100 Powerful Marketing Tactics

Introduction: 

This report lists 100 powerful marketing tactics. They’re all ideas focused on being creative and giving your business an edge for a low budget - most of which step outside of the traditional media styles. Part 1 looks at the top 50 offline marketing tactics, whilst part 2 is focused on 50 online tactics… 

Read on to get inspired!....

Part 1: Offline Marketing Tactics 

Public Relations and Publicity 

1. Old fashioned PR is still very relevant. Pick up the phone and give local journalists what they want? exceptional newsworthy content – spin the activity of your business to make it an interesting story e.g. how did your business grow? are you hiring new employees? The marketing tactics below are your means to achieve this. 

Treat Your Premises like A Billboard 

2. Let a Graffiti artist have some free space to express himself by allowing him to use his artistry on your building, or even paint on your shutters. 

3. Host exhibitions in empty spaces on your premises to make it a cooler, ambient place! You could let local artists exhibit their artwork in your store, which showcases their art and decorates your shop in a unique way. 

Interesting Window Displays 

Your Window Display is potential advertising space. Get a potential customer’s attention with a creative, attention grabbing window display and chances are, pedestrians will be turned into consumers. You’ll also gain publicity by word of mouth and get mentions on social media if the display is creative enough. Some ideas include: 

4. A live window display of actual human beings promoting your products - e.g. your staff!

5. Paint a Smashed window effect like Apple did, on your windows 

6. Controversial political statements….Want to market to a local community or are you selling on a seasonal basis? If so, you could utilise vacant buildings that aren’t being used, which will also help regenerate the city in the process. 

7. Councils/governing bodies are a great source of vacant buildings because they aim to revitalise old communities. Also, speak to the owner of a vacant residence/building by offering to regenerate their neighbourhood and encourage long term tenants through your “pop-up” ventures. 

8. Floor stencilling on vacant buildings can work really well. Once example is the Movie Troll-hunter, which was advertised via a stencil that said “Troll Below” on bridges in cities. 

9. 3D floor artists can create some really impressive art for street advertising…

10. Draw your logo or write in chalk outside a large event e.g. a festival car park related to your industry

11 . Use a bio disposable substance, such as soap, instead of a spray can, so you can scrub out the image after it’s been used 

12. REVERSE GRAFFITI: Clean Green Street Art hits San Francisco! !”

13. “20 Cool and Creative Street Ads” by Bored Panda.  

Urban Hacktivism 

14. Could you turn an outdoor everyday object into an interesting marketing gimmick?:

15. Yarn bombing, guerrilla knitting, yarn storming! - these are ways that you can decorate an urbanised area & transform an everyday object into a decorative advert, without the use of chalk or graffiti! There are some brilliant examples here - 

https://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2077071_2283023,00.html

16. Projectors can work really nicely and are a free way of turning an empty space/wall into a temporary billboard - best used during the night time 

17. Dublin’s city council allowed companies/people to collaborate on Dublin Park(ing) Day . The idea: regenerate parking spaces by creating a garden/flower arrangement instead and reclaim the city space. A garden centre could use this opportunity to create a fantastic product placement! 

Get Inked 

18. Body art can also be used to promote products/services: use Henna tattoos on your staff when sponsoring big events, such as exhibitions or even whilst they’re handing out your latest brochures. Ideas for this could be branding staff with logos, your website or even a QR code. 

Product Hacks 

Are there creative ways that you can customise your products? 

19. Create an innovative challenge for people to hack your products or even set up a hacking workshop! This is especially applicable for electronic/gadget related products. 

Neighbourhood and community events 

Offer your building/store as a valuable event space for your local community:

20. Offer social events that are related to your services. For example, book clubs, poem readings at your cafe or breakfast meetings for parents to meet and network in your store that sells nursery products. 

21. Within your community, there will be upcoming designers, performing artists and musicians. Allow them to perform shows or exhibitions within your store/building space and you’ll draw in all the attendees into your store, for free! It’s not just amazing publicity but it could also create a huge amount of word of mouth. 

22. As a business, you’re bound to work with suppliers who can offer value to your clients or customers. Let them provide workshops or lectures at your premises to your customers/clients, giving your stakeholders another valuable reason to visit your store. 

Demos 

23. If you’re a retail business, provide free in store demos, workshops or FAQ sessions to attract visitors. 

Door to door selling! 

24. Face to face sales are still a powerful medium, so this is worth a try! 

Crowdsourcing - a powerful advertising tool 

25 . Make the most of your staff with an extravagant PR stunt such as a flash mob! Here’s an example of a flash mob by Finnair - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEsnb3kUDAw 

26. Urban picnic - organise a picnic free for people to attend, with free food/catering - one example can be found here! 

This is especially relevant if you’re a business in the hospitality sector. 

27. Source from your local communities, volunteers for flash mobs - see this example = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPdDthszanE 

Offline Gaming 

Campaigns that focus on people’s competitive sides and entertain customers will be very effective... 

28. One example could be a reward or loyalty scheme, which allows customers to collect stamps, stars, tokens etc. to gain rewards

29. If you have a store, there’s a potential to play on competitions - this could include a free reward to the 400th customer on that particular day. 

30. Other offline competitions include challenging your local community to find hidden prizes, landmarks, rare versions of your flyers etc.! 

31. All of the above can be integrated with your online marketing activities, to create a cross channel approach that’s even more effective - check this blog out for further ideas - https://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2011/07/08/5-brands-with-winning-gamification-strategies/ 

Partner with a brand ambassador or champion 

32. Is there a brand ambassador you could approach who has influence within your local region? A lot of charities use famous personalities to endorse their services, whilst they have unique networks that can be incredibly helpful. This is a two way partnership, so make sure you can offer a valuable reward for this person to endorse your product/service. 

Networking 

33. Business networking and business speed dating events offer potential value - trial and test them out and meet new connections that could be of use. 

34. Work together with local businesses to gain collective bargaining power - e.g. you could reduce your costs on buying stationery by collaborating with other businesses and then working one preferred supplier. 

35. Use favour exchanges to get access to cheaper things that you need to run your business. A favour exchange is a timebank – a community of people who have come together to exchange favours - here’s an example - 

https://www.favourexchangeireland.com/p/what-is-favour-exchange.html 

36. Exclusive trails - partnering with local business could offer new streams of income by working together to create a trail of services around your local community. For example, The Fab Food Trail, is a collection of hospitality businesses where tourists can experience different foods in the local area.

Kindness - randomly making someone’s day! 

37. Make someone’s day in a random fashion - they could be a potential customer! Send out a selection of staff in branded uniforms outside your store and do something to put a smile on the faces of passers by. This could be something as simple as offering free sweets! 

38. Ever met the parking fairy? Neither have I! But what a great way to be kind. Simply pay someone’s parking ticket outside a big business retail park and put the receipt/your business card on their car. Guaranteed to make someone smile! 

Offer some freebies 

39. Here’s an inspiring campaign by Ben Sherman - 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgZ6tFs9qtc&feature=related - which also created some brilliant viral online content. Hang out some freebies on the front of your store, branded as your product, sit back and watch the publicity you receive! 

Product placement 

40. If you’re in retail, once you’ve finished with your branded display products, give them to local performing artists as free for them to use in their plays or theatres. 

41. Partner with local community events, such as fun fairs or fun days and let them use for your products. For example, if you sell chairs, offer a few freebies to local events to use for visitors to sit down on - if they’re comfy, people will want to buy them! 

Here’s one example, where some bike retailers partnered with a cycling festival...

Get inspired to kick start your marketing campaigns... 

There are some brilliant websites that will give you the inspiration you need to think up new marketing campaigns. Take a look at the following…

42. The Inspiration Room is a collaborative effort, providing you with the latest and classic creative inspirations from television, print, ambient and interactive advertising, music videos, photography and design 

43. Lecool offers examples from local editors, writers, photographers, illustrators and designers to create unique books that truly reflect the experience of each city - https://lecoolbook.com/ 

44. https://popupcity.net/ - has a fascination for the ways in which citizens, organizations, enterprises, and governments were coming up with creative and flexible solutions to deal with a new urban dynamic 

45. Trend Hunter - a source of inspiration for industry professionals, aspiring entrepreneurs and the insatiably curious 

46. https://trendland.com/ - trend forecasting in a very visual way! 

Check with the experts of Guerrilla Marketing!... 

47. The Top 7 Guerrilla Marketing Agencies to Watch out for: https://bit.ly/1RrHiyo 

48. 50 Guerrilla Marketing Tactics You Should Be Using: Coming Soon

50 Guerrilla Marketing Tactics you should be using: Coming Soon 

49. 122 Must See Guerilla Marketing Examples: Coming Soon

50. 42 Kickass Ambient Advertising Examples for 2021: Coming Soon

Part 2: 50 Online Marketing Campaigns 

Social media: 

Social media is a powerful medium for engaging and conversing with potential customers. Take a look a through these ideas for inspiration... 

51. Facebook - optimise your Facebook page for your target market - make it personable, with interesting content that people are likely to share. Here’s a fantastic guide for managing your Facebook page - https://blog.bufferapp.com/how-to-create-manage-facebook-business-page 

52. Interact with pages where your target market is likely to visit. For example, on Facebook, Unilad’s page has a huge community of followers who are of a mostly younger, tech savvy and humorous demographic. So posting relevant content to Unilad’s page if you’re a gaming company would be very effective. 

53. Share your social media profiles everywhere you can, link to them on your website, your marketing literature, have a poster in your store etc. - make it as easy as possible to find your social media pages.

54. Set up an Instagram account and use it to share interesting pictures of content that’s unique to your industry - here are 28 business tips for Instagram 

55. Use Twitter - Twitter, unlike Facebook, gives you a bigger target market to advertise to because it’s an open platform, whereas there higher privacy restrictions on Facebook. Use relevant hashtags, customise your profile so that it’s branded and converse with potential customers! 

56. Keep organised and create schedules of content the week before you post it. Then schedule your content using a tool like HootSuite, so that you’re constantly keeping your profiles up to date with fresh new content. 

Content Marketing for Success: 

Content marketing is a very powerful tool for attracting visitors to your website. Content has the potential to go viral, whilst offering value to customers and stakeholders. It’s easy to promote and people are always looking for interesting and unique articles... 

57. Blog! 

Create a reason to people to visit your site by blogging. It’s an opportunity to position your expertise in your field whilst offering tips, guides and commentary on the latest industry developments. The other benefit is that if you blog regularly, you’ll create content to improve your Google rankings. 

58. Get relevant people in your field to guest blog for you - it could be a related online publisher, a magazine editor, a customer - basically anyone who will agree to guest post for you because it offers an opportunity to promote themselves as well. 

59. How to guides - position your expertise and offer advice articles which inform people on how to do a certain task. So for example, if you’re a mobile phone provider, perhaps you could offer how to articles on setting up your phone or installing apps. 

60. Create a paper.li page - paper.li is a content aggregator that feeds in from the all the online publications you specify and then creates an online newspaper based on these sources. Then you can brand that page with your logo and a link to your website, so that you can promote the page and then direct people from it to your business. 

61. YouTube videos - build a YouTube channel, create useful videos and get people to subscribe by offering valuable content. As the 2nd largest search engine in the world, people are looking for content actively on YouTube - so it’s an opportunity to feed these users with your branded videos. 

62. Integrate these YouTube videos with your social media activity - promote the videos via your blog, Twitter page, Facebook etc. and link them all together to maximise traffic to the videos. 

63. Invest in a camera and take beautiful pictures of your products, stores, promotional giveaways, events, exhibitions etc. and then post them on your social media profiles/website 

64. On a weekly or monthly basis, create a photo collage on YouTube with these photos and show off the interesting things you’ve produced in that period. 

Supporting your offline activities: 

The below ideas are all about increasing the success of your offline marketing campaigns that were discussed in part 1, maximising the value of them. 

65. Video interview your suppliers, customers and staff involved during the offline campaigns you run - come up with some really interesting questions you can ask them and post the videos to your YouTube account. 

66. Recruiting new employees? Film a day in the life of your staff members, promoting how much of a great place it is to work at your company, the skills/personality you need and what they get up to on a day to day basis. 

67. Watch the latest viral videos for inspiration: 

The Drum has a viral video chart which will inspire you with case studies from the latest cutting edge companies - https://www.thedrum.com/viralvideochart 

68. Run online/offline promotions

Post discount vouchers on your website that are to be used in store. This means that customers are directed to your website, where you can sell and promote your products to them before they visit your store. 

69. QR code - advertise a QR code that customers can scan on the side of your building, which links to a piece of content on your website when they’re scanned. It could be a link to your blog, your latest online marketing campaign or sales vouchers that have been posted on your website.

70. Create a QR campaign and implement on the high street near your store…. 

One example can be found in the link below. QR codes were printed on cardboard and placed alongside blankets, shopping bags and empty drinks bottles, items normally associated with a homeless person. The QR codes linked directly to a JustGiving page where members of the public could donate directly to Simon on the Streets. 

https://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2011/simon-on-the-streets-qr-codes/

71. Post offline activities and promotions on your social media profiles, plugging the gap between your offline and online marketing activities. 

Digital marketing on a shoestring budget! 

Fiverr.com is a great source of cheap online marketing, utilising people who use digital marketing on a daily basis... 

72. Buy a voiceover gig, write a script and then get the voiceover recorded on your presentations/videos 

73. If you’re not a technical business owner, purchase a gig on Fiverr where someone will set up your website for you. An incredible price to set up your website! 

74. Pay for traffic to your website, which you could then convert into sales 

75. Get quirky videos made where your business is advertised! See this gig - https://www.fiverr.com/gorungigs/let-my-dog-draw-you-a-picture-hold-a-sign-or-promote-your-bu siness 

76. Use a graphic designer to design your logo, social media artwork or brand your brochures 

77. Pay for an SEO analysis - Improve your SEO rankings by learning what you need to develop on your website 

78. Pay for some creative guerrilla marketing campaigns! 

https://www.fiverr.com/users/the365happyguy/collections/guerrilla-marketing/#layout=auto&pag e=1 

79. Pay for somebody to neutrally review your service/product 

80. Get some music created to be the background soundtrack for your latest marketing video campaign 

81. Get a video script written by expert copywriter

82. Be careful what you buy on Fiverr - e.g. if you’re paying for more social media followers, make sure they’re targeted and relevant to your business otherwise it’s wasted money! Check with the seller before you buy 

Ways to gain more traffic 

Imagine a store without people - it’s the same as a website without traffic, if there’s nobody there, you won’t get any sales. So follow the below tips to learn how to get more traffic to your website... 

83. Offer valuable content that people are interested in - o therwise people will not click on your content and therefore will not visit your website 

84. Use forums to share your latest content. S tart a discussion on a relevant forum to your industry and post your latest content 

85. Create a fun interactive game on your website and make it competitive with a top scorers board 

86. Be an expert on a forum related to your industry, whilst having your website link in your signature for people to click on. Post relevant and helpful advice to anyone who asks and you’ll find that people will begin to visit your website directly 

87. Find the key influencers within your field on social media and converse with them publicly. Offer opinions and useful to content to them that offer people can see 

88. Start your own podcast about your industry! Produce regular podcasts and talk about the latest developments in your field. Then advertise your services/website via that podcast 

89. Have guests on your podcast show that listeners/customers would find interesting - then interview them. For example, if you run a consultancy for entrepreneurs, get some of the most inspiring entrepreneurs on the podcast show and ask them for their advice to new, aspiring business owners

90. Create a newsletter - e mail regular newsletters to your customer database with news, links to your products and your latest content. It will build relationships between your business and your customers 

91. Set up a forum on your website - for example, if you offer car repairs, create a forum where people can discuss new cars, problems they’re having with their car, how to drive economically etc. 

92. Answer people’s questions on Quora, by posting the answer on your website and then linking to it in your reply to them on www.quora.com/ 

93. Create a strategic partnership with a non competing business in your field - see this example - 

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/examples-successful-strategic-alliances-13859.html 

94. Create a LinkedIn group relevant to your niche, similar to a forum where people can discuss anything related to your industry. 

95. Post on other LinkedIn groups with links to articles and blogs on your website - make sure they’re not too self promotional though! Make sure they provide value to the members of that group 

96. Create a meetup where you could meet and network with potential customers - see www.meetup.com 

97. Create a weekly Google Hangout and set discussions for each online meeting. Then people can join your discussion and interact with you directly. Record the sessions and they can form part of your online content strategy 

98. Answer questions on Yahoo Answers that are really helpful and demonstrate your expertise, then post post links in your answer that direct back to your website 

99. Adapt your website for mobiles/tablets! Ensure your website is responsive and designed for mobile devices, otherwise visitors will have usability problems, in which case they’ll end up leaving your website.

100. Include your website link on any business cards, leaflets, posters, adverts or any other marketing literature you produce, making it as easy as possible to find the address for your website.