If you leverage creative marketing and innovative thinking, then your campaign doesn't have to be limited by your budget. With the right creative imagination at work, your marketing goals are achievable - even for a small business.
Creative marketing is positioning products or services using creative talent and ideas for brand promotion. Creative marketing strategies and ideas help many B2C and B2B businesses to grow.
Often, a unique, grassroots marketing strategy can amass far more attention than a larger company's traditional, cookie-cutter marketing campaigns. Here are a few creative advertising ideas to give your strategy a boost.
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1. Play to Your Strengths
Every organization has a differentiator. If you’ve done your due diligence with buyer personas, then you already know what your audience wants.
How does your product or service uniquely solve a problem or a perceived problem? Maybe you have the shortest implementation timeline in your industry. Perhaps you use recycled materials, and your competitors don’t, or you are a local company that gives back a percentage of profits to the community.
Keep an open mind and a sharp eye when you look for differentiators.
They take different forms and resonate in different ways, but all are a springboard to accelerate your message.
2. Stop Selling & Start Helping
Once you’ve identified what sets you apart, do some research. What are your competitors saying about themselves? How well is it working or not working?
Identify Your Mission
Your mission is to identify ways to set yourself apart from the noise of others in your market and find where you can help. The best creative marketing campaigns are the ones that don’t appear to be selling anything. They craft a memorable theme, weave it around the problem they are trying to solve, and subtly work in differentiators.
Change Your Thinking
Don’t be afraid to think outside your creative box. Find new and innovative ways to focus your marketing efforts on helping and solving problems. The awareness, engagement, and sales leads will flow from the creative marketing force once you’ve built a loyal audience.
3. Create Headlines that Inspire
It just takes one viral headline to skyrocket a brand or individual into pop culture fame. What components of your creative marketing message could you spin into a digitally catchy headline?
Marketing doesn’t always have to be buttoned up and dignified. Poke a little fun at yourself. Play on a current event or trend. The creative marketing campaign ideas that go down in history are born from the unlikeliest of sources.
Get to the Point
In our always-connected society, we compete for a fraction of the consumer's attention. We have only a second or two to grab a reader and draw them in. Scour the internet and your social media feeds to see what resonates with digital audiences, and then brainstorm ways to craft your viral campaign.
Better yet, just hit Google Trends for the hot buttons.
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Why Being Socially Responsible is Good for Business ROI
4. Use the Buddy System
Have you identified the social influencers in your space? They're the ones with massive subscriber lists, well-oiled blog machines, and perfectly curated social media platforms.
It pays for small businesses to get the attention of at least one of these marketing masterminds. Identify someone with a similar tone or message that aligns with yours. For example, complicated relationships (a dance studio and a dancewear designer) make great marketing buddies.
Make Friends with Influencers
If a respected influencer takes notice of your brand and offers a mention or re-post of your content, the snowball effect can be incredible. Don’t be afraid to humbly and genuinely ride a few coattails of brands you admire. It just provides an opportunity for exposure. Someday, you can return the favor to another small business or entrepreneur.
Over to You
As you think of other unique ways to market your products or services creatively, don’t let yourself get discouraged by a lack of funds. With all the blogs, social platforms, and video tools available today, you can easily put yourself in front of the right audience with little or no budget required.
