Occasionally we run across the rebel who decides they can grow their business without the basics of marketing like a website, email newsletter, a CRM, advertising, video, and promotions. However, for the most part, business owners and executives understand the need to cover these basics to generate some type of results on their own without a dedicated sales team. These types of decisions generate what we call “basic results.”
With millions of small businesses around the world, is going the basic results route the best one to grow and scale a business? Certainly not.
Let’s make this clear. Basic marketing = Basic results.
Scaling a company for expansion with new locations, product offerings, and increased product value requires more. More doesn’t necessarily equate to an astronomical investment, but it will require an investment of more resources. Resources that can flip a potential client until a high spending one or an existing client into a loyal one spending more money with your company, year over year.
So if your company is allergic to being on the brink of decay, if your role as a marketing professional is to go beyond the status quo, let’s forsake only sticking to the basics and go for the astonishing.
Here are a few things you can begin to apply to your brand’s strategy this year to step it up and rise above your competition for increased profits and market share.
- Real-time customer feedback or market research without a survey. Have a retail location? A vendor booth? Utilize existing wi-fi cameras to identify the age, sex and emotional response from people your brand encounter with facial recognition. You no longer have to waste resources hoping to get feedback within a few days from customers. You can now know immediately if your employees or products are causing customers grief.
- Create an interactive journey or ads with a touch screen. By encouraging the use of tactile engagement with potential customers increases learning and memory of association. A touch screen menu, directory and ad display can go beyond airports, restaurants and malls.
- Deploy non-human employees. Bots, rather chatbots, are being incorporated into strategies every day saving time, manpower and customer loyalty. Chatbots can assist with answering basic questions and even be used to generate leads. They can be incorporated on your website or inside of a social media platform. Think of it as a non-human employee working to handle simple tasks freeing up the time of your human resources to execute other responsibilities.
- Get voice search SEO ready. Voice search whether on a home or mobile device requires a different approach than keywords relating to your brand. Google conducts over 3 million searches each day. The rise of voice-activated searching is an indicator of how the one-word keyword list for SEO will soon be less important than phrases people will use to find information online.
- Bring your brand to life. Virtual reality, augmented reality, and 3D experiences are another way to bring your brand into a sensory experience with potential customers. Doubt its effectiveness? Take a look at the gaming industry. How many gamers are there now? Enough for brands to jump into the pool and provide their ads within a virtual reality.
There are many different ways you can implement any of these marketing techniques and more into your 2019 strategy. Above Promotions can assist you when you’re ready to stop being basic.
Let’s talk!
