Experiential Marketing: How to Create Experiences That Convert with Heather Johnson

In this episode, I sit down with Heather Johnson to talk about how trade shows and in-person events can actually work for small businesses. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by crowded booths or unsure how to stand out without being pushy, this conversation will give you a clearer way to approach it.

We walk through what makes a booth memorable, how to create real conversations that build trust, and what to focus on before, during, and after an event. Heather also shares practical ways to generate leads and measure results over time. If you want experiential marketing to feel more intentional and less exhausting, this episode will help you rethink your approach.

SampleFinder

Polaris Brand Promotions

Transcript

What Experiential Marketing Really Means

Janice Hostager 0:04

I'm Janice Hostager. After three decades in the marketing business and many years of being an entrepreneur, I've learned a thing or two about marketing. Join me as we talk about marketing, small business, and life in between. Welcome to My Weekly Marketing. Last month I was at a business expo in my community, not as an exhibitor, but as an attendee. And it really started me thinking, how effective are these events? Now, I have done dozens of these as an exhibitor when I had my design agency. And there was a time early in my career where I designed wedding invitations, so I did a ton of bridal shows too. But I always thought they were kind of a sensory nightmare. They're loud and they're crowded, and you never really know if it's okay to grab a chip clip or a tote bag from a booth if you really didn't want to talk to the person behind the table. So in an environment where everything is loud and big as an exhibitor, how do you grab the attention of the people in the room? And then how do you sell to them without being pushy or gimmicky? And finally, how do you stand out? How do you create something that actually makes people stop, stay, and remember you later? That's what we're getting into today. I'm joined today by Heather Johnson, who specializes in experiential marketing and trade shows for Polaris Brand Promotions. They promoted products and services from small retail accounts to trade shows to sports stadiums and even bigger. And this is for more than just food and beverage products. She's going to talk about what works well, what's a waste of time, and how to turn real-world interactions into clients. Even if you're not salesy, even if you're working with a small budget, you don't need luck, you just need a strategy. Here's my talk with Heather. Hey Heather. Welcome to My Weekly Marketing.

Heather Johnson 2:04

Hi, Janice. Thank you so much for having me.

Janice Hostager 2:07

So let's clearly define what we're talking about first. So what is experiential marketing?

Heather Johnson 2:13

Experiential marketing is a way that you can connect with the people that are in your target audience, different personas within that target audience in a most memorable way. So you're creating an experience, a unique activation, or an event or a get-together, any type of marketing that falls under the realm of bringing people together and captivating their attention while distributing brand awareness is a type of experiential marketing.

Janice Hostager 2:41

Okay, so it can be pretty broad, really. Anything?

Heather Johnson 2:46

Yes. So it for Polaris Brand Promotions, that's our agency. We are experiential marketing and promo staffing. We do both and we work with a wide variety of clients, everybody from the regular CPG sampling, food and beverage to the service-oriented companies, architects. Uh, we've worked in hardware stores, all sorts of different types of clientele can benefit from experiential marketing.

Janice Hostager 3:12

Okay. Okay, that's cool. Because you usually think of like Red Bull or Nike or Coca-Cola, some of the bigger food brands. So that's really cool that you can work with just really basically anybody to create an experience, right?

Heather Johnson 3:26

Right.

Janice Hostager 3:27

Yeah. So what's an everyday version that you would see? Like uh give me an example of of something that like maybe a service-based business has done.

Heather Johnson 3:37

Okay, I'll give you a few for that. Quite often lead generation is very important for service-based uh companies because they need people to not only learn about what they are doing. So brand awareness is key, giving out those brand facts or explaining why you want to work with one company over another is very important. We see this quite often at tents that might be set up outside of stadiums or in stores for energy services where they're trying to get the people passing by to switch to their energy service. So they'll either explain why they are better. Um, this is a very specific service, explain why they might be better or the benefits of working with them, the benefits of switching. And then they'll work to get the people to sign up for either a newsletter or their services, in fact. So they could be giving away some sort of swag, something for signing up, something for submitting your email address. And in the end, the service gets more content for their newsletters or their e-blast that they're sending out, or they have more people signing up. So lead generation is very important for services. We've also found that the regular brand awareness and just explaining the facts, getting the brand facts out in front of the clientele, specifically coming from somebody like a brand ambassador, somebody who was standing there as a representative on behalf of your company, or maybe standing next to somebody from your company who was helping stop people from passing by, whether that's at a trade show, like I mentioned, in a store or a street team type activation.

Janice Hostager 5:11

Okay. Okay. So how does that work psychologically? Why is it better? Is it just because we're not expecting to see people on the street talk to us about certain things or maybe not on the street, but you know, in that situation? Or is there another reason why this is so much more powerful than, say, an email blast?

Heather Johnson 5:30

I'd say the top two reasons why having experiential marketing and having a presence in front of the people you are targeting is number one, um, the surprise factor. They get to suddenly see somebody from a company they've only ever heard of, put a face to it, um, and ask questions, real questions, and get real answers from somebody who's standing right there. And it's it's better and more authentic than just looking something up on the internet. And the authenticity and having the real in-person connection is the second most important thing, I would say, because we quite often are in front of our screens trying to figure things out all on our own, super individual. And when you are able to connect with a brand representative or a brand ambassador who is speaking about your services to somebody who actually is really interested, but they've only ever read or skimmed through an article one time. You might attract their attention. And the surprise element is maybe like, oh, hi, we're giving out this. Would you like to sign up? That's the surprise element. They get something in return for even getting their feedback. And then they get to learn more about your company and you get to see who in that area that you're targeting is actually interested.

Janice Hostager 6:39

Okay. So, how do you design an experience that naturally leads to the next step? Like in it, maybe it's just list building or just some maybe a sale down the road. Obviously, that would be the goal.

Heather Johnson 6:54

Always the goal. Always the goal. We we want to help build brand loyalty. So not only are they getting that exposure during the activation or the event, but they're also maintaining the level of communication. So that might be it is the list generation, but it's also social media, your digital presence, getting people excited to check out your page, watch your stories, watch what you're offering. Maybe you're providing some special links. If it is a specific event that you're already an attendee or an exhibitor at, and you want the attendees to continue to follow along, maybe your experiential marketing is at a trade show and you're doing some kind of fun game and you're getting their email addresses to sign up, or you have to say, oh, follow us on social media. Oh, show me that you actually followed. Okay, now you win a prize. Those people will be able to see your content well after the fact, well after the event, whatever you put into the experiential marketing, it continues into the digital world. That leads to the next step easily and more simply than just hoping, putting out an ad or an e-blast and hoping for the best.

Janice Hostager 8:01

Gotcha. So it really builds that no like and trust factor, is what you're saying. Yeah, we like to trust. Yeah.

Heather Johnson 8:08

We like to trust the companies that we're working with. We like it when we can see the personality. Yes, exactly. Um, when a company seems like a nebulous being that doesn't provide some personal feedback, it can be a little off-putting as a user, especially if you are, if you really care about what this service is. So when you have that personal touch, you have a real person answering questions, or you have a campaign that is showing the personality of the people of the company behind the service, you want to work with them. You want to feel like you're part of their family or or, you know, we've got parasocial relationships, but with businesses, that can be really well taken advantage of in a way that benefits both the user, the end user, and the company, because relationships are can be solidifying for brand awareness and brand loyalty.

Janice Hostager 9:00

I would say most of my audience is going to relate to this mostly in their because we're smaller businesses, um, through conferences and trade shows, right? Okay. So what stage of business does experiential? I know I've been practicing this word. You said it. Experiential. Good job. Okay. Marketing or trade shows. How does that actually what at what stage does that make sense for them?

Booth Setup That Stops Traffic

Heather Johnson 9:26

Well, I would say we love working with small businesses. I think all small businesses should use experiential marketing. And so one thing about Polaris Brand Promotions is just we're gonna say that an agency that has no minimums is perfect for small businesses. So that's number one. Find yourself, if you can't do it yourself in-house, find an agency that has no minimums, is not gonna hold you to a big contract. And then you can use them for one-off events like trade shows. Trade shows are expensive. We know this. So the smaller you are, the harder it uh it seems to be to, you know, show up and then represent and get a cool booth and have all of these things going. But you can actually keep it pretty simple, no matter how small you are. So if you, so I'm gonna take this in two ways. If it is an event that is happening and you need to fly out your team, it is beneficial to work with an agency that does experiential marketing because you don't need to fly out everybody. You could save money on the cost of flights, hotels, and food and all of that, and keep those people focused on building more marketing and more sales and on their actual job. Because sometimes we go to trade shows and we see like the CEO pouring samples. And we're like, we understand you're a small business right now, but eventually you can hire local talent through an agency and they just show up and they do all the work. They're pre-trained and they assist you alongside your team. So that's one way to keep the costs down for a smaller business. The other, I would say, just in general, as advice for a small business, is you can keep it pretty simple, even within your area. So that brand loyalty, building that before the trade show, making sure that you're making a presence on social media, telling people that you're going to be there, which booth you're gonna be at, building that excitement for the attendees that are already checking it out. And then having some very good presentation for whether it's your team or if you're hiring a brand ambassador to have them trained, pre-trained, and then they can help stop the conversations and direct them to the right people while you are already busy having the conversations. So that keeps you from spending your time on the trade show, being overwhelmed with the amount of people who are coming by. And, you know, I know I just mentioned samples, but it could also be going through the examples of a demo of your services. You can hire somebody to be doing the demo so that if that person who is receiving on the receiving end of that demo, they're suddenly interested, they want to get started. That brand ambassador can pass them off to you so you can go ahead and move forward. And then they can reach out to other people walking by and continue the cycle so that you don't get bogged down at an event. You can enjoy it a little bit more. And you can, you know, if you want to add some fun things like give us your business card and you get a free flash drive or something like that. That's also the way that the brand ambassador can coordinate all of that for you. So you are just having the quality conversations at the trade show, getting the maximum amount of return for your money to be at the trade show.

Janice Hostager 12:27

Right, right. I've done a lot of conferences and not so much recently, but when I had my design agency, I would do a lot of um small business conferences and that sort of thing. And it is hard to do all the things to be there all day long because it's it's a long day of standing and you know, chatting people up. And um, you know, you have to make a run a bathroom break or grab some food, you're asking the person in the booth next to you to keep an eye on things. So it does make sense to have a second person there for sure. Um so but there is a there is a big expense with it. Not only is there the cost of the booth, but there's usually swag involved. Um there might be there might be travel if it's not a local event. It what can a small business do to kind of set themselves apart to keep them from kind of blending in? Because I feel like, okay, somebody's got a conference, they know they have a booth, everybody kind of goes and orders the same tablecloth with their logo on the front, and then they might have some booth graphics or something like that. But how do you keep people from just walking right past your booth?

Heather Johnson 13:37

We're getting a little bit into branding identity, which I do think is really important, keeping your brand at the forefront. So those tablecloths and logos are very important, but you can also supplement them with some of your own creative banners. A lot of trade shows charge an arm and a leg to handle that whole process for you, but you don't need to do that. I mean, they of course they do. And the larger companies might take advantage of that, but you don't have to because your backdrop could be as simple as something that is related to your service. It could be a banner that you order off of a on your own that is a retractable banner. That's what I quite often refer people towards because it's easy to break down. It's easy, they're not expensive. You can travel with them in your carry-on. Uh, we've done this many times. Our company went and flew out to Vegas and we had to bring everything with us. And we bought some things while we were there, which was smart, but making sure that you are spending the right amount of money to make sure that your branding is standing out and then captivating with some sort of trade show marketing, um, whatever you are there to get people excited about, making sure that that is very clear. The other part that I would mention, because I've been to so many trade shows, yes, giving out swag is definitely important. If you have really good swag and you did spend a lot of money on it, restricting it to people who are moving forward with you, who are having a conversation, who are giving you something in return. So you could say, hey, like, can you fill out this questionnaire? And then you get this. I did mention, can you follow us on social media or can you sign up for submit your business card or your email? We're going to add it to our newsletter. That is all invaluable information, the contact of the people who are stopping by. So the swag can attract attention. A brand ambassador is going to be the second in line for that because they can help bring all the energy. So, yes, you are right. Treatos are exhausting. They're so tiring, they're eight hours a day, not to count set up and break down. And in the end, it's worth it. It's a thousand percent worth it, but it can be daunting. So if you hire a local talent and you're only paying the hourly rate for that person, so you're not especially for travel, you're not flying out your team to handle this part. They already know the location because they're local. They probably have worked at the convention center that your expo or your trade show is at before. So they already know the ins and outs of the place. They might be able to actually help you like get fine parking and to, you know, be situated within the space. And then having them be the sole point of energy. Of course, you can have your energy too, and you're gonna have all the exciting conversations. But if you have somebody who is hired to be asking people, hey, come on over, stop by, have you heard about this? Let's go. That person is where we come in. And we provide that level of energy to help you feel like you're standing out away from other people because I've walked show floors and the people behind the treaches are exhausted. They're sitting on chairs, they're sort of staring out into space because we're at the ninth hour. So that brand ambassador won't do that. They're not going to be sitting down. They are trained to be on their feet and to be energetic the entire time.

Low-Cost Alternatives Like Festivals

Janice Hostager 16:46

Gotcha. So if someone has like a really small budget, what's a simple experiential idea that they could try?

Heather Johnson 16:55

Straight shows are not going to be that for this one. I would say finding maybe some conferences and seeing if you can get permission to set up in the space just a table, a table maybe in the lobby or something like that. It's going to depend on what kind of licensing is available. Now, on the other end, moving away from conferences and trade shows, the idea of street teams who are maybe going to a local shopping center or depending on what your service is, everybody is different. So it could be a festival. I think festival pop-ups are one of the greatest ways to spend money in this area. If the festival, even actually, even if the festival isn't fully matching what you do, uh, for example, I'm going to speak about the Philadelphia Flower Show. Now, the flower show itself is sort of like a trade show. So it's it's not exactly the same thing, but at the flower show, there are services that are not related to horticultural. They are their energy services, or maybe they are, I've I've seen solar panel services, different types of services that pop up in a similar realm, and they just are there to share what they do. Um, another example is we did a festival on a college campus. College campuses are great because depending on if you're doing it on move-in day, the parents are there as well. And it gives them something exciting to do, take a break, go walk over to this tent, find out what's happening. So there are ways to do setups and think outside of the box and keep it low cost.

Janice Hostager 18:26

I love that idea. In fact, that reminded me that I was just at a 5K um a few months ago, and there was someone selling windows there. And I was like, this is really not who I expected to see here, you know? And and I actually chatted with her a little bit because I thought, you know, this is kind of interesting. Why here? And she's like, well, there's a lot of people here that are, you know, standing around waiting for the race to end, and we chat with them and make that connection and build that relationship. And I love your festival idea. I think there are so many little festivals around that I don't even think about that, honestly. I think of conferences because I think I don't know why, but the main thing, usually. Yeah. Yeah. But you're right, those festivals are a great place, especially if it's aligned with what you're doing. Even like um sporting events like like kids' soccer, for example, often have opportunities for you to set something up for an inexpensive fee.

Heather Johnson 19:22

So yeah, you could even be a sponsor, and that sponsorship could be $200, and then you get the whole day to be in front of all of these people. So then your the rest of the cost can go towards the materials on the table and the printed marketing, all of those things. But you're right, festivals and and the 5K. I've done pop-ups for a grocery store at the 5K, and we were getting people to sign up for their app. So whether we were we were giving out food, but the main goal was to get people excited about their app.

Post-Event Follow-Up That Converts

Janice Hostager 19:51

Love that. Uh, how do I not waste this event? So, what should happen after the event to turn those conversations to take them to the next step?

Heather Johnson 20:01

Yeah, post-event follow-up is crucial, but it also takes so much time. So, what I would recommend is to get your hot leads responded to the quickest, the ones who stopped and actually had a conversation, and they are you can qualify pre-qualify them on whether they said they're ready to move on right now, or they just need a few a little bit more information so that they can set up a meeting and then move on. So the hot leads, reach out to them immediately, do it personally, personalized email or phone call follow-up. For everybody else, you can medium leads and warm leads, you can do the same thing, make sure you prioritize the hot leads. But the people who are like, oh, this is so interesting, maybe down the line, make sure that you include them in your email marketing, maybe in your general follow-up every six months, see if you can target them through social media ads or a regular advertisements and just see what happens because brand loyalty builds when brand recognition hits. And so people often see the logo multiple times, your logo for your business, your service, more and more. So that window company is smart because they're there during a 5K, but everybody at the 5K saw that logo. So the next time they're out or they're thinking about what they're going to move forward and they're doing home renovation, they're that's gonna come into their mind first.

Janice Hostager 21:20

Yeah. So how do you measure ROI from something like this?

Heather Johnson 21:26

An example of how we handle ROI, I'll start with for everybody. So our agency, we work with a standard software for our industry called Pinata, and we use this to generalize recap reporting from our brand ambassadors. So when you have a live person who's out there standing at a table handing out information about your products, they're going to mark the demographics of the people that they spoke with, maybe some comments about them, what ages they ranged from, what time of Day was most busy for this activation, how many people actually bought into the product, either signed up for it or were interested in getting more information. And they're going to put that all together into a recap. We make this immediately available to our clients so that they can review and see what they're getting out of this. For service and lead generation, it would be following up on how many people actually signed up, how many people are not staying subscribed to your newsletter and not removing you. And just seeing how many services get activated within maybe a three-month period after your experiential marketing. Three months. I'd say three months, six, six months to a year. Yeah. Three months is fast. I understand that. But you could see the long range term. Now there's people who sign up on the day of or the week of. That's different. Yeah. That's different.

Janice Hostager 22:55

And I'm sure it really depends on what it is that you're talking about. If it price point and a lot of different things, right? So it does. And do you have like some realistic expectations? Not necessarily best case, but normal case of what people can expect. Is this how effective is working a table like this or having experiential marketing?

Heather Johnson 23:17

It's very effective in getting your brand history and your service details out there. The response is going to vary dramatically per event and per service. And there's so many varieties of types of ways that you can reach out. So it really depends on what your experiential marketing is. I don't think there's a flat answer to that question, unfortunately. If it's a table and you're getting people and you do it during a busy time of whatever you are. So maybe festival, if that's the festival, or if you're at a store and you're at their opening, it's a it really depends on so much more about the event.

Rapid-Fire Swag And Booth Mistakes

Janice Hostager 23:56

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Okay, so now I have some rapid fire questions for you. Okay. Okay, so you're ready for these? All right. Yes. Uh best trade show giveaway that you've seen.

Heather Johnson 24:07

Oh, there was a scooter um at CES this year that I really wanted to win in electric scooter. So CES is the consumer electronic show, and they are exhibiting global advancements in technology all over. So I saw that. However, I didn't win that because that was like a one giveaway type thing, right? So the other, my other favorite swag is honestly the cheapest. I love stickers. I love seeing the stickers that people put out. They make them very um interesting. Make sure if you do stickers, you put your logo on there somewhere. You can have a really cool, I'm just gonna throw out an example, a really cool flower holographic sticker that you get 200 printed for a nominal price and your logo is in there, or maybe a QR code to your social media. As long as that's in there, wherever they put that sticker, you're they're gonna think of you because your your stuff is there. I do like t-shirts. Those are more so behind, I would say, uh an interaction wall, not a paywall, but like an interaction wall. You sign up for something and then you receive the t-shirt. Um let's see. Oh, actually, the scooter was cool, but what was really cool was I went to NRF this year, National Retail Federation, and I got a hand warmer that was double, it was an electric hand warmer. That was really cool as well. So very creative. And that was for a company that did something with AI. So they were just like, I don't know, we'll unfreeze your assets or something like that. And so they had hand, they had like hand warmers that you could plug in and charge, and then they last longer and more eco-friendly. So it really varies. You could be so creative, but stickers are generally a really good staple. Pens are still popular, especially if you get a stylist that can touch your screen on the other end of it. And flat even flash drives and portable chargers, things that people can use. I'm gonna go back to the portable charger. We learned that that was invaluable at the last trade show we went to because of press. Our goal was press. We wanted press to come over. And this is for sample finder, um, we which we were debuting at both CES and NRF. And since we wanted press, we were thinking outside of the box what would press need? Portable chargers for their phones. And quite often reporters were like, Oh, my phone is almost dead. And we were like, We've got you, we've got this thing that will help you on the spot. So, yes, those those types of giveaways that are extremely beneficial as well as fun are always popular.

Janice Hostager 26:32

Yeah, yeah. I was at a conference a while back where they gave things away hourly, like Google Glasses, like really nice things. Yeah, I know. There was always a group around that booth at the time of the drawing, like top of the hour.

Heather Johnson 26:46

Like, but they only had to buy one or hourly, so maybe eight, and then they got all whole crowds, crowds, crowds, crowds coming over to try to win. So you can balance that off a little bit because you're getting all of their feedback and their interaction with your booth. You're probably getting coverage, whether that's press coverage or event coverage, because they the events organizers love to see that. They want people to get excited. That's that's social media real gold.

Janice Hostager 27:15

Not only that, but you're like, if you're walking through, you're like, oh, why is there a crowd in front of this booth? It must, you know, that must be awesome. Whatever happy over there, you know? So it really drew some attention. Yeah. Um, is there a something that people should avoid for giveaways, like terrible things?

Heather Johnson 27:32

Maybe overused things. Well, I know I said pens, but I do think that pens are super valuable at trade shows for taking quick notes. But if you make it just look a little bit different, maybe your pens are a bright color, then people are like, oh, I love that, versus just like a regular uh, I don't want to say any names, brand names, but like a regular pen. Um overused. I mean, there's a lot of times that people will put out um candy, but I still think candy is a good one. I don't know. I think if you have are giving out anything, anything is almost better than nothing.

Janice Hostager 28:08

Oh yeah, yeah, I would probably agree with that.

Heather Johnson 28:10

So yeah, one thing that you should never do at a trade show turn your back on the people walking by, being on your phone, even if you are so tired and you have to be, you know, you have to do something, trying to still maintain an air of you're paying attention to the people walking by because there's so many missed opportunities when you see that. Um I'm not going to stop and talk to you if you don't seem like you want to talk to me. So I'll feel like I'm interrupting something. So that's number one. And you can avoid that by hiring brand ambassadors, but you can also do it by like, you know, being present at the booth. Uh now you could also put up a sign if you do need to take a break and have a QR code that has all your information on it. There's people walking trade shows that don't want to talk to people. So you can provide that opportunity too, so that they can still get your contact information, whether you needed to go take that bathroom break or get food and come back if you don't leave a bear booth.

Janice Hostager 29:05

So right, right. Is there a small tweak that can make a big difference?

Heather Johnson 29:11

Yeah. Having well, having those either clearly labeled, reach out to me, big contact information. Um, it could be a QR code, but it could be something that people can take a photo of that has your information on it, or a sign that says, I'll be right back, please come back. That's a good way to capture attention of the people walking by because they're not gonna see the blank booth then. They're gonna say, Oh, okay, I'll be right back.

Janice Hostager 29:35

Mm-hmm.

Heather Johnson 29:36

Right.

Janice Hostager 29:36

Rather than, oh, I guess they're gone for the day kind of thing. Yes. Yeah, yes. Or maybe they didn't show up. Is it better to collect business cards or scans at booths or doesn't matter?

Heather Johnson 29:47

Uh, well, scanners. The scanners themselves can be in the hundreds to get. So I do understand wanting to skip out on that. I think it's perfectly fine to skip out on that if you have a backup plan. So if you have the business cards or you have something that you could take a photo of their business card, um, I think that's very smart to have. If you do go and purchase the scanner, I will say you're going to get a lot of information, but it has an email address that people can put in. It does have the option of you to take notes on it. So you can go old school and still take your own notes and take photos of business cards or collect business cards. Something that you can also do is um make a note of their badge and and have that as something that you can maybe look up later. So if you invest in any of those Apollo type searches to find email addresses later that could work for you, I'm just giving you all of the different options for uh service providers that might be on a budget because scanning is obviously top tier, but it is so expensive.

Janice Hostager 30:46

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I mean, the the problem too that I have is that if you go to a conference, you leave a business card, then you get some maybe unwanted emails. So I always want to stress that you don't want to email somebody that doesn't want to be emailed. You know, so just being really clear that you know it what your intentions are or that you will be reaching out so that you don't just spam people because that makes you look bad and and um makes people unhappy for sure. So uh Heather, tell me how people can learn more about you and Polaris and talk a little bit about Sample Finder, because I know that you're pretty excited about that.

Heather Johnson 31:24

Yeah, so I'll talk about Polaris Brand Promotions first. We are a promo staffing experiential marketing agency that's been around for almost a decade. We have so much experience representing everybody from the smallest just getting started mom and pop businesses all the way up to nationally recognized and global companies. So you can find us at Polaris Brand Promotions.com and at Polaris Brand Promotions on all social medias. And we are offering a new service. It will be Sample Finder, it's the first experiential marketing app. This would be super beneficial if you do have those events, even if you are staffing them in-house, you're doing it on your own, you've decided to find a festival in your area and pop up at it. We are offering those events to be featured on an app where users can see what events are happening in their area and who's going to be there and why they want to go. So you could submit your event to be featured on the app. We will be launching within the next few months. And that event will show up to users. They'll know what's in their area. You could say what type of service you are. We have all the different types of service. And if you are very unique, we have another. And you could say what is what you're offering, what they'll get if they show up. And if you do have some sort of discount, that discount can be offered only during the event. So it's a very uh protective type of way that you can provide a service, but only to people who show up. And it's to drive more people to these experiential marketing events because the flow of traffic at a festival or in a store is very up to the weather. It's up to the social media of the events, like they're broadcasting it, they're advertising their event. This is an alternative way that you can get your information out there to future attendees or future prospects. So that is samplefinder.com, and you can sign up for the newsletter to find out when we launch.

Janice Hostager 33:21

I love that idea. I mean, even as a consumer, I love that idea because I mean, I think of when you say sample finder, I think of Costco on a Saturday morning where everybody's got their samples out there and we're just, you know, try everything, you know. And but you're right, there's so many festivals and events going on that people could use that for. So I'm excited to see it when it launches. So, and of course, all the links are going to be in the show notes today. Thank you so much, Heather.

Heather Johnson 33:48

Thank you. I really enjoyed this. This was fun.

Janice Hostager 33:50

For more information about Heather or anything we talked about on this episode, please visit myweeklymarketing.com forward slash one fifty five. Thanks so much for joining me today. I'll see you next time. Bye for now.