A strong marketing strategy can be the make or break of a business. Even if you have a world changing product, if you can’t get the message out to your customers then you’ll never make any money.
Thankfully, there are plenty of ways that you can ensure your advertising reaches the right audience. Some of them you can do for free, some of them will cost a little but will deliver great results.
We’ve pulled together the best strategies for ensuring that you reach the right audience, for those with absolutely no budget, to those who have a little cash to play with.
Giveaways
In a crowded marketplace, it can be difficult to stand out, which is why you might need to try a slightly different marketing strategy to those who’ve got a bit more space to be seen. The online gaming industry is the perfect example of a cluttered marketplace, where thousands and thousands of brands are clamouring to be heard.
There’s one technique that stands out above all others as resulting in new customers though and that is the giveaway. In this sphere, giveaways usually take the form of bonuses, such as free spins to use on slots games, or deposit match bonuses to boost a player’s initial play money.
Vegas Slots Online does a good job at breaking down what is currently available on the market into easily digestible categories, including in their analysis their findings on the variety of games available, as well as the payment methods customers can use.
The fact that websites such as this exist, shows how powerful giveaways are as a marketing tool. You might not be able to use exactly the same giveaway technique for your business, but almost all business models, whether a product or a service can find a way to make a giveaway work.
Social Media Competitions
Social media competitions can be a great way of creating brand awareness, but only if you do them right. So many companies get social media all wrong, often focusing on a quantity over quality social output.
Generally speaking, the most successful brands post super high-quality content a little less often. Blasting your customers with post after post can end up in them unfollowing you, which will prevent their connections from finding your brand. Instead, post content that is engaging, relevant and features high resolution, aesthetically pleasing imagery.
This applies to competitions too! Your social media competition could take the form of a giveaway style competition as we mentioned above. It might be that you create an image to share on your feed and ask your followers to comment on it with a person they think deserves to win.
You might ask your customers to share the post on their story with a little something they love about your brand. You might post a humorous image and ask for customers to comment with a caption and tag a friend to do the same.
Encouraging customers to either share your content or tag others in it is the key to success with this strategy, as you’ll be able to find new followers that way. Be creative with this one, social media works best when you show your individualism.
Influencer Collaborations
As an aside from social media competitions, influencer marketing can be very effective. This strategy is almost never free, but it can help your brand to instantly reach a pretty well-tailored audience.
You’ll need to either already have a very clear idea of who your influencer is, or be prepared to spend plenty of time really getting to know a lot of social media profiles. Once you’ve identified a content creator who is a good match for your brand, reach out to them asking about influencer packages that they do.
If they’re a micro-influencer, that is someone with a small follower count, they might be prepared to post for you in exchange for gifted items or services, though generally speaking some form of monetary reimbursement is the standard nowadays.
Budget for this in your marketing plan and you might get lucky and see an explosion in your social media following, which should translate to sales.
Brand Collaborations
As well as collaborating with influencers, collaborating with brands can be a good way to gain exposure too, though in a different way to what you might expect. We all know our competitors, whether direct or indirect, but working with them can be a great way to help your brand get ahead.
Marketing is all too often an “us vs them” equation, when in fact, as we know from all kinds of folklore, fables and moral tales, we are almost always stronger together.
Pick an indirect competitor who you think your brand could successfully collaborate with. For example, if you are a clothing retailer with a high street presence, you could collaborate with an interior store near you, or a jewellery designer to create a whole photoshoot.
You could use your clothing, some cushions, blankets and lighting from the interior store and a selection of pieces from the jewellery designer in the shoot. Once you’ve got your image, all share the cost of having it distributed in a magazine.
Not only will you be able to afford advertising space that you couldn’t have with your own budget, but you’ll also have a beautiful shoot that you couldn’t have done alone and you’ll be shared on each of your collaborator’s websites and social media. Plus, you’ll have made friends with your competitors, hugely extending your business network and opening up possibilities for further collaborations.
There’s a great deal to be said for collaborating in this way and although it takes more coordinating than some of our other suggestions, that extra effort really does pay off. If you don’t have a physical presence, then that doesn’t mean you can’t collaborate.
You could offer money off each of your websites when a customer shops on one, or offer combined services, like personal training and massage. Use your creativity and work with some new contacts and you’ll be amazed at what you can achieve.
