The future of marketing lies in developing outstanding customer experiences

While talk of experiential marketing is not new, the concept of experience in marketing will become increasingly dominant and complex in the future. Just selling is no longer enough. Customers are buying the experience and not just the product. The buying process needs to set off a complex set of emotions and result in a sublime end-to-end customer experience to satisfy an increasingly demanding audience.

Spreading the brand’s gospel on social media

The famous 4Ps of product, price, place and promotion will only serve as a mere guide in defining the value proposition in the future. The product is being replaced by the experience, which must be perfectly thought out for every single touch point along the customer journey to influence how the user feels at every moment. Price will take a back seat to the flexibility and convenience of the exchange and return process. Consumers will value all those features beyond price that make the product exceptional, such as devolving a part of the price tag to environmental or social causes.

Everyplace is the new place as customers experience brands on every channel imaginable. Finally, promotion will be implemented through evangelism, in other words, customers will become apostles for the brand and spread the brand’s gospel across every channel they have access to – and with unprecedented speed and reach.

Next week: In the second of our four-part mini-series on rethinking marketing, we’ll look at the technological advances coming our way in virtual and augmented reality and what effect these will have on retailers.