Today’s advertising landscape is dull and not as attractive as it used to be. But what are your alternatives?
Do you remember the first time you saw a Twitter ad? Not long ago, this was a new and interesting thing, constantly popping up on our timelines and grabbing our attention. As the use of this tool increased, it also became less interesting and less eye-catching. The same thing happens to most advertisements: the more typical they become, the less effective they can be.
Now let’s escape Adland, and discover a few new ideas for marketing without the use of ads.
Create an Experience
The most effective way to market a product or service is to create an experience. When someone unpacks a new phone, visits a romantic restaurant, or flies in business class, they go through an experience they may tell others about. When you create an experience worth talking about, news of it will spread in a very genuine way.
Be careful not to fall into the experience trap. I’ve seen many startups build their business upon a unique experience without delivering real value. This will definitely create a lot of buzz and make people want to try your products—but later on, they will question the decision they made to buy them.
“The most effective way to market a product or service is to create an experience.
“Oh, let’s use influentials!”
We’ve heard a lot about using influentials, and have seen many businesses misusing them—but what are they? As a misconception, influentials are usually people with a huge number of followers on social media, regardless of who is following them, why they are being followed, or the type of content they’re sharing. But the fact is, they are individuals—both online and offline—who can influence your prospects (again, your prospect, not just random people) to act in a certain way, like trying your products. It’s important to ask yourself who follows them and why, and it’s crucial to know the type of content they share. They might project rude or controversial political opinions that could harm your image. Make sure you don’t pick the wrong person to talk about your brand.
If you’re planning to ask someone to talk about your brand online, make sure they do it genuinely. If it sounds like a paid ad, it will backfire on both of you. Avoid looking at the number of followers without considering the benefits of those followers. You may prefer local impact, for example, over international exposure.
Show You’re the Expert
In many types of businesses, people want to deal with an expert, so it’s a good idea to show your expertise.
Big corporations spend thousands to sponsor seminars and conferences, only to tell attendees that we already know what we’re doing. A startup, on the other hand, shouldn’t spend this much money, even if they can afford it. However, startups can tell us about their expertise just as well as corporations. I usually find an expert speaker who may want some exposure and able to run a workshop, find a venue in case the startup location is not suitable, and use the startup’s social media (along with other useful organizations, such as Bahrain Events) to promote the workshop.
“In many types of businesses, people want to deal with an expert, so it’s a good idea to show your expertise.
Another popular way of demonstrating expertise is through social media (and even print and web media). Many startups have done a great job of posting facts about their industry and educating their followers. A hospital can spread health tips, a supermarket can share recipes, and an electronics store can tell us how to fix our laptops. Giving people a reason to follow you will definitely bring sales in the future. This can also work offline. Mattar Jewelers, a Bahraini jeweler specializing in pearls, published a book about pearls that talks about its historical roots in Bahrain and their connection to this culture. The book enforces Mattar’s brand image as experts and pioneers in pearl jewelry-making, while increasing the emotional value of pearls as a part of the Bahraini heritage.
Be Worth Talking About!
At the end of the day, you’ll need to be worth talking about (in a good way, of course). Give customers a reason to believe this by doing something different. Blaze Burgers hung a pin board where they pinned tweets mentioning Blaze. People saw the tweets, and others tweeted about the restaurant to get their tweets up there.
A similar idea was done by Hershey’s in Times Square. You can get your picture projected on their enormous screen over Times Square, and people never miss taking (and sharing) a picture of themselves for the Hershey’s screen.
And why does Starbucks train their staff to write customers’ names on their cups? They actually include this in their training folder, which I happened to take a look at, and all that is for us to share and talk about.
