Marketing is an extremely important part of keeping your business profitable, but who said it had to be boring. In fact, creative and out-the-box marketing methods are often very powerful because they are unexpected. Take a look at the five un-conventional marketing methods below and pick one or two to actually try out.
1. Contests
Contests are easy to put on and can definitely generate buzz about your business. The key to a great contest is giving away something that people want. Something new and in-high demand always works great. If you can get your hands on something that fits the bill, you may just have the perfect contest prize on your hands.
In order for your contest to work, you are going to need to spread the word. If you are using television or radio advertising this will be easier. If not, however, you can leverage your community newspapers and other media outlets along with your personal network and social media to spread the word. If you aren’t going to employ a mass communication method, you may want to make the contest run a bit longer so that you have an adequate number of respondents.
Depending on the type of business you have, you can advertise the time and day of the announcement and invite everyone that entered the contest to come out. This works great for retail stores because you can pack the store and make some residual sales. Either way, running a contest will definitely increase interest in your business. Don’t forget to get permission to add all of the participants to your email list.
2. Free Samples
Everyone wants to get something for free and if you can offer something great for free, you just might be able to gain some new paying customers. You can go about giving away free samples in a few different ways.
A TCBY franchise partnered with a local bank in my community. They would leave coupons for a free cone in the bank for their customers to take. I took one as did some of the other people in the bank on that day. You can partner with a business to offer free coupons to your store. This works great and if you take the time to target the right business, you can almost ensure some of the freebies coming back as paying customers.
Depending on what you sell, you may be able to rent a cart and take your freebies to the people. This works great for food! If you decided to give out free samples this way, you should make sure to have some full-sized, full price items on hand for those that want more.
If you are are going to advertise your free sample, you can maximize the buzz by offering it on just one special day. Maybe you will add the free sample info to a radio ad that you already do. Making a special event out of your free samples can bring people out, but you will need to give people enough notice to take advantage. Make a special event out of giveaway and send out press releases telling the local media all about it.
3. Post Cards
Lots of businesses send out postcards as direct mail, however, not many people get the response of business owners that do it this way. Keep a cool backdrop in your place of business and when people come in, whether they make a purchase or not, you ask them to stand in front of the backdrop and take a picture. A week or so later, you send the picture as a postcard to the client. Clients love this because it is unexpected and a lot of fun. You will be surprised how many people actually keep these cards. To add a boost to this marketing method, you can add a coupon or special offer to the back of the postcard. This is one coupon that probably won’t be lost.
4. National Special Events Registry
I have to admit, when I heard this marketing method I thought it was pretty awesome. The National Special Events Registry is the organization that keeps track of all the special months, weeks, and days in the US. You can create a special event and submit it to the National Special Events Registry for inclusion in their materials. This is free and you can use the special event to increase awareness, sponsor special events, and unify your community all around your specific business and industry. If you want the National Special Events Registry to actually recognize your month, week, or day, you can pay $20. Not a bad investment for such a powerful marketing tool.
5. Free Consultation
Offering free consultations doesn’t really seem like an out-of-the-box marketing method, but when you do it in real guerrilla fashion, it is. Instead of having someone come in to learn more about what you can do for them, actually do it for them in the limited time of the consultation. Most times people don’t always take the time to go to consultations because they don’t really gain much in the process. Instead of doing the same ol’, same ol’, really help the prospective clients. Set a limit, 30 minutes or an hour, for the consultation and use that time to actually solve the persons problem. Some of the people may not need your services after the consultation, but most will return.
Have you used any out of the box marketing methods? Tell me about them below. To learn about more creative marketing methods visit the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur.
image credit: Ambrozjo
I'm Brandi N. Grays and I am a small business marketing consultant. The information on this site is designed to assist small business owners in growing their businesses through effective marketing strategy and creative and budget-friendly implementation. Take a look around, join the discussion, and come back often.
