Someone has rightly quoted – “Marketing used to be about making a myth and telling it. Now it’s about telling a truth and sharing it.” This is a classic phrase shedding some light on the ever-evolving marketing strategies.
Can’t we all agree that marketing methods have transformed drastically over the last few decades?
Earlier, advertisements often focused on glorifying products to attract consumers. Now, it is more about understanding the consumer mindset and creating a brand identity that they can relate to. This in turn generates revenue. Undoubtedly, the success of any business is directly related to its marketing strategies. In the the absence of the right techniques, generating revenue and staying afloat is nearly impossible.
The fact is that what got you to this point in business is not going to get you to the next level. Sustaining a business has been always more difficult than starting one. As an entrepreneur, you need to constantly come up with innovative marketing tools. That keeps a business ahead of its competitors. From the Millennials to Gen Z, a lot has changed – including the way businesses run. Our lives are technology-driven more than ever. All these factors make it even more essential to have robust marketing strategies for your business.
So how does one achieve it? Well, to begin with, you must focus “on” the business just the same way you focus “in” the business. A lot of times the day to day operations keep you occupied enough that choosing the right marketing strategies goes down on your priority list. You need to analyze the basic mechanism of your market trends and focus on how to reach a larger audience. Simultaneously, it is equally important to convert your leads into sales and optimize your conversions. Otherwise, you will just be wasting your money.
Most businesses face a conundrum in the absence of a clear vision. Also, in situations when you run out of money, sparing some for the right marketing strategies becomes crucial. However, some things can be done to reach out to more potential customers without breaking your bank. All you need is to get a little more creative in your approach. A little out of the box thinking can go a long way here. You never know, this might prove more effective than expensive and mundane advertising methods. So here are a few innovative ways to strategize your marketing techniques effectively:
Introduction of a referral program:
Referral marketing is still an underestimated strategy. In this strategy, you allow the customer to promote your product. As simple as it might sound, I believe it has not been exhausted enough. It is proven that 95% of people trust, personal recommendations more than all other forms of marketing. That is a huge number indeed!
All you need to be able to do is get your customers to actively promote your business among their friends. This can be made possible by offering “refer & earn” plans. These have proven to be very effective and increase the reach of your products by a whopping 150%. People develop excitement and interest in such programs resulting in greater engagement.
There have been examples like Paytm and Google Pay who offer customers a small reward against referring a friend. Features like these also trigger a chain effect resulting in exponential growth.
Host a contest or competition:
To promote your product and also increase customer engagement, hosting a contest is a winning idea. People tend to get associated with brands where they feel a personal involvement. This strategy was adopted by YouTube. They offered a free iPod Nano each day to users who uploaded videos and invited their friends. YouTube’s growth skyrocketed and today it has grown up to become the biggest video sharing website in the world. Facebook has also emerged as one of the best platforms to host any such activities. The involvement and attention of customers go a long way.
Spend your cash wisely:
Let me begin this point with a very popular example. When PayPal was just a start-up, they offered $10 to each new customer. And another $10 to the existing customer who referred the new customer. Therefore, the total cost of acquiring a new customer was $20.The catch here is that the organization chose to give away cash to its customers directly instead of spending a huge sum of money on advertisements. Well, I wouldn’t call it bribing the customer!
The good thing was that the strategy worked well in PayPal’s favour. While this might be an expensive way to gain customers, it is worth a shot. In some cases, the total amount spent on different methods of advertising surpassed the amount spent on such giveaways. You can work around the amount given to each customer based on your budget.
Get associated with a renowned brand:
If you feel that your business is too small to attract a large audience, consider getting associated or partner with an existing larger company than yours. You never know, this might be your answer to building a huge base of loyal customers. Android developers partnered with candy company KitKat with the release of Android 4.4. The collaboration resulted in Android acquiring a larger number of customers. Moreover, KitKat’s customers were also benefitted as they learned about tablets and phones.
It is not essential to look for an extremely successful venture here. A strategic partnership that helps you gain visibility in the market should be good enough. In such collaborations, usually both the businesses benefit from each other. Therefore, it is a win-win situation.
Go Creative – Flash Mob style:
A flash mob is a well-choreographed song and dance sequence performed by a group of artists. It is usually performed amidst a crowd. The concept is to make it look spontaneous – while it isn’t& highlighting your business as the performance executes. Yes, it requires extensive preparation and planning. But they make for an amazing spectacle that is sure to get noticed. Promoting your business through such an idea might sound crazy. However, the results can be unexpected positive.
www.bookaflashmob.com is a website that provides flash mob services. It caters to many renowned names like NBA, IBM, Disney to name a few. They provide flash mob services for group events, matches or just on a busy street. They can be a saviour if you do not have any idea how to begin or execute such an event. Moreover, the event can be recorded and you can use videos for your online marketing strategies. Many businesses have benefitted from quirky ideas like these. So, why should you not explore some out of the way creative stunts advertise your venture?
Offer gifts and coupons:
I’m sure you would think what is new about this strategy.
I mean we have been witnessing free stuff since the inception of time. Aren’t we? Well, it doesn’t mean age-old effective methods do not work. You can surely get innovative around these proven techniques. The idea is to provide a gift that does not cost a lot. It must be a fraction of the cost of your actual product. And undoubtedly, customers always love that something extra over and above their purchase.
For instance: Diamond Candles, a popular candle manufacturer in North Carolina has a ring in each of their candles. The price of those rings ranging $10 to $5000. The pattern here is what makes the method effective. Every 100th candle has $100 ring while every 1000th candle has a $1000 worth ring as so on. All the others possess just a $10 ring. This may look like the company is losing money on the deal; however, the reality is quite the opposite. The rings on an average cost $13 per candle. However, the prices of candles are much more than that.
To add to the fact that they certainly purchase rings at a discounted rate. This has worked out to be a highly profitable promotional campaign. The sales have seen an upward trend.
“The social cause” effect:
Using your product for a social cause can prove to be extremely profitable if done the right way. Customers feel connected to your physical product while contributing to a social cause. There is an emotional, positive and good will angle to it.
In 2013, during a carnival in Rio De Jenario, the Ambev beer company found an opportunity to do just that. They installed custom turnstiles that allowed people to pay for a train ride using empty beer cans. This act reduced road traffic and encouraged people to use public transport. According to the data, around 1000 people per hour ditched their cars and travelled by train. Not only that, the beer cans were collected and donated to an NGO who recycled them, thereby reducing litter. This made for spectacular response and the beer sales increased of course!
Social Media to the aid:
For some reason, I felt that mentioning social media in this article should not be required. I mean isn’t it just obvious? Social media is effective, necessary and a must-have marketing tool in today’s era. But then, isn’t it all the more reason to mention it? Well, I decided to go against my instinct and write about it anyways. Digital media is the place where all the action is happening today. Several businesses have evolved just based on social media alone. It may look intimidating at first, but as you build momentum, you realize numerous opportunities are waiting.
Hiring a social media manager can be a great idea if you have the required funds for it. A person dedicated to your social media presence and engagement helps a lot. Experts are usually aware of certain useful tools and techniques that we may not know of. However, if that is not affordable, taking matters in your own hands also works. The trick is to remain authentic and post only relevant and useful information. Social media is a great platform for your audience to know your business and industry. People develop and lose interest very quickly in the digital world. Therefore, here are some tips and tricks for you to navigate through the many options available:
Blogging:
Blogging can be very expressive when done the right way. It is possible to reach out to a large number of potential customers by posting your blogs on platforms like “Medium”. You can also answer questions on Quora&Reddit. These are platforms where anyone can write and they already have a huge audience. This gives you a chance to get connected with the right set of people and increase visibility & reach of your business
Influencers:
You may choose to leverage influencers to get the word out there and increase your visibility on social media. All you need to do is find the right influencers, not necessarily with millions of followers, but the right ones. The purpose is to target the right audience. The cost involved in this won’t even matter if it starts generating sales for you.
LinkedIn:
LinkedIn is a great platform to connect and collaborate with like-minded entrepreneurs. It is all about business and professional connections. That is why a lot of people look up to it for business associations. Talk about your journey, challenges and setbacks. Effective stories help you reach a larger potential customer base.
Instagram& Facebook ads:
Promoting your content on Instagram and publishing ads on a Facebook pixel are great ways to reach the right set of people. You can choose to target your audience based on their interests, age, gender, geographical location etc. Pixel also provides a feature to track the people who visited your site and showed interest in your business. This provides you with a smaller group who are genuinely interested in your product. You can further design your marketing strategy around those potential customers.
Knowledge of “Search engine optimization”:
SEO is a powerful marketing tactic. There is a surge in the number of visitors on your website if it appears somewhere at the top in results by a search engine. Usage of the right keywords helps to attain this. However, make sure your content is authentic and do not spam keywords just to appear at the top of the list.
Use Videos as a mode of expression:
Videos are a great way to express complex methods in an easy to understand format. It is easier to understand anything through a video rather than any other mode of communication. Did you know that Google algorithm favours websites with video content? Therefore, making videos an important aspect of Search engine optimization as well as marketing. The world is watching videos more than ever. If you are not benefitting from this tool, you are missing out on a lot. For instance – Video marketing through YouTube can be done with very less investment.
Conclusion:
When it comes to marketing for business, there is no one-size-fits-all. Something that worked for someone in the past may not work for you equally well. Or might work even better! Who knows? There would be too many versions of all the available tactics out there. You need to try different methodologies constantly to find your perfect strategy. The best way to stay in the game is to keep on evolving. Do not hesitate to venture into new avenues. Stay true and authentic to your content. I’m sure wonders are waiting to happen soon!
