Marketing is a key function for virtually every business. This umbrella process includes research, development, and promotion. Marketing increases brand recognition, generates leads, and improves conversion rates.
In fact, without marketing, nothing moves. It doesn’t matter if you’ve invented a better mousetrap. Customers won’t beat a path to your doorstep if you don’t get the word out about your solution to their unmet consumer need.
Unfortunately, marketing is no longer as effective as it used to be. A bewildering volume of marketing campaigns in a consumer-based economy has created a cacophony. Faced with a situation in which competitive marketing efforts have resulted in too much market noise, how do you send a clear signal about the value of your product or service?
One solution to rising above the noise is to try a few out-of-the-box marketing strategies.
1. Be Generous with Promotional Giveaways
Generosity has always been a good way to amplify a marketing campaign. One way to be generous is to use promotional giveaways.
Unfortunately, people have become accustomed to a good thing and your prospects are likely to take gifts like pens, jackets, and bags with your name and logo on them for granted. Consequently, they often just toss them into a drawer or closet and forgot about them.
One way to spark renewed interest in your promotional gift is to double down on the size of your giveaway. Perhaps, give away personalized socks to a school that has a little league team or high school soccer team that will wear them at a playoff.
2. Ask Users to Champion Your Product
Since many hyped-up advertising efforts often fail to fulfill promises, caveat emptor sentiments have only intensified. Today, the source of the product information, rather than the merits of the information itself, has led to public skepticism.
How do you advertise without appearing to advertise?
One way to win back consumer confidence is to encourage users to share their honest opinion about your products or services through social media. Social proof now works even better than unforgettable advertising jingles and brilliant copywriting. What’s more, since there are no advertising costs, ROI is infinite.
How do you get consumers to become brand ambassadors? One simple strategy is to ask customers who have benefited from your product to use a specified hashtag when they tweet about it.
3. Multiply Your Sales Presentations
Why do people buy from a good salesperson?
It’s because he or she explains in detail exactly how the product will benefit them. In addition, it’s easy for them to grasp the details by listening to the descriptive words, glancing at visual prompts, and slipping into sympathetic resonance with the salesperson’s vocal intonations and facial expressions.
Unfortunately, good salespeople are hard to find. And even if you do find a few, they can’t be everywhere all the time.
One way to replicate the power of good salesmanship is to use explainer videos. This can be done in a variety of ways, including face-time videos, animated videos, and slides with a voice over. Moreover, video sharing sites like YouTube make it easy to propagate your message to a worldwide audience around the clock.
4. Win People Over With Transparency
A simple way to overcome buyer resistance is to become transparent in your advertising and promotions. This is what Domino's did in 2011 when they put up a 4,630 square-foot billboard in Times Square.
Their massive billboard featured an electronic ticker displaying consumers opinion about a Domino’s pizza that they had just purchased. The campaign was so successful that it created a double-digit increase in sales during the first quarter when it ran.
You Only Need a Single Hit
When trying out out-of-the-box solutions, you may not have enough consumer data to forecast results. Consequently, you may have several flops. But here’s the thing: all you need is one big hit to make all the difference. A singularly successful hit is more than enough to contribute to substantial revenue growth, increased bottom-line profits, improved customer retention, and enhanced brand loyalty.
