By Diana Smith

Marketing has come a long way since its origins when people were shooting in the air and beating drums to draw attention to their products. Although marketing methods have become much more sophisticated, the basic idea remains the same.

The purpose of marketing is still to draw attention. Now, here lies the problem that has plagued marketing for more than a century: Is it really possible to attract attention when everybody is making noise and the audience is experiencing fatigue? Yes, it’s possible, and creative approaches are what work best.

Let’s take a look at a few out-of-the-box marketing ideas that will attract attention and pay off in sales growth.

Build the Following around Your Brand

Loyal customers are great; brand evangelists are better. Although product quality has never left the conversation, today’s purchases are becoming more and more motivated by emotions. There is no better way to see this than by observing the smartphone industry where certain brands developed a following that can only be compared to a sport team’s rabid fans.

Those successful brands not only offered quality products, but also became flag bearers for the ideas and core values their audience identify with on an emotional level. If you manage to accomplish this, you will benefit from an army of loyal evangelists who will do the marketing for you.

Go Guerilla

While originally developed over a decade ago, guerilla marketing is even today the epitome of out-of-the-box marketing. Guerilla marketing involves achieving conventional business goals through unconventional means by investing energy and ideas rather than money.

It can be done on a modest budget and still produce great results. . But where to start? Well, 3D art seems like a good idea. These works are inherently cool, instantly appealing, and can soon become one of the city’s favorite landmarks.

People eagerly take pictures posing against branded sculptures and share those pictures on social media, granting you substantial exposure.

Urban hacktivism (“upgrading” the existing outdoor installations) is another frugal technique to win attention.

Make Some Noise

You may have heard the saying that in order to go forward we sometimes have to take few steps back. In the case of marketing, that would mean that we have to temporarily forget digital marketing, SEO and similar contemporary terms and remember that, when conditions are right, noise does attract a lot of attention.

Music is the preferred “noise” of most all generations, but especially the young. Even in the digital age, a jingle tune can become preferred “noise” that your audience will not be able to stop singing for months. Even if you cannot afford to play it as a commercial, placing it on your website aided by social media may be sufficient to push the tune to the masses.

Play Games with Your Customers

There is nothing particularly original about gamification. In fact, the concept of has become tiresome. That’s why you need to change the equation and create a game that rewards your customers if they do something nice for themselves or the community.

Take for example what Moscow officials did to promote Winter Olympics in Sochi. They installed vending machines that rewarded passengers with free metro tickets if they did 30 squats. It was an unorthodox way to keep the population fit, but it generated a lot of positive worldwide buzz back in 2013.

Offer Your Customers Customized Products

Remember the craze Coca-Cola created with its Share a Coke campaign. The hype was justified – Who would not want to have a Coca-Cola bottle with their own name on it? Learn from Coca-Cola and offer your customers appealing customized products as a reward for their loyalty. As long as you put your own spin on this idea and offer your audience something that will rise above being a gimmick, everything ranging from custom water bottles, to custom T-shirts will do the job. Just remember to put your brand in second place and let the custom be the main star.

These out-of-the-box ideas can help your business stand out from the crowd and reach your customers’ hearts and souls. Feel free to experiment and give your own twist to some of them. If you adapt them with fresh and original “twists” that are appropriate for your audience, you’ll almost certainly attract more attention to your business.

Glean.info grants permission to republish this article provided that the republished version contains a link to the original article on the Glean.info Blog.

dsmith