If you run any sort of business these days, You are faced by an interesting scenario: on the one hand, there are more resources and channels available now than ever before to help you make a success of your endeavour, but on the other hand, it’s also more necessary than ever before to have a good grasp of the nuances involved in successful business management and marketing.
Thanks largely to the Internet, the global marketplace has opened up, and any prospective client or customer can easily come across your business within a few button clicks. Of course, though, they can also come across the businesses of all your competitors in the same way, and in the same timeframe.
One consequence of this, is that it’s very important to be able to market in novel and engaging ways, that your would-be customers might not have come across before. For inspiration look here, for example.
Here are some reasons why it pays to do some unconventional marketing.
Because people naturally tend to filter out things they are accustomed to
If you look back to adverts from the 1950s or so, you will likely be amazed by just how naïve and simplistic they’re likely to seem, from the perspective of a modern audience.
And yet, many of these adverts were, by all accounts, very successful in their own time.
Part of the reason why advertising has become so much more sophisticated over the years, is because people have become systematically more familiar with the different techniques, methods, and approaches of advertisers over time, and so have tended to filter those more basic forms of marketing out of their conscious awareness.
Ultimately, the more accustomed someone is to a particular stimulus in their environment, the likelier they are to ultimately end up paying less and less attention to it.
Unconventional marketing techniques, therefore, can serve as an excellent way to break through that potential barrier, and to get people to stop “filtering out” your adverts and materials.
Because success in marketing often comes down to standing apart from the competition
Success in marketing isn’t only about being “noticed” by the people you are targeting your marketing towards, it’s also largely about successfully differentiating yourself from the competition.
It might be, after all, that a particular marketing campaign of yours gets the attention of a prospective client – at least for a few moments – but that there doesn’t really seem to be anything there to justify taking your business particular seriously, or in any case, taking it more seriously than your competitors.
These days, your competition is always likely to be highly visible to the people you are marketing to, and the degree to which you can offer something unique that they can’t, and can differentiate yourself from them in both subtle and obvious ways, will typically have a lot to do with how people respond to you.
Because people are more likely to respond positively to things they find interesting
Generally speaking, people are naturally more positively inclined towards things that they find interesting and engaging.
Sure, this isn’t exactly always the case – you could grab someone’s attention by upsetting or offending them, which is certainly not a great idea – but it’s a good general rule of thumb to keep in mind.
Unconventional marketing techniques can encompass everything from snail mail campaigns with interesting freebies and business cards, to promotional appearances at trade fairs that buck the trend and involve a different approach to the ones everyone else might be using.
You want to get your prospective customers’ attention, and you also want to make a good enough impression on them that they will be predisposed to investigate your offering, and to respond positively towards it.
Unconventional marketing campaigns, if cleverly managed, can help to tick both these boxes.
Because you are more likely to stay engaged with the process that way
Another one of the big benefits of marketing in unconventional ways, is simply because you, yourself, are significantly more likely to enjoy and stay engaged with the process, by doing so.
For many entrepreneurs, marketing isn’t exactly something that they are thrilled to do. Often, it’s viewed as something more like a chore than an interesting and engaging activity.
By marketing in more unconventional ways, you will be better able to explore and express your own creativity, and will subsequently be more likely to find some satisfaction and enthusiasm in what it is you’re doing.
Of course, this implies that you should focus on exploring marketing techniques that you actually enjoy – and shouldn’t push forward with ones that you actively dislike.
