“You just had to be there.” Recognize that phrase? You’ve probably said it yourself when trying to describe something amazing to a friend. It’s what you might say when words fall short—when you experience something so powerful and real, you can’t possibly capture it in a photo or recreate it on a screen. There’s also a chance that the moment wasn’t serendipity. A brilliant brand using experiential marketing might have strategically planned it.
The trouble today is that many brands—especially smaller, budget-strapped ones—aren’t creating those “you just had to be there” moments. Most are all following the crowd, doing digital. And the world is drowning in digital because of it.
We’re overloaded. With email. With social. With ads. With AI-generated content and lookalike landing pages. Creators are burning out from content calendars. Small business owners are throwing money at Facebook ads that feel increasingly expensive and less effective. Consultants are cold-emailing prospects who delete messages without reading.
Everyone’s playing the same game.
Experiential marketing lets you cut through all of that. While this article focuses primarily on in-person experiential marketing, which happens in real spaces with real people, advancing technology is also making powerful digital experiential moments possible through virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and immersive online platforms.
No matter. Whether physical or digital, experiential marketing gives your audience something fundamentally different: genuine engagement and presence. And the best part? You don’t need a massive budget or a team of dozens. You just need to stop thinking like everyone else and start creating moments people want to be part of.
The many faces of experiential marketing
Experiential marketing is about creating moments for people to engage with your brand, whether through their eyes, ears, hands, taste buds, or curiosity. For example, imagine:
- A financial advisor who hosts a retirement planning dinner at a local restaurant. If you’re nearing retirement age, you’ve seen the postcards: free meal, free education, a chance to ask questions face to face. Way more effective than cold-calling about 401ks.
- A home decor brand with an AR app that lets customers virtually place furniture in rooms, complete with suggested lighting adjustments and style recommendations based on their space. Amazon has such an AR app now.
- An online course creator who hosts a live workshop at a coworking space, turning digital followers into a real-world community.
- An artist who creates an intimate album release event that’s part concert, part spiritual experience. Attendees don’t just hear the music—they feel it.
- A local winery that offers wine-tasting classes to teach you about terroir and grape varieties. You learn, you taste, you join their wine club. Smart!
I experienced that last example at St. Paul Mountain Vineyards, a beautiful winery close to my home. The tasting class was so good—educational, engaging, personal—that my husband and I walked out as wine club members. Mwah! That’s conversion right there.
Here’s what I learned: Even if your business lives entirely online, experiential marketing gives you a way to step into the physical world and create real connections. Your digital audience is a gathering of real people living in real places. Why not give them reasons to gather physically to interact with you and your brand?
That’s key: Inviting participation instead of demanding attention. This way, people won’t just hear what you do; they’ll step into it. And that’s a different kind of convincing and trust-building entirely.
Experiential marketing lets people convince themselves
I like numbers, so I wanted to know what they said about experiential marketing. My findings back up what you probably already know: People remember experiences way longer than they remember ads.
Research also shows unique events improve organic reach because they’re inherently shareable. Consider these stats: 85% of people are more likely to buy after attending a branded event, and 91% feel more positively about the brand afterward.
Those are big numbers. And honestly? They don’t surprise me at all. Think about your life—what do you remember most, a Facebook ad you scrolled past last week or that excellent workshop you attended six months ago?
Yeah, me too.
Traditional marketing tries to convince people they need what you’re selling. Experiential marketing lets people persuade themselves. When someone tries your product, meets your team, or experiences your expertise firsthand, they discover—on their own—whether you’re worth their time and money.
That discovery process creates trust. The kind that sticks.
How the pros think about experiential marketing
Zev Norotsky has built his career around creating unforgettable moments. As founder and CEO of ENTER, a leading cultural marketing and brand activation agency, Norosky has worked with Uber, YSL Beauty, AT&T, and dozens of other major players. His approach centers squarely on understanding what makes experiences stick.
“For me, experiential is the foundation of any marketing plan,” he says. “Marketers need to think in 360 degrees. The essence of experiential sits in the root of the word—it’s all about experiences. When brands create touchpoints that lead to real-life connections, it drives engagement and conversion.”
That real-life focus shows up in his work and investments. Norotsky has backed more than 75 early-stage companies, many of which he discovered through his agency. “When I see a brand consistently showing up well in real life—smart activations, aligned experiences—that catches my attention,” he says. “It signals operational clarity.”
The real work happens before the event
Early in his career, Norotsky worked on a project for Perrier Sparkling Water. The goal was to get more people to use Perrier as a drink mixer. After studying the brand and audience, he had an insight: People were comfortable drinking from aluminum cans. Everyone in the industry was already doing the perfect pour with Red Bull cans at VIP tables.
After studying the brand and audience, he had an insight: People were comfortable drinking from aluminum cans. Everyone in the industry was already doing the perfect pour with Red Bull cans at VIP tables.
So, why not introduce Perrier in aluminum cans at strategic nightclub events? The idea was to position Perrier alongside energy drinks so people would naturally consider it a mixer option. “I’ll never forget seeing the prototype of Perrier in an aluminum can,” he says. “It was a moment of real validation, an understanding that culture and trends can drive results.”
That project taught Norotsky something crucial about experiential marketing: Success isn’t just about the moment itself. It’s about understanding culture and positioning your brand where people already gather.
Why small budgets require smarter thinking
When I went into writing this piece, I thought experiential might be easier for small brands and that the strategy would scale down easily. But Norotsky pushed back hard on that assumption. And honestly? He was right to do so.
“Smaller events with smaller budgets are often more difficult to execute,” he says. “Smaller budgets mean less margin for error. The creative and logistical challenges can be more intense than big-budget initiatives because you can’t just throw money at problems.”
So what’s the answer? Get creative with constraints. Instead of fighting your limited budget, use it to force better thinking. Find other business owners willing to share costs. Choose intimate venues over expensive ones. Focus on one exceptional element rather than trying to do everything.
Norotsky has seen agencies lose accounts because they created incredible experiences that no one attended. “If we build it, they will come is the biggest misconception in experiential marketing, he says. “Without promotion, even the most incredible experience will fall flat.”
Your lesson? Don’t overlook promotion. Creating the experience is just half the battle. You need a promotional flurry around it. Build that into your strategy from day one, not as an afterthought. Send personal invitations. Create early-bird incentives. Partner with influencers or complementary businesses to help spread the word.
Experiential at the core builds momentum
Norotsky describes his work as less about marketing and more about momentum. “We identify momentum, build it, and keep it alive,” he says.
I love that perspective. As small business owners, it’s easy to get caught in the trap of thinking tactically: What’s the next event? What’s the next campaign? Instead, follow Norotsky’s lead and think culturally, too. Ask:
- Where is our audience already gathering?
- What trends are they following?
- How do we authentically become part of that conversation?
That’s how you build momentum instead of just running isolated events that fail to connect the dots—or to anything larger.
Norotsky’s advice? Think long-term. “I like partners who commit to experiential as a long-term strategy,” he says. “Unfortunately, many business owners expect a single event to act as a catalyst for immediate growth, but it rarely works that way. Experiential marketing is most effective when you embed it into the core of your brand rather than treat it as a one-off initiative.”
Experiential marketing at the human scale
Still, not every brand needs a crowd to make noise. Artist, entrepreneur, and experimental musician Vaya Vaya created a small, immersive performance to mark the release of her album Achaiah 7: Love Into Patience. Offering a blend of music, movement, visuals, and silence, she designed the event less for performance, more for presence.
“I wanted the audience to feel what I was feeling, to have a safe space to process, to be real with themselves,” Vaya says.
One attendee told her it was the first time she’d cried safely in public.
The results showed up in her numbers, too. Vaya says that Instagram engagement jumped 30%, newsletter sign-ups nearly quadrupled, and streaming increased 45% within a month. “I learned that vulnerability is contagious,” she says. “People don’t forget how something made them feel.”
That’s some Maya Angelou wisdom right there. We might forget what someone said or what they wore, but we’ll never forget how they made us feel. It applies perfectly to experiential marketing.
Turning coffee and conversation into conversions
Levie Hosftee, founder and CEO of the brain-health monitoring platform Neurocast, used experiential marketing to build partnerships in healthcare. Weeks before attending a major industry event in 2023 in Milan, Hosftee reviewed the attendee list, identified top researchers and digital health leaders, and booked one-on-one coffee chats in advance. His goal: Give key decision-makers a short, hands-on demo of how Neurocast tracks brain health through everyday phone use.
The result of those one-on-ones made a difference. “When those decision makers saw NeuroKeys generate cognitive biomarkers in real time from just a few typed messages, it created real excitement,” he says. Even better, two of those coffee meetings turned into multi-site pilot agreements. Within 30 days, inbound interest nearly tripled. “You don’t need a flashy booth to make an impact,” Hosftee says. “You just need a targeted list, clear outreach, a compelling two-minute demo, and the patience to turn coffee into conversion.”
When digital becomes experiential
While purists like Zev argue that the most authentic experiences happen in person—and there’s certainly something irreplaceable about physical presence—the digital experiential space is exploding right now. Brands are discovering that VR and AR can create genuine “you just had to be there” moments, even when people sit in their living rooms.
Take IKEA’s AR app, for example. It lets you virtually see furniture in your home before you buy. The North Face’s VR experiences transport customers to the top of Yosemite’s El Capitan. Sephora’s virtual makeup try-on tools let customers experiment with hundreds of looks without setting foot in a store.
During the pandemic, brands like Gucci created VR store tours, Nike launched virtual training sessions with LeBron James, and even The New York Times shipped VR headsets to subscribers for immersive journalism experiences.
What’s even more interesting? Digital experiential works exceptionally well for small brands because it can scale. A local boutique can’t afford to set up pop-ups in five cities, but it could create an AR experience that works anywhere. A B2B software company can’t fly every prospect to headquarters, but it could build a VR demo that feels just as immersive.
But a warning: Don’t just slap “VR” on a standard sales presentation. These digital experiences must feel genuinely interactive, immersive, and memorable. Whether you choose physical, digital, or hybrid experiences, the principles remain the same: Create moments people want to be part of.
Your turn: Ideas you can steal (and make your own)
Look, I get it. Reading about other people’s successes can make experiential marketing sound intimidating. Just remember that it doesn’t have to be complicated. It just has to be real. And here are a few real ways to dip your toes into experiential marketing.
Host a learning experience
Workshops, open studios, customer Q&As, and educational dinners can all double as activations (industry lingo for experiential events). If you’re a tax consultant, you could host a year-end planning workshop with coffee and pastries. If you’re a graphic designer, you could run a “brand basics” session for local small business owners. If you run a regional marketing agency, you could host quarterly Digital Trends Breakfasts that bring together 30-40 local business owners, teach them about new and soon-coming platforms, and give them Fast Action takeaways they can do that same week.
Just make sure there are tangible takeaways—things and ideas people can use immediately.
Collaborate locally
Partner with other small businesses to co-create events that reach both of your audiences. For example, a fitness trainer and a nutritionist could host a wellness workshop, or a photographer and a florist could create a class about Instagram-worthy arrangements. Split the cost, double the reach.
Don’t forget virtual collaborations, either—two online course creators could co-host an interactive workshop, or complementary service providers could create a joint webinar series with cool engagement elements, like live polls that help you shape the content as you go and breakout rooms for small groups to work together.
Create a moment around your launch
Don’t just publish an announcement if you’re introducing a new product or announcing a new service. Create a reason for people to show up, try it, and talk about it. A skincare brand could host “try before you buy” evenings. A business consultant could launch a new service offering with an exclusive preview session for select clients, complete with case study presentations and interactive strategy exercises. A local bakery could turn its new menu rollout into a “taste and vote” event where customers help choose the final items.
Design for memory
From the name of the event to the experience itself, make it stick. Consider what you want someone to say when describing your event to a friend. Give people language that makes others want to experience it, too.
Name it memorably. Instead of calling it a “product launch,” try “The First Look” or “Behind the Curtain Night.” Make the name itself part of the experience.
Create visual moments, too. Design a backdrop that begs for selfies. Set up installations that people want to photograph. Think about what will look good when they share it on social media, because if it’s worth experiencing, they’ll want to share it.
Follow up intentionally
The event is the spark. But the real relationship starts after. Send a recap email with resources from the session. Offer exclusive follow-up opportunities for attendees, like early access to new products or services. Create a private community or group where attendees can continue connecting with you and each other. Keep the conversation going.
Consider digital experiential options
Don’t overlook virtual experiences, especially if budget or geography limits your physical events. VR product demos, AR try-before-you-buy experiences, and even interactive online workshops can create that same sense of presence and engagement. The key is making it feel immersive and interactive, not just another webinar.
Above all, ask yourself the experiential marketing question that filters everything else: Would someone walk away and say, “You just had to be there?” If the answer’s yes, then you’re doing it right.
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