The advantage in a market no longer lies solely in your prices or products.
What makes the difference is emotion.
Experiential marketing allows you to create a powerful connection with your customers by focusing on sensations, memories... and the magic of a moment.
For e-commerce brands, it's a powerful strategy for boosting customer loyalty.
At Loyoly, we're convinced of it.
Providing an experience paves the way for engagement.
Experiential marketing is the art of making your customers feel something.
It's not about selling a product. It's about creating a memorable experience.
Experiential marketing activates the senses, arouses emotions and creates memories.
It transforms the act of purchasing into a moment in life.
A personalised package, a thank-you video, unexpected packaging, every detail counts to ensure your customer remembers you.
Take the e-commerce sector, for example.
It is no longer just a transactional channel. It is a playground for emotions.
Consumers no longer want to buy passively.
They expect an immersive experience, even behind a screen.
A cold and impersonal website is no longer enough.
Brands that are able to generate emotion are the ones that come out on top.
And when that emotion is positive, it boosts loyalty, reviews and word of mouth. In short, everything that makes your brand grow.
Let's not mix things up. User experience (UX) concerns the ergonomics, fluidity and usability of a website or application.
Customer experience (CX) is broader.
It encompasses all interactions between your brand and your customers, before, during and after the purchase.
And experiential marketing is the extra soul.
It's what makes the experience unforgettable. It gives depth to your journey. It injects emotion where there were only steps.
The question is, how can they be combined effectively?
To create a ‘wow’ effect, UX, CX and experiential marketing must be considered together. In short, you want a website that is fluid and emotionally engaging.
The goal is to think of your customer journey as a script.
A story where every touchpoint can surprise, reassure and amaze.
And above all, make them want to come back.
It's up to you to identify the stages where emotion has the most potential.
Where a surprise, a word, or personalised attention can make all the difference.
By thinking of your actions as a coherent emotional thread, you can build a real experiential strategy.
An experience that makes sense. And that naturally builds loyalty.
Experiential marketing is not based on luck or intuition.
It relies on concrete levers which, when used correctly, transform a simple purchasing journey into a memorable moment.
In e-commerce, these pillars must be adapted to the digital world without losing their ability to create emotion.
Yes, it is possible to thrill people behind a screen.
Digital technology may seem cold, but it can still awaken the senses.
Immersive visuals, sound, well-designed animation, careful unboxing...
Even from a distance, you can play with sight, hearing and touch (and sometimes even smell, with scented packaging).
These elements act as emotional triggers.
They create an atmosphere.
They create a memory.
And in a saturated e-commerce world, that memory becomes a competitive advantage.
What customers expect today is not standard service.
They want attention that seems tailored to them.
A first name in an email, a recommendation that hits the mark, a thank-you message in a package... Every little detail counts.
Personalisation makes the experience unique.
It makes people feel seen, recognised and understood.
And when you achieve that, you move beyond a simple transaction.
E-commerce can be interactive, lively and engaging.
A quiz to find the right product, an invitation to create content, a reward for referring a friend...
That's how you turn a customer into a participant in the experience.
Interactivity creates a bond. It allows emotions to flow in both directions.
And above all, it encourages people to come back.
Because we always remember what we have co-created.
A brand is not just a logo. It is a story. A tone. An identity.
Storytelling allows you to embody this identity across all touchpoints.
From the product page to the post-purchase message, everything is an opportunity to tell a story.
It is this narrative consistency that strengthens attachment.
It's not just a product you buy, it's a value, a vision, sometimes even a community.
The aim is to create a strong, emotional and memorable relationship between a customer and a brand.
Not just functional satisfaction. But a real connection. An attachment that goes beyond the product or service.
Experiential marketing is the very concrete cousin of emotional marketing.
It makes people feel in order to get them to buy.
And when a brand makes people feel something positive, it sticks in their memory.
You can quickly read our article on emotional marketing to understand the difference.
.gif)
Engagement cannot be decreed.
It is earned and built above all through emotion.
When a customer has an experience they enjoy, they become more involved. They stay on your website longer.
They open your emails.
They talk about you to those around them.
The experience becomes a driver of interaction.
It prompts action.
It makes people want to participate, recommend and come back.
And the more the experience is tailored to them, the stronger the engagement.
Because they find meaning and pleasure in it.
A memorable experience never stays secret for long.
It circulates. It is shared.
It fuels opinions, social media posts and recommendations among friends and family.
It is word of mouth's best friend. And therefore, your brand awareness's best friend.
But that's not all. Experiential marketing also has a direct impact on customer loyalty.
When you enjoy an experience with a brand, you want to relive that feeling.
And that's precisely what makes the difference between a one-time customer and a loyal customer.
Experiential marketing transforms experience into a driver of loyalty, brand awareness and brand value.
We explain these three reasons in more detail below.
Loyal customers aren't loyal just because the product is good.
They're loyal because they enjoyed their experience with your brand.
Emotional experiences create bonds.
They make people want to come back.
It's not easy to leave a brand that makes you feel good.
And that's the power of experiential marketing.
It builds a lasting relationship that is more resistant to competitors' promotions or other aggressive strategies.
Pssst... You might find this interesting!
Loyalty programs are strategic for your brand, and we can probably help. Check out our platform!
A good experience never stays in one place.
It gets talked about.
It gets shared.
We've said it before, but it's so important!
This is where word of mouth, customer reviews and user-generated content (UGC) come into play.
A powerful experience makes people want to share it.
Customers talk about you, leave reviews or spontaneously post photos or videos.
There are also incentive techniques, but we'll talk about those in other articles on how to trigger UGC.
In a saturated market, it's not necessarily the product that makes the difference.
It's the brand and, above all, how it makes people feel.
Experiential marketing adds depth to your image.
It reinforces your perceived value when prospects or customers come into contact with you.
A brand that cares about the experience it provides sends a strong signal. It shows that it respects its customers.
That it wants to please them.
That it has something to say.
And that perception is exactly what builds a strong, consistent and beloved brand.
Experiential marketing is a powerful tool, but it must be used wisely.
If poorly thought out, it can quickly become gimmicky or even counterproductive.
The ‘wow’ effect is not enough if it serves no purpose.
An impressive animation or original packaging may make an impression, but if it does not encourage purchase or loyalty, the energy is wasted.
The experience must remain at the service of the journey. It must never distract from the ultimate goal: to engage, convert and retain.
A good experience should resemble your brand.
Otherwise, you're bound to end up with a disconnect.
If you offer a sober, minimalist universe, there's no point in overdoing extravagance.
The reverse is also true.
The experience should extend your identity, not betray it. Otherwise, customers won't recognise it.
Creating emotions is great. But you need to measure their impact, which isn't easy.
Without monitoring, it's impossible to know what works and what doesn't.
Ignoring customer feedback, engagement rates and campaign performance means missing out on a huge opportunity for optimisation.
Experiential marketing cannot be driven by instinct alone. It also needs to be built on the right indicators.
👉 Use our list of 20 KPIs to track to help you.
You don't need a physical store to create memorable experiences.
Experiential marketing also works very well online, especially when it is designed with customer loyalty or community in mind.
Pomponne, a clean and committed make-up brand, is not content with a traditional loyalty program.
It organises physical events with its customers.
The result: a brand with a personality, a committed community and an experience that goes beyond the product.
Another example is Venum, a brand specialising in combat sports.
Thanks to its gamified loyalty program, the brand offers rewards that are meaningful to its customers.
These include tickets to MMA matches. It's an experience that fits perfectly with the brand's universe and strengthens customer loyalty.
If you've read the article, you know that what really keeps a customer coming back is the emotion they feel through the experience.
At Loyoly, we encourage e-commerce brands to leverage this.
There's no need to revolutionise everything. Sometimes, a few well-thought-out mechanisms are enough.
A behind-the-scenes tour, VIP access, a preview, a dedicated service... It's these little touches that make all the difference.
If you want to create a memorable experience, integrated into a well-designed loyalty program that fits in with your existing solutions, contact our teams.
Loyoly is a loyalty and referral platform combined with UGCs, which helps to engage customers in 40+ ways to increase LTV and social proof, while reducing CAC.
