In the current marketing landscape, consumers are bombarded with an unrelenting assault of the same old strategies: tailored commercials, social media blitzes, and SEO tweaks.

So how do you differentiate your brand from this chorus of monotony? The solution: unconventional marketing techniques. Ahead of the new year, consider these ideas meant to challenge the status quo and drive your business to the forefront of consumer awareness.

Don’t always sell

When it comes to doing business, authenticity and interactive experiences are king these days, so if you’re constantly pushing a sale, your customers will notice. To truly expand your customer base and grow your business, you must engender brand loyalty—and a foolproof way of doing so is offering free products or services. Include instructional materials with your email campaigns, offer useful tools like downloadable checklists on your website, or even organize events featuring prizes or complimentary food to connect directly with consumers and position yourself as a pillar of the community. Prioritize value over sales presentations, and you’ll build a community of brand champions.

“Causevertise” with conviction

Consumers today are drawn to companies who support a cause, but it’s not enough to simply lean on celebrity sponsorships or conduct passing hashtag campaigns. Instead, engage in the strategy of causevertising, which involves creating long-term alliances with grassroots projects that handle important social concerns in ways that directly complement your business’s basic principles. For instance, if you’re a food delivery firm, you could work with an urban gardening nonprofit to support local food security initiatives by donating extra product. These partnerships can result in win-win situations by enhancing your brand image, drawing in socially conscious customers, and raising awareness for important causes.

Gamify your marketing

Games appeal to our inherent drive for success and rivalry, thereby acting as strong motivators. It’s unsurprising, then, that gamification marketing is becoming an increasingly popular approach. It involves leveraging principles of gameplay, such as point scoring, competition, achievements, and rewards, to generate more consumer engagement. This could be put into practice in a number of ways—post industry-relevant quizzes on your social media, reward customers with points for purchases they can redeem for prizes, or put a spin wheel on your website they can play for discounts. These tactics can not only boost brand recognition and interaction but also produce useful user data and a feeling of community around your business, in turn strengthening the customer relationship.

Use microinfluencer outreach

There’s no doubting the power of mega-influencers, with their millions of followers and well-crafted feeds. But there’s equal value, and potentially less cost, in microinfluencers, those who have smaller, more involved audiences. Within their communities, these niche experts have huge impact thanks to their greater ability to connect personally with their followers. Collaborating with ones who fit your brand enables you to leverage the trust they engender to create focused marketing that builds confidence in your own company among like-minded consumers. Through such partnerships, you can exponentially grow your online presence and, ultimately, bring in more business.

Have a hyperlocal focus

Hyperlocal marketing refers to when a brand or company targets customers in a highly specific geographic area. The primary goal is to populate your brand on potential customers’ feeds and appear at the top of the list when they search for “near me” options in your niche. You can accomplish this through online strategies like creating a Google Business Profile and optimizing your website for local SEO. In addition, create and share hyperlocal content, such as in a blog or newsletter, and offer discounts centered on your area. For example, if you own a pet store in a town that’s had wet weather for two weeks running, you could discount chew toys by 14 percent, showing that you’re dealing with the same weather your customers are. This narrow focus will make them feel understood and appreciated, providing a seamless brand encounter in their daily lives.

Take caution

Unconventional marketing strategies are not without risk, even if they grant the possibility of spectacular returns. Keep these notes at the forefront of your mind to help you maximize your strategy.

• Prioritize authenticity
  Consumers can smell a gimmick from miles away. Don’t just follow a trend for a passing flash of virality; a forced attempt at unconventionality may backfire brilliantly. Instead, make sure your campaigns always fit your business identity and basic values.
• Measure and adapt
  Just because strategies are unconventional doesn’t mean they cannot be tracked. Create benchmarks for your campaigns’ success, such as website traffic, brand-sentiment analysis, and engagement rates. Experiment without fear, but be sure your experiments are teaching you something and that your technique is improving.
• Accept the unexpected
  Taking a different approach relies on measured risks, so have a crisis-communication strategy in place and be ready for the unanticipated—both positive and negative. Mediums like social media move quickly, making it essential to adapt to the ever-changing algorithms in order to find continued success.

The strategies discussed here are only a starting point. Be willing to experiment, think outside the box, and question the status quo to find new ways to expand your brand and inspire your audience. After all, it’s often the most unusual ideas that produce the most revolutionary outcomes.

TAKE ACTION:
Review your marketing plan for the following year, and identify ways you can shake it up to draw new customers to your brand.