Business success is never guaranteed when you are an owner or executive. It takes a healthy amount of research, planning, execution, and even some luck to move up within an industry. This is true whether you make decisions for an established brand or a solopreneur venture.
Marketing is one branch of your business that is crucial to its success. It is the process of communicating with customers to convince them that the services you provide are the best solution to a particular problem. How you market the business and its products directly impacts the revenue potential of the company.
Sometimes, you need to think outside the box for your next marketing initiative. Maybe growth has stagnated, or you are even losing some customers. A new tactic might be worth exploring, so here are a few unique marketing strategies to consider.
Instagram Reels
Instagram is a trendy platform for marketers. It is a visual medium that is designed for scrolling, so the challenge lies in grabbing the attention of users and holding it long enough to convey your message is an important skill, but one that not every marketer has. Reels present a great opportunity for marketing because they are short videos. Videos are a dynamic medium that can grab attention with visual and audio elements. Plus, reels are much more widely shared than traditional videos or image posts on the platform. Instagram reels as a marketing tool can be perfect for targeting younger audiences as long as you know how to create great content and use the right hashtags.
Promotional Products
While the world is extremely digital in 2023, there is still an important role to play for physical marketing products. For example, branded merchandise is an incredibly effective strategy for increasing brand awareness. How many branded shirts, hats, coffee mugs, or grocery bags do you see on a daily basis? Probably quite a few. These items are not super expensive for companies to invest in, but they can yield additional brand impressions with each use. Plus, you can give away promotional products as rewards for loyal customers, hardworking employees, or new subscribers, all while creating greater visibility for the company name and logo.
Plug Into Usenet
Have you heard of the online network that existed before the Internet? Well, now you have, and it is still around today. Usenet is a discussion platform that features hundreds of thousands of “newsgroups” which cover specific subjects. Within these newsgroups, you can engage in unregulated discussions about the topic. Another feature is that you can quickly and securely download articles from other users. Usenet can benefit your company’s marketing in a few ways. First, you can learn more about your target audience if you find a newsgroup that aligns with the business niche. Second, you can display expertise in a topic by offering advice or responding to users with questions. Third, you can even learn from other experts in the same field as your company. All you need is an account with one of the top Usenet services and a newsreader program to access the newsgroups.
Guerilla Marketing
Borrowing from the concept of guerilla warfare, this marketing method relies on unconventional and creative ways to display messaging and elicit a stronger response from customers. Sometimes, the best and most viral marketing campaigns are simple. For example, McDonald’s has painted crosswalk hash marks yellow to symbolize french fries coming out of their signature red containers. You can spend far less money on this initiative, as its main benefit is high visibility and word-of-mouth spread. When your guerilla marketing piece creates a strong response, people will talk about it and post about it on social media, increasing the reach of the initial campaign.
Harness Influencers
While a business can certainly do its own marketing through social media, sometimes having a partner with tons of followers can be a better way to increase your reach. Harnessing the power of influencers can bring a lot of attention to your brand. With the right partner, one of your product lines could suddenly show up on the feeds of thousands of new customers, all because you chose the right influencer to offer a sponsorship or affiliate marketing link. The key to this strategy working is having strong influencer outreach processes. An influencer is unlikely to partner with your brand unless you can provide value to their audience, so do your research and know how your business can benefit the influencer’s relationship with their followers. This new partnership can quickly grow your customer base.
Never Settle With your Marketing
The challenge that marketers face every year is staying relevant. The world moves quickly, and so do the needs of the consumer. A marketing tactic that has served your business well for years may not always be relevant. You will never find the perfect marketing formula because customers are always changing. For this reason, you should never settle with your marketing initiatives. Continue to research marketing trends and how consumers make decisions. Think outside the box with some of these more unique tactics to increase your reach and build a loyal customer base.
