By now, most business owners understand the fundamentals of digital marketing. Some of these tried and tested strategies include search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, email marketing, and pay-per-click online ads. But, while these strategies remain effective, you might find success with out-of-the-box thinking to integrate more unconventional methods into your overall marketing strategies. These strategies include:
Creating Valuable Content
This is a marketing strategy that isn’t focused on directly driving sales. In whatever niche you are in, you can indirectly grow your customer base and brand recognition by creating helpful and valuable content that your target consumers can benefit from. For example, if you sell auto spares, you can post well-researched articles on vehicle maintenance. You can do this through a blog section on your main website, or register separate domain names for this informative and educational content. You can naturally link to your main site in the content, but the content can’t be “salesy”, it needs to have an unbiased expert tone and delivery.
Media Interviews
Journalists constantly need expert sources for stories they are covering and entrepreneurs need exposure to grow their brand awareness. This is a synergy you can tap into by making yourself available for media interviews as an expert in your field. You can contact most newsrooms and introduce yourself as an expert in your field, and in most cases, they will contact you for expert opinion in matters concerning your field. When you’re featured in a story, your name and your company will be mentioned and this could see a big boost to your reputation as an expert and your brand awareness. It’s a clever, and free, way to indirectly market your brand.
Be Active on Less-Mainstream Social Media Platforms
It’s all good to have official accounts on popular social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and X (Twitter) – after all, that’s where most of your customers are. But you can get value from being active on some of the less popular niche ones like Quora, Pinterest, Tumblr, and even LinkedIn. These won’t be saturated by your competitors, so if you play it right, you can grow a sizable and loyal following. The key to succeeding on these niche social media platforms is understanding the type of content users prefer and the overall “vibe” within the space. For example, LinkedIn is super formal while Tumblr is more casual and playful. Also, in these smaller online communities, having an honest and authentic approach to engagement goes a long way.
Maintain a Customer Community
This is not a new marketing strategy but it’s really hard to successfully pull off. Creating an online community to interact with your customers can be a powerful marketing tool as you create a space where your customers can interact with each other and with you directly. However, this only works for companies whose values and quality levels align with those of their customers.
Conclusion
Unconventional marketing strategies can dovetail with mainstream marketing tips to create an effective overall marketing strategy for your business. These out-of-the-box marketing strategies include creating useful nonmarketing content, participating in media interviews, being active on less popular social media platforms, and facilitating an online community for your consumers.
