Experiential Marketing: How to Build Events That Inspire People to Your Business

Experiential Marketing: How to Build Events That Drive Engagement for Your Business

Why is experiential marketing key to growth?

I was a part of launching a City Lifestyle Magazine in Kona, Hawaii. Our goal was to become the best marketing channel for high-end businesses on the Big Island.

We hit the ground running…walk-ins, cold calls…trying to find the right person to share our product with. After 300+ meetings sharing our magazine, I was tired of chasing and doing the relentless follow-up game.

I thought I should do a role reversal and bring the business leaders to us.

I thought back to listening to the 300+ business owners’ needs and frustrations and my need to get in front of business owners to help them understand branding, marketing, storytelling, and our magazine.

So I created the Kona Coast Leadership Summit. An out-of-the-box product to draw in leaders, solve their problems, and deliver an experience with our business that they could not forget.

The event was a major success. We met more business leaders, sold more contracts, provided a high-end networking experience for like-minded business leaders, and brought a higher level of understanding of storytelling to our community.

So here’s what I think: if you’re just hoping for new people to come to your website… try getting them to walk through your doors and experience who you are firsthand.

Businesses are waiting for people to engage with their products and offerings. Take a new approach at drawing the right people to you by creating an attractive event for them.

An event strategy can be the heartbeat of growth. Without it:

❌ People can’t be drawn to the table.
❌ You’re stuck in the spin cycle.
❌ Businesses miss opportunities to expand their reach.

So how do we fix this? By rethinking how we engage people.

Pause Advertising, Start Creating Experiences

Two solid examples from big brands:

🚀 Nike created an event to break the two-hour marathon.
🚀 Red Bull doesn’t just sell drinks. They put a man in space, and millions of people watched him jump and skydive back to earth.

Neither of these companies relied on traditional marketing to get people’s attention. They created unforgettable experiences that aligned with their vision and made people want to be part of it.

The same is true for people connecting with your organization.

If all we do is rinse and repeat and feel stuck with the same results, we need to create immersive experiences that:

✅ Allow people to encounter who you are firsthand.
✅ Give them a story to tell others, not just an event to attend.
✅ Make them feel like they belong before they ever commit.

Sometimes reaching out with an invitation to something is better than reaching for the sales pitch. So before getting an automated cold calling system. Get your team together to dream of an event. 

It’s time to move beyond simple promotion and start designing experiential marketing campaigns that create real engagement with your business.