Outside the box marketing ideas could be practically anything as long as they’re creative or new, or even different takes on old favourites.
Such marketing ideas are often novel, silly or completely ridiculous, and although some outside the box marketing efforts really stand out and get noticed for their oddball qualities, your business’s marketing efforts need to be in line with your business brand and image.
Consequently, don’t do anything just to garner exposure, make sure you’re creating the right kind of exposure for your business – here are four outside the box marketing ideas to create more exposure for your business.
Twitter Marketing Parties
Don’t have many followers on Twitter?
If that’s the case you’ll need to build up your number of followers before holding your first Twitter marketing party otherwise it will likely prove a disaster.
If you’re unfamiliar with Twitter parties there are two options to consider. Firstly, you schedule a party, invite your followers and ask them to each invite a follower, or secondly, you make it an impromptu affair, invite everyone who’s online and ask them to invite a follower or two.
Twitter parties are essentially online get-togethers where people socialise and can help you to establish yourself as someone in the know and create excellent exposure for your business.
Buzzfeed Style Headlines
This marketing tactic won’t work for every business; and in fact, most businesses are advised to avoid using Buzzfeed style headlines because it could detract from the ‘serious nature’ of their business and its products and services.
The wonderful thing about Buzzfeed style headlines is that they really reach out and grab people’s attention, so if your business is quite a light-hearted one and your business image isn’t one in which you take yourselves too seriously, it’s certainly worth considering.
Moreover, these kinds of headlines are easy to come up with, not to mention a lot of fun, and could work wonders for your content marketing efforts.
Here are three from today’s main page:
- ‘This Vine Of Alec Baldwin Catching A Stray Tennis Ball Is Oddly Enchanting’
- ‘Is This A Puppy Or A Pretzel?’
- ‘A Cake Scandal Hit “The Great British Bake Off” And The British Are Angry’
See what I mean?
Guerrilla Marketing
Guerrilla marketing, according to Investopedia, is defined as, ‘A marketing tactic in which a company uses surprise and/or unconventional interactions in order to promote a product or service.’
Whilst the term has become rather ‘inside the box’ rather than outside it in recent years, that isn’t to say it doesn’t offer your business an excellent means of reaching out to consumers in a creative, cost-effective manner that really appeals to people.
Guerrilla marketing, whether it’s guerrilla snacks, guerrilla coffee cups or guerrilla fans, boast excellent public exposure opportunities and products with your business name could be given out on lunch breaks (guerrilla snacks), to local businesses (guerrilla coffee cups) or people milling about town on a hot summer’s day (guerrilla fans).
Guerrilla marketing, when done correctly – this often entails thinking as far outside the box as one can – really can create a buzz and help your business brand to gain a remarkable amount of exposure in a cost-effective manner.
Video Marketing and ‘Webisodes’
Video marketing is hardly new, though some recent efforts have been nothing shy of remarkable and they’re garnering a lot of attention as a result.
Chipotle Mexican Grill’s ‘Farmed and Dangerous’ is a four-part webisode that’s created quite a buzz, and although small businesses won’t have access to the capital required to do something on this scale, the possibilities for a low-budget webisode are seemingly endless.
It’s often the case that what’s ‘outside of the box’ for someone is completely ‘inside the box’ for someone else because we all think differently and some people have already been exposed to certain marketing tactics that others haven’t.
That’s something to take into account when sourcing new and exciting ways to reach out to your target audience, and naturally, your marketing efforts should always focus upon your target audience, especially regarding what they find appealing, and perhaps even more importantly, accessible; after all, you have to reach them in the first place.
