At a certain point in the path of any business, marketers simply need to level up. They might run their standard digital, email, content, and social marketing campaigns with their eyes closed, flipping the automation switch and sitting back to watch sales pour in.
But what if they don’t?
After a while, tactics become stale if there isn’t a constant refresh. In addition, marketers need to always be looking for novel ways to reach their customers. Sometimes those ways can be slight modifications to existing campaigns. Other times, they should act creatively and throw out the rulebook and execute non-traditional growth tactics. Knowing relevant blog statistics can help in plotting your game plan.
In this post, The Blog Frog examines five unique marketing campaigns that even the most skilled marketers may not have considered for their strategy.
1. Focus on local SEO.
There’s a substantial subset of customers right next door. What are you doing to reach them? If there aren’t major differences in products’ quality and price, the location may be the deciding factor for customers choosing where they want to shop.
Local SEO is the act of optimizing your website and other listings to drive organic traffic that is relatively close to your business. There are two ways you can achieve this: on-page SEO and off-page SEO.
On-page SEO involves analyzing the content on your website to ensure it is relevant for local search. You’ll want to include locally enriched keywords to ensure people who are searching for businesses in their city will be able to find you.
For example, if you’re a donut shop, you’d consider adding a page with the subhead “The Best Donuts in Austin, Texas” or write a blog entitled “Top 10 Places to Find Sweet Treats in Texas” to align your keywords with local search intent.
Off-page SEO involves looking at other listing sites that can generate traffic for your business. These could include review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor, as well as industry-related publications that have directories or reviews about local businesses.
SEO requires an ongoing commitment to updating content, gaining backlinks, and optimizing web pages. Since it is a specialized skill, it would be a good idea to outsource it to a freelancer or contract with an agency to ensure results. The investment will be worth it when you see the amount of potential traffic that can be generated from this type of campaign.
2. A/B test your homepage header.
This is maybe less of a campaign and more of a growth hack, but it still will have a meaningful effect on your company’s bottom line. Your homepage header is one of the most powerful marketing assets you have. It needs to be tested, optimized and iterated on.
Slight adjustments in messaging and animation can have a profound impact on the way prospects perceive your product, company and overarching mission. When they visit your website, this will play a large part in the formulation of their first impression of your brand. That’s why you need to scrutinize it and ensure that you’re using copy that converts.
Elemental Labs uses the header, “A Tasty Electrolyte Drink” matched with the subhead, “With everything you need and nothing you don’t… yes, that means lots of salt and zero sugar.” This immediately tells the consumer (1) what their product is and (2) why it’s different.
This is a compelling example of a headline that articulates the company’s unique selling proposition in a memorable way. After reading it, the consumer will understand what the company is offering and will want to read more. By launching continuous headline tests, businesses will discover the product messaging that performs the best.
3. Plan a pop-up event.
No, you don’t have to book an entire parade or hire mimes. Pop-up events can grab potential customer’s attention without being over-the-top. All you need to do is have an objective and budget before you start. Once you do, you can get to work.
In-person events are a great way to connect with potential customers in a meaningful, intimate setting. They provide businesses with the chance to receive immediate, direct feedback and get to know what problems their customers are facing on a deeper level.
The possibilities are endless for what type of event you can plan. Perhaps it’s an intimate cocktail hour with key business leaders giving a keynote or maybe it’s an immersive, branded art installation at the local park.
The most important part of your pop-up event will be how you acquire prospect information. One of the most effective ways to do this is by using ticketing software so prospects can register for the event. You don’t necessarily have to charge for tickets. Instead, prospects can input their email and information in a quick form before they arrive or via a tablet on-site.
With their information, you can reach back out to them after the event and nudge them closer to converting.
4. Promote customer-centric content.
When prospects evaluate a company, they’re looking for peers similar to them who use and approve of your products. That is why it is critical to adapt your social media and content strategy to include a healthy mix of user-generated, customer-focused content.
For instance, check out Preply’s homepage and how their content revolves directly around the customer, not the product:
Customer-centric content doesn’t have to just be a review that you asked one of your customers to provide. Instead, it can be a relationship-building opportunity to strengthen the connection you have with your customers. Your content should be enriching, but also celebratory of customer successes.
For example, you could put together a podcast and invite customers on it as the featured guests. They will probably be eager to appear on your podcast to promote their own business as well. While you interview them, they can share a testimonial or case study for your company. This will be meaningful for listeners to learn more about a real-life application and use case for your product.
In addition, you could survey your existing customers to create original research that can be repackaged into blogs, infographics and videos. Sleep Junkie did this and assembled a report on the sleep habits of their readers. Not only does this type of content engage your existing customers, but it also is relevant for those who are evaluating your brand.
5. Send prospects direct mail.
Sometimes the most effective marketing campaigns are ones that involve direct outreach. Companies should engage their prospects by reaching out via email with relevant content that they might appreciate.
This content should be complementary to your products. It should facilitate their decision-making process and add value in their life in some way. If your company received a positive review on a product comparison that was thorough and relevant, you might consider sending it to your prospects since it outlines the benefits of your product compared to a competitor.
For example, Bay Alarm Medical should have reached out to their prospects after they found out they were featured as the number one recommended medical alert device by the prominent site, Medical Alert Buyer’s Guide.
Marketers or sales reps can send this type of content directly to prospects and use a variety of tools to track opens, responses and schedule meetings. By sharing this content with prospects directly, companies provide their future customers with a valuable form of social proof to aid in their buying decision.
Conclusion
If your company has been thoughtful to attract the marketing dream team, bear in mind that it needs to continuously reinvent the marketing strategy, doubling down on what works effectively and introducing new tactics to effectively reach customers. Sometimes, it’s effective to try nontraditional tactics that other competitors might not be using.
To do so, marketers should focus on local SEO, A/B test their homepage header, plan a pop-up event, promote customer-centric content, and send prospects direct mail. By launching campaigns, they will find out what works best for their business and get their brand in front of relevant prospects through a multitude of different channels.
