Marketing when you run a small business is essential if you want it to become a bigger business, but it can also be expensive and time consuming. Often, particularly at the start, small businesses don’t have the money or time to spare, and this can lead to sub-standard marketing – or none at all. However, there are some unusual, interesting, and fun ways to ensure that your potential customers know you exist, and know all about your product, service, or brand. Here are four examples of how to market in an unusual way.
YouTube
YouTube isn’t all about young people trying to be famous (although there is a fair amount of that, to be fair). It can also be used as an effective, free, marketing tool that can – with the right kind of content – even become viral. You don’t have to even be doing something new and revolutionary for people to enjoy and share your YouTube video; just by being honest and interesting can be enough if the product and your personality is right. Using YouTube, you can show how your products work and how they can help people in their day to day lives. If you offer a service, you can explain what it is, and offers solutions to people’s problems. You can even invite people to send in video reviews of the things they have bought from you. This can all be done from a smartphone with a good editing app, so you don’t even have to invest in expensive camera equipment.
Winning
Most industries – whether that’s baby equipment, artisan cheese, trash collecting systems, or anything else you can think of – have industry specific awards. By entering your company into an award that relates to your specialty, you have already given yourself some extra exposure. By winning that award, you can use that win to promote your products even further. Make sure your brand is strong so that it is instantly recognisable, and make sure that your company lives up to the brand you – or experts such as SmashBrand – have created, and once you have won the award your marketing becomes a lot easier, especially if it is high profile and there is press coverage. Many of these awards are free to enter, too, which is always a bonus.
Workshops or Webinars
If you feel that you could offer a class about what it is you do, and why it is important, then why not host a workshop or webinar? A workshop would need a space to be held in, which could be your office or a rented room, but a webinar can be done from anywhere. It will depend on what product or service you are selling as to which medium will work best for you. The talk can be about anything related to your industry, but it should be done in a way that will entice people to purchase from you afterwards.
Your Vehicle
You may not have realized but you are driving around in a perfect marketing opportunity. Your car or truck is the ideal place to advertise your business. Vehicle signage on a truck is something that many businesses do – especially if that truck is used for the business itself. However, something that many businesses forget is that the owner’s car – or other employee’s cars if they are willing – can be sign written on too. If you don’t want to have permanent sign writing on your vehicle, you can invest in some magnetic signs that you can remove if you need to.
