You work hard to tell your brand story, creating graphics, logos, and products that help build positive associations in your customers’ minds. What if those same customers could physically enter an environment and experience what it’s like to be inside your unique brand story?

According to recent survey data, nearly 50% of all customers said they’d be more likely to make a purchase if it involved an immersive experience.

If you’ve considered inviting your loyal client base to experience your brand from the inside, now is the perfect time to partner with Smash Design to make it happen.

Brand immersion experiences are about more than moving products, however. These experiences also serve as customer acquisition tools and lead to higher levels of ongoing customer loyalty. We’ve created this guide to explain why.

Read on to learn about the real impact of immersive marketing.

1. Phenomenal Photos and Videos

Globally, 3.2 billion images and 720,000 hours of video go online each day. While some of those images originate from paid influencers, many users share photos to show their friends something fun, emotional, or interesting. If you create a photo-worthy immersive experience, visitors will seek opportunities to capture and share what they’ve seen, generating free, peer-to-peer advertising for your brand.

If you want to encourage users to share photos and videos featuring your branding and logo, you can create opportunities to capture share-worthy shots. For example, you might install a unique sculpture in a spot where visitors can pose. Be sure to post signage, including social media tags—share those photos on your brand’s accounts, and customers will create the marketing content for you.

Likewise, consider installing a dedicated selfie station. Include a branded backdrop, scenic props, and photogenic lighting. Customers who look good are likelier to share (and good photos make your brand look good, too). 

2. Niche Novelty

You’re creating an immersive marketing experience because you want current and potential customers to remember your brand when it’s time to make a purchase. When you leverage novelty, you are helping the human brain create new connections. Neuroscience tells us that individuals are more likely to form memories when the brain takes in unusual or unexpected experiences.

In other words, when it comes to helping customers remember your brand, weird always wins. What can you add to your storefront to transform it from an invisible strip mall store into a memorable local landmark? Consider a funky sculpture, bespoke wall display, or immersive over-the-door art.

3. Capitalize on Emotions

In addition to novelty, emotions are crucial to memory formation and retention. Emotional experiences do something unique in the brain—they activate the amygdala and hippocampus simultaneously. This puts the brain’s memory storage system into overdrive.

Your immersive experience can allow customers to “walk through a story” and take in the ups and downs in real-time. This is the same reason why live theater is such a vital medium. Groups of unrelated people can visit your display and share something, regardless of who they are or where they’re from. 

An online banner advertisement can’t do that!

4. Serve the Senses

There’s a reason why smells, colors, flavors, and textures can evoke memories from childhood. Did you know that without the senses, humans would be unable to form memories at all?

Immersive experiences can activate sense memory and help customers build new positive brand associations through nostalgia. Consider incorporating 4D elements, like smells, to stand out from other experiences.

Furthermore, you might look into augmented reality elements. Customers can engage with 3D elements using their phones or VR headsets. These high-tech opportunities are still novel enough to garner interest.

Consider a mix of VR elements and real, environmental brand activation elements. How can your customers interact with a tangible sculpture in a virtual world? Can you build a digital scavenger hunt incorporating physical props?

5. Capture Attention

Finally, one of the goals of your brand strategy should be to stand out from competitors. Ideally, your superior product would do the work for you. In the age of social media, however, the average consumer sees between 4,000 and 10,000 advertisements daily.

There is a phenomenon called “social media content fatigue.” Your prospects become numb or impassive when faced with similar ads. When brands follow aesthetic trends, every campaign blends together, and viewers mentally check out.

The first step needs to be capturing initial attention. You cannot convert potential customers if they do not know you exist. Out of the gate, you need something your competitors don’t have.

The best way to stand out is a format change. In other words, take it offline.

Take advantage of the post-pandemic moment to seize the novelty of physical space. Instead of a few flashing ads on a screen, give prospective customers something to do. When “brands” turn into “plans,” customers forget they’re experiencing an advertisement. 

If you know your audience well, you can create something they’ll love.