Pop-up shops: Temporary shops or retail spaces, usually in high-traffic areas, to showcase products and create an immersive brand experience for consumers. 
• Cause marketing: Aligning with a social or environmental cause to create an emotional connection with people, such as a charity event or a sustainability campaign.
• Live streaming: This type of experiential marketing involves creating live events that can be streamed online, such as a concert or a webinar.

How much does experiential marketing cost?

The cost of an experiential marketing campaign can vary widely depending on the type of campaign, location, and target audience. 

The main factors that will decide the cost are:

• Whether the campaign is a one-time event or a long-term activation
• The size of your event. Is there going to be a big crowd? Or a select few? 
• The complexity of the event. Do you need to hire multiple suppliers such as catering, lights, and security? These costs stack up.
• The location of the event. Booking out ExCeL Centre in London costs a lot more than the working mens’ club down the road.

A small, one-day event in a local park may cost a few thousand pounds all told.

While a large-scale, multi-day event in a major city could cost hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Similarly, a pop-up shop in a smaller city like Southampton will cost less than a pop-up shop in London.

The target audience and the goals of the campaign can also affect the cost. 

A campaign targeting a niche audience may require specialised equipment, talent or other resources, while a campaign targeting a broader audience may be more cost-effective and vice versa. 

Overall, there is a large range in the cost of an experiential marketing campaign. 

To get the most out of it, you should set clear goals and budget accordingly to ensure the best ROI.

How much does a brand activation cost?

One of the more common experiential marketing campaigns we run is a brand activation.

An activation campaign does not require a big budget, but it’s important to make sure you have enough to do it well. 

The cost can vary depending on the type of brand, but for a small business, it could be between £1,000 to £25,000. 

Some of the most common costs associated with this type of project include:

• Location rental
• Equipment
• Staffing
• Design
• Graphics
• Photography
• Videography
• Catering
• Entertainment
• Production
• Promotion
• Social media planning
• Management fees
• Custom branding elements
• Stash for brand ambassadors 

To ensure you can adequately cover the costs, you need a detailed plan for your campaign budget.

What is the value of experiential marketing?

So we’ve learned that an experiential marketing campaign is going to rack up a pretty decent bill no matter the size of your brand. 

Why should you bother? The benefits of experiential marketing are:

1. Brand engagement: Deeper connections between the person and the brand, which can lead to increased brand loyalty.
2. Increased brand awareness: Experiential marketing can help increase brand awareness by reaching new audiences and creating buzz.
3. Word-of-mouth marketing: A successful event or smart guerrilla marketing often generates positive word-of-mouth marketing. People share their experiences with friends and family, and your event can end up generating a huge amount of organic reach, for no extra cost!
4. Stand out from competitors: Stand out from competitors by breaking the mould and creating your own buzz.
5. Measurable results: Outcomes can include increased foot traffic, social media engagement, and lead generation. 
6. Personalisation: In creating personalised, one-to-one interactions with potential customers, you build trust and a relationship with them. 

Of all the reasons above, perhaps the most important for businesses is creating deeper connections with consumers. 

Building a strong, emotional connection between a brand and its patrons is crucial for long-term success, as it leads to increased brand loyalty and repeat business. 

By providing unique, immersive experiences that people can engage with, experiential marketing can help brands create these deeper connections.

All the other reasons such as increasing brand awareness, generating positive word-of-mouth marketing, and providing measurable results are also crucial for businesses, but they all rely on being able to make a real connection with the people you want to sell to. 

Calculating ROI of an Experiential Marketing Campaign 

To calculate the ROI of an experiential marketing campaign, it’s essential to set clear goals and plan out the actions your brand will take and how you will measure them. 

You need to

1. First, define what your brand hopes to achieve through experiential marketing. Set yourself a benchmark, and define what metrics you plan to measure. This could be website visitors or sales. 
2. Plan out the actions. Are you throwing an event? Launching a guerilla stunt? 
3. Execute the plan. Get out there!
4. Measure them. If you’re measuring app sign ups for example, track the completions over the course of the event. 

Finally, use the findings to improve future campaigns. 

It’s important to remember that ROI can be measured in monetary value or more subjective metrics such as brand affinity, repeat purchase and likelihood to recommend, but these metrics should be quantifiable in order to analyse them.

We’ve run more experiential marketing campaigns than you’ve had hot dinners! Get in touch to speak to an experiential expert today.