Coming up with creative marketing strategies can be a headache. However, you shouldn’t always try to come up with the next award-winning idea.
Usually, the simplest ideas can actually work better. They are easier for your customer to understand. They take less time to make. They tend to cost less to produce.
Here are 5 creative strategies you can easily implement to your next marketing campaign. They are all simple and easy to implement. The ideas are also proven to work regardless of what industry you are in.
Before And After Strategy
One of the most effective marketing strategies is “Before-and-After” – strategy. This strategy is essentially about showing your customer life without the product and life with the product. This will communicate the benefit of your product or service in a way that is easy to understand.
You can demonstrate before and after with:
- images
- statistics
- case studies
Testimonial Strategy
This creative marketing strategy uses your loyal customers saying good things about your product. You should pick loyal users to testify and ask them to tell in their own words how your business helped them.
However, the common mistake is to create a testimonial campaign that is too polished. This makes your customers think that it’s rehearsed, making it seem less credible.
Another mistake is to hire celebrities to give you a testimonial. According to David Ogilvy, a famous advertising legend, testimonials from celebrities get high recall scores, but your customers may forget the actual product. Additionally, they might assume that the celebrity has been bought (usually the case).
Authenticity is the key – and believe it or not – the more amateurish your testimonial is, the more credible it is.
Knowledge Strategy
This marketing strategy is about communicating to your client how knowledgeable you are about your product or the problem you are solving with your product. The demonstration of your knowledge is important especially when you are selling coaching, consulting or instruction.
There are three questions people have. These questions are:
- Has this person been able to do what they are describing for themselves?
- Has this person been able to teach other people to achieve the results they are describing?
- Will this person be able to teach me how to achieve these results?
The job of your marketing campaign is to make sure that it answers “yes” to all of them. You can execute this strategy in many different forms such as:
- webinars
- downloadable content
- podcasts
- articles
- whitepapers
Negative to Positive Strategy
This strategy turns a boring or negative perception about a product or service into a positive one. This strategy can work for you, for instance, when you are smaller than your competitor or if your industry is not sexy or exciting.
One of the world’s famous advertising campaigns used this strategy. At the time it was launched, Hertz was the market leader in rental cars. “We Try Harder” campaign from Avis turns a negative proposition into a positive one.
Here’s how it was executed.
Competitive or Comparison Strategy
If you have a competitive advantage over your competition, don’t be afraid to use it in your marketing. Finding something that your main competitor cannot say is the key to this type of strategy. It could be related to
- price
- unique selling point
- your location
- technology you use
- processes you have
- people that are in your team, or
- anything you do better than your competitor
You can do it either subtly or be really obvious. However, be aware that there may be restrictions in your country what you legally can and cannot say in advertisements.
Conclusion
Creative marketing strategies don’t have to be complicated. In fact, the most simple ideas can actually work better. Use any of these creative marketing strategies in your next campaign – just add your tone to make them resonate with your audience.
