How’s your promotional strategy working out?
If you’re underwhelmed by the response you’re currently getting out of your strategy, or you’re simply looking for a spark to take things to the next level, these six oft-overlooked promotional tips could well be difference-makers. Even if one or more fail to apply directly to your outreach strategy, you’re sure to find something new to try here.
- Go the Extra Mile With Your Business Cards
There’s no reason your business cards should be an afterthought. Sure, some prospects will toss your card in the bottom of their business card cup, never to be seen again. But others will keep it close at hand. Increase the prevalence of the former by following best practices for killer business cards that immediately grab the attention.
- Buy Targeted Paid Search Ads
Paid search is complicated. For the uninitiated, it can quickly become expensive, too. Keep costs in check with remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA), a nifty and fairly obscure (for non-SEOs) search marketing feature that “lets you customize your search ads campaign for people who have previously visited your site…and tailor your bids and ads to these visitors when they’re searching on Google and search partner sites,” per Google. It doesn’t take a digital marketing expert to see how this capability can resurrect a moribund marketing campaign.
- Make the Principals More Visible
Give your company’s principals and key employees the digital visibility they deserve, even on properties they don’t actively use. For instance, this Wikipedia page for moviemaker David Mimran’s father is an indirect advertisement for his family’s portfolio of business interests — a high-authority, eminently visible property that requires virtually no maintenance on his part.
- Pound the Pavement the Old-Fashioned Way
When in doubt, press the flesh. Look for trade shows, conventions, networking events, and other opportunities likely to attract lots of prospects under the same roof. Invest in memorable marketing collateral: signs, swag, booth walls, flyers, pitch decks, demos. And hone your elevator pitch before you arrive.
- Make Fun, Hard-to-Resist Swag
About that swag: make it custom, and make it hard to resist. Ideas for catchy, highly customized company swag are too numerous to name; you’ll need to read your audience and determine whether they’re a pen, folder, or stress ball kind of crowd. Whichever you choose, make sure it’s well-branded and immediately recognizable as your own.
- Run Social Deals in Key Markets
Groupon isn’t dead yet. If you’re looking to break into a finite number of geographic markets, consider running local social deals to get on-the-fence prospects in the door, in volume. You’ll lose money on the deal, but you’ll gain enough customers on the back end to make it worthwhile — provided you deliver the goods.
Keep Breaking That Mold
Any entrepreneur worth their salt knows that trying the same thing again and again in hopes of forcing a different, better result is a waste of resources. If your promotional strategy isn’t achieving its ends, it’s time to switch up the strategy.
When you do, don’t be afraid to look outside the box for new ideas — whether they resemble any of the strategies described above, or take some completely new and unexpected form. Your business is unique; it’s only natural that it should benefit from a unique marketing strategy.