How to Do Successful Mobile Marketing Tours

A Brief History of Mobile Marketing

At the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, major companies debuted brands, handed out samples to attendees, and led product demonstrations. These innovative experiential marketing strategies were transformed and taken on the road a few decades later. 

The first known mobile marketing tour happened in 1936, when Oscar Mayer built a hot dog shaped vehicle, the “Weinermobile,” and drove it around Chicago to promote the family’s hot dog brand. The iconic vehicle made stops throughout Chicago, and the driver handed out toy whistles shaped like the Weinermobile. The mobile tour charmed audiences and is now infamous. 

In the 1980s, guerrilla marketing became a popular strategy to catch the attention of consumers and create memorable experiences. In guerrilla marketing, products or services are marketed in unexpected places and at unexpected times. 

In recent decades, these strategies of product sampling, branded vehicles, and guerrilla marketing expanded and evolved to create what we now know as a mobile marketing tour. The purpose of a mobile marketing tour is to take a brand on the road to reach as many consumers as possible. 

Read on to learn tips to take your mobile marketing tour to the next level. 

Choose Strategic Locations

For mobile marketing tours, location is everything. The tour locations need to be easily accessible and visible to your target audience. Locations that receive high volumes of foot traffic are ideal for expanding the reach and impact of your brand. To secure prime locations, attain the appropriate permits in advance. The most dynamic tours include preplanned, permitted locations as well as spontaneous, guerrilla events that surprise and delight consumers. Both strategies can be used to maximize the tour’s impact.

Select the Right Vehicle

The tour vehicle needs to provide the required functionalities while also creating the biggest impact for your brand’s message. Custom-designed vehicles, with special interior and exterior features, can draw attention and shape engaging visitor experiences. Additionally, it is important to ensure the vehicle size, drivability, maintenance, creative build-outs, storage capabilities, temperature controls, and other critical qualities are designed to support your marketing objectives. 

Assemble a Strong Team

To launch a successful mobile marketing tour, you need a strong team to represent your brand. Drivers need to be professional, and it is ideal to have at least two drivers so that a back-up is always available. The tour manager is responsible for overseeing staff and organizing all of the logistics. Tour managers and staff need to be experienced on campaigns and genuinely passionate about your brand. Brand ambassadors must be charismatic and knowledgeable about the company and products so that they can make meaningful connections with your audience. Partnering with local brand ambassadors can deepen engagement with each community you visit. 

Focus on a Creative, Memorable Message

The most successful mobile marketing tours focus on a key message. All of the artistic design, promotional materials, and strategies should focus on conveying the message to the target audience. In order to make a strong, positive impression, the key message needs to be creative and meaningful to the audience. 

Coordinate a Multi-Channel Marketing Campaign

An exciting mobile marketing tour extends well beyond the footprint of the branded vehicle. Digital marketing campaigns and engagement solutions can create buzz, draw crowds to tour stops, and generate leads. Partnering with an industry influencer is a great way to share brand messages and cultivate followings. In addition to leveraging vast communities on social media, the tour can engage with regional media channels in the locations the tour visits. Conducting interviews on local TV and radio stations will increase market visibility and reach. Well-timed publications in local press and magazines can activate audience engagement before you arrive and after you depart. Beyond local press and social media, you can elevate your multi-channel marketing campaign with a virtual and hybrid solution that extends brand reach and customer engagement beyond the physical space of the tour stop.

Provide Exciting Entertainment

Once you have a captive audience, keep participants engaged with activities that motivate your audience to take action. Interactive experiences should be tailored to embody and communicate the spirit of your brand. Effective activities encourage visitors to participate in the mobile tour experience and lengthen the visit duration. When attendees linger, brand ambassadors can have conversations and build sincere connections. 

Make Your Next Mobile Marketing Tour a Success

To make your next mobile marketing tour a success, partner with a trusted event marketing agency. 

Hamilton is a full-service event marketing agency with a 75-year legacy creating immersive brand experiences for companies throughout North America and around the world. We design, produce, and execute integrated experiences that drive meaningful connections between your brand and your audience. Our full range of solutions include mobile tours, exhibits, proprietary events and conferences, corporate environments, outdoor events, and digital experiences. To see Hamilton’s mobile marketing tour expertise in action, read the Cummins case study. To get expert help for your next mobile marketing tour, contact Hamilton today!