As a business owner, you know the pressure’s constantly on in regards to standing out from the competition, and these days, you have many options. The digital space offers the most scope for public reach and user engagement, while traditional marketing has benefits in offering a more personal, often face-to-face approach.
One of the best methods for promotion, however, is cleverly combining the two. In this article, we’ll explore some of the more unique methods of advertising you can use to offer your prospective clients something different. This doesn’t always mean reinventing the wheel, but where standing out is of utmost importance, these novel approaches are worth considering.
Unique Methods of Physical Advertising
While posters and billboards are very common, few make use of the method that sits in between these two: signage. Signage straddles the line between small and large-scale advertising, and that puts it in a very versatile position for a wide range of promotional campaigns.
For example, having vinyl signage made and affixing a moderately sized advertisement to a high-traffic building side garners more attention than a small poster, but without the high financial investment associated with a billboard. You could also use yard sign printing to accomplish a similar effect in residential areas – an often untapped area of marketing with huge potential.
To bridge the gap between the physical and digital domains, you can make great use of QR codes and other smart tech to rake in traffic directly from the signage to your website and social media.
Embracing Interactivity
The term ‘engagement’ can signify much more than people simply reading and assimilating your advertisements; some of the best adverts gamify their advertising by using augmented reality or stringing out a treasure-hunt style mystery based both in the physical and digital domain.
These sorts of campaigns go a long way in incentivizing prospective customer participation, and most importantly, they make people remember you. Of course, these scalable methods can be a challenge to pull off, so make sure you plan everything thoroughly (and as fun as they are, don’t get carried away with your budget!).
Don’t Skip Out on Events
Physical events can make for a unique opportunity to engage with your target audience – and the benefit is that they offer face-to-face interaction where nothing else does.
Having a stall at a fair or a presentation ready to go are both great places to start: make the effort to talk to people and take an interest in their lives – at the end of the conversation, you can link them to your website or get them to follow you there and then on social media. You can also link your social media accounts on each slide at the end of a presentation, or even offer out freebies that have all your relevant information printed on them.
Wrapping Up
It’s an especially tough environment out there, but the more tools and skills you acquire, the more versatile a business you become. That ability to adapt, of course, is the cornerstone of your success; hopefully, this article has inspired you to get out there and try something a bit different.
