So often clients come to us excited to launch an experiential marketing program only to lose enthusiasm as it becomes time to give the green light and make the actual investment. We go through a thorough process to identify the problem the client is trying to solve and develop solutions. We outline quantifiable program goals and objectives and develop fully integrated complete plans. What we often see is that because of budgetary concerns or sometimes the fear of not doing the status quo clients cut important pieces out of a program to reduce cost. While we understand the need to meet budgetary constraints what clients often overlook is how these cuts will then reduce the effectiveness of the program. What once was a fully integrated, sales generating, awareness creating marketing tool can quickly become just a branded premium dump on consumers.
If you aren’t going to do the program right, why even do it at all? When making budget cuts you need to revisit the program goals and objectives and see how these changes will affect the problem you were trying to solve. Will you still be able to engage as many consumers as you had desired? Will your offer or engagement still be enticing enough to drive action? Will the changes to the program hurt the ROI? Are you making enough of an impact to cut through the clutter in the marketplace and stand out to your consumers? If you can’t answer yes to all of those questions then you need to consider whether you are really committed to the program and re-evaluate the reasons you decided to pursue this marketing tactic in the first place.
Has the problem that was identified at the outset of the development process been solved? If that is the case then you need to determine if an experiential marketing program is still the right course of action for your brand at this time. If your problem still exists then you need to look at this in a different way. You might be trying to cut the program to fit a budget but what is the cost to you if you don’t activate the program with the highest level of efficiency? How many potential sales are you losing? How many new customers are you not engaging? What is the risk for not fully committing to the program?
Don’t waste valuable resources on an experiential marketing program if you aren’t committed to following through on the plan and giving the program the momentum it needs to be successful!