Experiential Marketing and Practices: The Perspective of Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty

Introduction

The impact of the contemporary marketing approach has spread to all world economies as of the 21st century. Businesses develop their marketing strategies according to the contemporary marketing approach to meet the customers’ wishes, needs, and requests (Khotimah, 2017: 38). Businesses must create value to retain their customers. The best way to create customer value is to examine the experience of customers and their reaction to marketing communication (Altun, 2019: 39). The fact that traditional marketing methods are already known by all businesses and that products and services are offered only with traditional methods constitutes a handicap in terms of lack of differentiation. Therefore, businesses focus on current marketing approaches such as experiential marketing. Experiential marketing has a critical role for businesses to present the products or services they offer to their customers with a story (Kose & Cizer, 2021: 220). The products, services, atmosphere, and environmental factors offered by businesses especially affect the formation of experiential value (Kınıklı, 2019: 11).

Experiential marketing is the concept of presenting the product or service to consumers by transforming it into a utility and symbolic value. Experiential marketing is an important approach to creating lasting happiness and satisfaction by influencing the desires and emotions of consumers. The main purpose of businesses is to have a sustainable operation. It will be better understood how important it is to obtain satisfied and loyal customers through long-term customer value management in this direction. According to Khotimah (2017), experiential marketing is expressed as the process of attracting customers by providing an in-depth experience about a product, service, brand, or business. According to the International Experiential Marketing Association, experiential marketing is expressed as “a tool that allows businesses to communicate with customers through sensory means and enables customers to interact with brands, products and services” (Herdem, 2019: 5). Therefore, it can be said that the perceptions acquired through an experiential marketing communication effort have a permanent effect on customer loyalty (Arora & Chatterjee, 2017: 22). Experiential marketing focuses on using the five senses (smell, sight, taste, touch, and hearing) to emotionally connect with brands. The stimuli perceived by these senses trigger the motivation and needs of customers and lead consumers to buy products to achieve their marketing goals. Experiential marketing is becoming more and more useful as it involves satisfying both businesses and consumers (Khotimah, 2017: 37).

Satisfaction with the experience is among the main reasons for being constantly interested in a product. Therefore, businesses strive to continuously increase the satisfaction level of consumers (Kose & Cizer, 2021: 221). Customer satisfaction can be expressed as an emotional response to the experiences associated with the product or service purchased (Nugraha & Indrawati, 2017: 58). The way to please customers is to give them an excellent experience and surprise them. The main way to surprise customers is to deliver experiences that exceed their expectations. Therefore, businesses design an experience by taking advantage of the difference between what customers must see and what they expect to achieve (Guven, 2019: 103). Anderson et al. (1994), the cost of attracting new customers is much higher than the cost of retaining existing customers. Therefore, maintaining loyalty should be a strategic priority for the business. Creating customer value and customer loyalty is one of the best marketing strategies for businesses. Rowley and Dawes (2000) state that consumers are willing to be loyal only when they realize that the firm is the best option in the market. That’s why it’s important to provide customers with exceptional, memorable, and satisfying experiences.