Great marketing ideas that were hanging around the office
All over my office (and mobile phone gallery) sit things I’ve found, liked, and intend to share at some point.
These are usually clever marketing ideas, (not cake, sorry)!
It occured to me that it might takes years for me to curate them all into cleverly grouped blog posts, and that it would be far better to put them up as I find them to give all of you some inspiration.
This blog is the first set I’m sharing.
They’re all going to be grouped together in the new “Bright Shiny Objects” category – but, as with all BSO’s be careful. Do any of these ideas help you with your current challenges? If not – step away and come back when your focus next changes.
Clever non-sales-focused bag stuffer (or parcel stuffer)
This is a postcard that I found stuffed into my shopping back when I got home from a bit of shopping on Saturday. It’s from Magpie and Fox a fairly new ladies fashion boutique in Truro, Cornwall.
I really like it because it’s a great example of the sort of thing you should be including in parcels (or bags) to build The Conversation* – to show the customer a bit of love, make them better acquainted with your brand, and (ultimately) get them to buy again.
Really low cost, really simple, really effective if you get the content right!
Newspaper Advert to drive footfall and email sign ups
I cut this out of our local paper. It’s an advert (13cm x 10cm) run by a local chain of art and card shops (Whistlefish) to drive footfall and gather email addresses.
A great idea, executed really well:
- Very clear Call to action – come in, give us your email and you’ll get a free gift
- Easy to participate – come in, give us your email and you’ll get a free gift
- Nothing to distract – they’ve not even included the website url
- The email box is big enough!!
- The offer was really short – the paper was printed the previous Thursday – so only valid for 6 days
- Whistlefish print their own greetings cards – so this is a very cheap giveaway for them
Fight Club Catalogue Spread
This is a spread from the catalogue of podcast guest Bureau Direct. I always think their catalogue does a great job of balancing brand and sales, and this spread is a great example of it.
It’s titled “Fight Club – Scandi Style vs Deutsh Design” and on either page there is a desk stocked up with products representing one of those design themes.
This is a great way of helping the customer to understand how the styles are different, which builds the reputation of the brand. It’s also a great way to display a lot of product, that fits together really well in a small amount of space. I’d expect these 2 pages to be great sales performers.
This type of content can easily be used for blog posts or parcel stuffing postcards! – it doesn’t have to be in a catalogue.
Clever Twitter 1 on 1 marketing using search
(not the pithiest title there, but bear with me). This is a great way to use twitter to make individuals aware of your products. What Theodore’s done is to set up a search (possibly in Hootsuite) to find people tweeting about “boomerang”, then he’s sending a message to those people to recomend Discoverly with a link to an independent post about the tool.
Boomerang is a tool for automating some of your personal email follow up in Gmail accounts, and Discoverly is another Gmail plugin – this time to bring in social media information about the people you’re emailing. So if someone’s in the market for one helpful Gmail plugin there’s a strong possibility they will be in the market for another.
This isn’t going to work in all circumstances (you’re not going to see ASOS tweeting Boo Hoo’s customers one on one anytime soon!) but have a think, are there complimentary services or products to your offering that this might work for….
Till the next set of bright shiny objects!
* “The Conversation” is one of the core concepts of my new book “Customer Manipulation: How to Influence your Customers to Buy More and Why and Ethical Approach will Always Win” – you can get the first chapter for free here