According to The Internet, These Are The Best Books on Experiential Marketing

Do you want to take your knowledge of experiential marketing one step further? Would you like to explore new possibilities and learn groundbreaking strategies from some of the world's most successful brands? You're in the right place. We've scoured the Internet (Amazon, Goodreads, Quora, other third-party sites) to find the best books on experiential marketing. 

Below you'll find eight must-read books for every experiential, event and in-person marketer, along with details on exactly what they'll teach you -- from how to craft viral experiences and events, to how to inspire genuine emotion when connecting with your customers.

Keep reading to get inspired, and skyrocket your career in the experiential space.

1. Experiential Marketing: Secrets, Strategies, and Success Stories from the World's Greatest Brands by Kerry Smith and Dan Hanover

If you want real experiential marketing success stories from some of the world's biggest brands, this is the book for you.

You'll learn about the psychology behind brand experiences, the importance of storytelling in experiential marketing and how to make your brand experiences stand out from others. Examples from well-known brands like Red Bull and AMEX illustrate these ideas clearly and provide much-needed inspiration for larger companies. There's no vague theory here -- it's all based on real case studies.

2. Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger

Influencing customers to share their experience with your brand is a huge part of experiential marketing, but it's often an afterthought in large campaigns.

Contagious: Why Things Catch On explains the importance of word-of-mouth marketing in the digital age, and offers innovative ideas on how to make your event content more likely to go viral. If you currently focus on encouraging customers to share online after taking part in brand experiences and haven't thought much about traditional, word-of-mouth sharing, this book will offer some interesting food for thought.

3. Experience the Message: How Experiential Marketing Is Changing the Brand World by Max Lenderman

Max Lenderman has run successful experiential marketing campaigns for brands including Tommy Hilfiger, Procter & Gamble, DaimlerChrysler and NASCAR Canada, and this book is full of marketing wisdom backed up by real case studies.

The book focuses on building meaningful relationships with consumers through engaging experiences, and includes plenty of practical advice to help inspire your next campaign.

4. Connect: How to Use Data and Experience Marketing to Create Lifetime Customers by Lars Birkholm Petersen and Ron Person

Experiential marketing should be about more than making a one-off impression on customers, and the authors of Connect understand that.

Based on their experience working with Fortune 500 companies, the authors explain how to effectively connect with customers at key points during the customer journey, both online and offline. While the ideas in this book can be applied to multiple areas of marketing, they're particularly relevant to experiential marketers looking to make a lasting impression.

If you want to start making better use of experiential marketing analytics, this is an excellent read.

5. Experiences: The 7th Era of Marketing by Robert Rose and Carla Johnson

Written by two world-renowned marketing experts, this book is based on five years of research carried out with global brands, and puts forward some groundbreaking new ideas around marketing.

The book looks at how to provide real value to customers, how to forge genuine connections and how to prepare for a future where content is everything. For experiential marketers who are passionate about creating truly valuable customer experiences, this is an essential read.

6. Brand Lands, Hot Spots and Cool Spaces: Welcome to the Third Place and the Total Marketing Experience by Christian Mikunda

Want to know how the right setting could drive results for your experiential marketing campaigns?

This book looks at how brand spaces create an emotional reaction in potential customers, with examples from Swarovski and Guinness. The book talks about 'third places' or 'experience worlds,' and offers some excellent insights on using sensory experiences to build emotion in visitors.

If you want to create spaces that have to power to make customers feel, you need to read this book.

7. Disruptive Marketing: What Growth Hackers, Data Punks, and Other Hybrid Thinkers Can Teach Us About Navigating the New Normal by Geoffrey Colon

To create successful experiential and in-person marketing campaigns, you need to be creative, open-minded and disruptive.

This book teaches you exactly how to tap into hybrid creativity to connect more effectively with customers, immersing them in your brand story. It encourages you to abandon linear plans and strip away old conventions in favor of new ideas.

Experiential marketing is on the cutting edge of brand promotion, and this book is all about pushing boundaries and creating new trends. If you want to create experiences that cater to consumers in the digital age, read this book.

8. Experiential Marketing: A Practical Guide to Interactive Brand Experiences by Shirra Smilansky

Anyone can create a brand event, but it takes skill and expertise to create an interactive experience that successfully drives engagement and prompts customers to share with others.

This book provides strategies to effectively integrate live events with social media campaigns, ensuring that your reach goes far wider than the attendees of your events. It includes case studies from a range of companies, and the author offers practical resources tailored to the drinks, cosmetics and automotive sectors.

This is a great read for any brand looking to widen the reach of their in-person marketing efforts.

If you want to stay on the cutting edge of experiential marketing, you need to keep expanding your knowledge. Get started by reading these essential and inspiring experiential marketing books.

Think I missed anything? Send me an email at jmanoukian@limelightplatform.com!