By Evan Vitale
If you want to break away from the traditional online and offline marketing tactics, you just need to use your imagination to come up with some unique and catchy ideas.
I’m often reminded of the story of how a salesman wanted to have a meeting with a team at a large company, but he could never get a face-to-face appointment. So, to try to break in, he bought them lunch. That is, he ordered several large pizzas and have them delivered with his flyer pasted on the inside of the lid. It worked.
Another cool gimmick I saw was a company mailed little boxes containing instant coffee pouches from Starbucks and tea bags. The idea was this: “We bought the coffee. Add hot water. Call us at 9 a.m. on Friday. We’ll slurp and take business strategy.” Pretty cute.
A business friend of mine has had some good success with his marketing techniques. His business has a “fish” theme to it. Once, when he was getting ready to present at a trade show, he sent fishing bobbers in the mail to his top 20 prospects. He told them if they brought the bobber to his booth at the trade show, he had a gift for them. His return was over 50% and he was able to talk to over 10 prospective clients face-to-face.
He also implemented these ideas:
- “Thank you” cards at Thanksgiving, instead of the traditional end-of-year card at Christmas (which seems to get lost with all the other holiday cards).
- Sending out “trick-or-treat” candy bags to clients and prospects at Halloween.
- For St. Patrick’s Day, he has implemented three campaigns: sending lottery tickets, four-leaf clovers and little boxes of Lucky Charms cereal. All of these ideas worked!
Therefore, instead of the traditional ad or Google pay-per-click campaign, think outside of the box for a unique marketing idea. It might work!