In a world that moves as quickly as ours, it’s becoming difficult to attract and keep anyone’s attention with traditional advertising efforts. Enter experiential marketing, a useful strategy that takes many forms, mobile tours being one of its engaging forms that bring brands directly to their audiences.
Mobile brand experiential tours are roadshows that feature a brand-owned truck or trailer that makes stops at various locations to engage with consumers in an interactive and memorable way. The objective is to create a bond between the brand and the consumer by providing a live interactive experience. Whether the stops are quick-hit demos or full-blown interactivity, the opportunity is there for head-on engagement between brand and consumer.
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Why Mobile Tours in Marketing Work
The increase in popularity of mobile tours in marketing can be attributed to a multitude of factors. This is why there are companies, such as www.activateexp.com/mobile-tours, that offer these tour services. Below are just a few of the reasons such a tour could be an ideal marketing strategy for your brand:
Consumer Interaction: The biggest advantage is directly interacting with consumers. Going to where the consumer lives is far more effective than waiting for them to come to the brand. This way, they can share their challenges, pain points, and success stories with brands. This feedback can help businesses enhance their message and better appeal to their target audience.
Visibility and Reach: Traditional advertising efforts are restricted by location and platform. Mobile tours, on the other hand, can drive and/or fly to different cities or venues to get more attention. This allows the brand to reach a bigger and even new demographic, one that may have been unavailable through traditional advertising.
Measurable Impact: With a mobile experiential tour, brands can measure the impact of their campaign with their target audience. Using data analytics, they can check engagement, foot traffic, social media activities, and sales conversions in real-time to determine whether or not the tour is successful.
Memorable and Shareable Experiences: Because of the immersivity of an experience, mobile tours can create a distinct feeling that sticks with the consumer long after the event is over. Additionally, if consumers have a good time, they’ll be likely to share that experience through social platforms, extending the reach even further.
Main Components of a Mobile Tour in Marketing
Executing a successful tour in marketing can add serious value to your brand, but the success relies heavily on the planning and execution of the tour itself. Brands need to consider the following components while planning:
Strategic Planning: Success begins with selecting the right locations for the tour. Brands must carefully consider where they want to go and to whom they want to present their products. Events, trade shows, and festivals are all great venues to consider for your mobile tour because they bring in large numbers of potential customers. Making sure it matches the target demographic will increase the chances of people stopping by.
Engaging Content: Any successful mobile tour is built on the content/experience that drives it. Whether that be a product demo, an engaging game, or a personalized opportunity, the content must be attractive and engaging. Brands should look to create something that visitors will remember for a long time after the event.
Effective Staffing: It takes engaging and trained brand ambassadors to create a positive experience for visitors. The staff should be educated on the brand, the products, and the experience. Friendly and approachable staff can take an experience from good to great and create a stronger relationship with consumers.
Promotion and Marketing: Getting people to show up is an essential part. In order to attract more people, you will want to have a plan to promote your mobile tour. Use social media, email marketing, or partner with influencers and event promotion companies to create buzz around it and entice more people to check it out. Click here for more information on how to adequately prepare before taking a leap in this area.
The Role of Technology
Technology is changing the way mobile tours can interact with attendees. Here are some ways to incorporate technology into your tour:
Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR): The use of AR/VR can take your experiential tour to the next level. When you create an AR experience, you allow attendees to “see” something that isn’t really “there” as they can take virtual tours and see virtual ads. For a VR experience, your tour will use a headset to give attendees an experience at another location even though they don’t leave the tour location.
Mobile Apps: Oftentimes, brands will have an app developed for their tour. This app will have a few different uses, such as providing more ways for attendees to engage. You can learn about each visitor using the app, which allows for much better re-targeting and closed loop reporting. It also provides photo marketing that tour guests can share with friends. If they are enjoying your tour, why wouldn’t they want to share that with friends and followers?
Social Media Integration: Mobile tours that encourage consumers to share their experiences on social media can extend the impact of the strategy. Social media platforms, like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, allow users to post photos, videos, and reviews, which can be shared and reposted by the brand to boost engagement and help generate buzz.
What You Must Keep in Mind
While it’s obvious that mobile tours offer an endless number of advantages, there are a few challenges to keep in mind. One of them is the logistics and expenses. The nuts and bolts in executing a successful mobile tour include finding routes, securing permits, and outfitting vehicles. Then there’s the expense side of the equation.
If you’re planning to go a long distance, think about the costs you will incur costs for fuel and lodging for your staff. Also, think about the promotional materials you will need for the journey. The price tag can add up fast when you are on the road. Another consideration that might be a challenge is correctly measuring the impact of the move.
This can be hard because it might have a variety of objectives such as brand awareness, generating leads, and driving sales. The best way to demonstrate return-on-investment (ROI) on a mobile tour strategy is to set goals supported by KPIs and use tracking apps to monitor progress through the event.
Conclusion
Experiential mobile tours offer brands an opportunity to create a personal relationship with consumers, a way to connect with them in real life. They can show the product or service to their target audience and make the experience immersive, letting them have real and useful information by trying things for themselves.
Mobile tours are a tried-and-true way to increase visibility, brand favorability, and consumer engagement when executed properly using the power of planning, best in-class technology, and strategy.
