The world of marketing is constantly in flux.
For example, in the last five years alone, mobile has majorly shaken up how companies advertise to consumers. Who knows what other changes will come down the pike in the future?
That’s why it’s always advantageous to have some innovative marketing ideas up your sleeve.
The right strategies will put your business in a more competitive position, a must in 2024 when so many companies of all sizes are trying to maximize their marketing.
I know how hard it is to run a small business and try to prioritize your marketing simultaneously, let alone learn new marketing strategies.
In this blog post, we’ll take a look at the different marketing ideas and tactics, the various strategies you can use, and future trends.
Let’s get started!
Table of Contents
Exploring the Different Types of Marketing Strategies
Of course, marketing is a blanket term, wouldn’t you say?
I would, especially considering there are so many types of marketing out there. Here they are for your reference.
Digital marketing
We’re living in an age of digital marketing as we speak. There’s a reason, after all, why businesses will spend $667 billion on digital ads in 2024. As the name implies, digital marketing is about using today’s many digital measures to reach target audiences.
For example, there’s email marketing, SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, not to mention digital advertising. You can post ads on websites, search results pages, email platforms, social media feeds, you name it.
Considering how much of our lives are lived online (the average American will spend 17 to 18 years of their adult lives online if partaking in seven hours of internet usage daily), it only makes sense that digital marketing has become so prevalent.
It’s not the only marketing method businesses use but the dominant one.
Traditional marketing
The more old-school form of marketing is called traditional marketing.
This is still in use today, although it’s primarily been usurped by digital marketing, which is more convenient and often more cost-effective.
The various forms of traditional marketing include broadcasting, radio and television ads, print ads in magazines and newspapers, billboards, and direct mail.
Traditional marketing is an excellent way to stand out in a primarily digital landscape.
However, compared to digital marketing, where you can measure every click and view, it’s more difficult to gauge the success of traditional marketing strategies. You have to hope your marketing message reaches the intended recipient.
Experiential marketing
How do you deepen customer connections?
Through experiential marketing. This type of marketing focuses on experiences, activations, and events. By combining experiential marketing with event marketing strategies, you create high-octane and memorable campaigns that usually drive results.
You can introduce consumers to new products or services through experiential marketing, enhance brand awareness, increase sales, and collect new leads.
Guerilla marketing
Although controversial, guerilla marketing is a subset of marketing, so it deserves a spot on this list.
The shocking, unconventional, and attention-grabbing tactics embodied by this form of marketing certainly do have an impact, and the campaigns are usually incredibly notable.
Since they’re often short-lived, guerilla marketing is a cost-effective marketing strategy to generate interest in your brand and its products and services.
Influencer and affiliate marketing
The last forms of marketing involve third parties.
Influencer marketing is the professional partnership between your business and an influencer. Their clout can motivate a new audience to learn about your small business and try your products and services.
Affiliate marketing works similarly. An affiliate will promote your products or services. When someone buys your goods through a special link, the affiliate receives a commission for each purchase.
Both forms of marketing can increase your credibility and reach.
Read more: 17 Fresh eCommerce Marketing Ideas to Dominate Your Niche!
Innovative Digital Marketing Ideas and Tactics
Given that digital marketing is the driver of so much small business success, it was only fitting to share some of my favorite marketing ideas in the digital space.
Prepare to wow your audiences with these intelligent, snappy strategies.
Build a visual content library
When so many of us talk about content, we only consider the written word. I’m a big proponent of the written word, but today, it’s all about visual content.
More than half of today’s marketers believe that visual marketing is key to successful strategies, which is saying a lot.
Visual media can include images, videos (although I’ll talk more about them separately in just a moment), infographics, and other graphics. Social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram are made for visual media.
I recognize that we live in an age where you don’t have to make anything original. You can always search for a stock photo to get the point across, right? Sure, but the original is where it’s at.
And it’s so much easier to produce original visual content than you’d think. You can use tools like Canva or even generative AI. The visual media you produce can go on your website, your blogs and written content, your email campaigns, and, yes, on social media.
Produce short-form videos
Have you heard?
It’s all about short-form videos these days. More than 70% of consumers prefer these brief clips when looking up services or products.
And really, can you blame them? As they’re called, a short is anywhere from a few seconds to a minute long. It doesn’t require a significant time commitment like longer-form videos.
Better yet, consumers can understand whether they’re interested in your products or services by watching the short, so they can make instant decisions.
This benefits you both. It’s good for your business because you’ll entertain fewer leads who are unlikely to convert. And it’s great for the consumer because they can make that snap choice and then move on with their day.
Use AI for personalization and better audience targeting
Digital marketing has wholeheartedly embraced AI.
Whether you love or hate it, it’s the next evolution, so you should get used to it. AI has proven its uses across many marketing areas, but one of my favorites is to benefit your audience.
Gone are the days when you must manually go through your audience data and meticulously organize your audience into buckets.
AI can do it for you.
Not only that, but AI can also personalize your marketing messages.
For example, AI can review a customer’s shopping behavior and guess what they might purchase next, giving you recommendations to provide.
Read also: Unlocking Efficiency — Top AI Tools for Small Businesses
Host a virtual event
Virtual events exploded in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, when virtual or no events were the only options. And while we’re thankfully far away from pandemic times, many of us who have hosted or participated in virtual events have realized something.
Virtual events are convenient and cost-effective. You can make more money by hosting more people than in an event hall. They’re a win-win.
So, why not start one yourself? Here are some best practices to bear in mind as you do:
- Plan a unique event. If it could be done in person, why not just do it that way? Niche down and come up with something exceptional.
- Determine the target market for your event theme and scope.
- Plan goals for your event, such as more leads, higher sales, or more conversions.
- Promote your event early to give people time to buy their tickets.
- Create an engaging itinerary with games, activities, speeches, and interactive elements.
- Review analytics related to your event after it wraps up.
Produce interactive content
Interactive content is going over like gangbusters right now, with 62.3% of companies prioritizing it in 2024 versus only 36.1% in 2023. That’s nearly a twofold increase.
The reason interactive content works is because it’s the antithesis of passivity. Your audience has to get involved to reap the full benefits, which builds a connection between them and your small business. You can often end up with helpful user behavior data from this content.
Here are some types of interactive content for your digital marketing campaign:
- Quizzes
- Contests
- Giveaways
- Trivia
- Interactive infographics
- Calculators
- Image sliders
- Webinars
- Interactive videos
Read more: Get Noticed — 16 Creative Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses
Effective Traditional Marketing Techniques
Okay, those are digital marketing ideas, but I’m just starting.
Traditional marketing is not dead and gone; it is far from it. As I discussed before, it’s an excellent way to stand out in a crowded digital marketing space, so let’s look at some ways to differentiate yourself.
Personal selling
One strategy that should shoot to the top of your sales and marketing ideas is personal selling. As the name might have made you guess, this form of selling is about forging a professional relationship between you and the prospective customer.
Personal selling is valuable for building a rapport, getting insights directly from the source (your customers!), and qualifying your leads.
However, it does have a few downsides. For example, your team will pour a lot of time, effort, and manpower into each lead, even those that don’t work out. You don’t know which will necessarily convert, so you must give each lead the same attention.
With this strategy, it’s also hard to reach mass amounts of your target market. There are only so many hours in the day, and call a salesperson can make before their eyes cross and their tongue goes numb.
Physical promotions
Don’t underestimate the power of physical promotions, including banners, billboards, stickers, posters, leaflets, and good, old-fashioned direct mail.
As I mentioned, you can stand out in a crowded market by going against the grain with these forms of marketing.
I want to reiterate that there’s no way to quantify your marketing success with physical promotions. You can count how many fliers you send out or billboards you post, but you have no idea how many people see them.
Phone calls
I’m sure you’re disappointed to see phone calls on the list. After all, who likes picking up the phone and talking to strangers? What’s that? No one?
Exactly.
However, cold calls can be successful, although often not on the first try. According to The Tech Report, 82% of buyers who have gone on to meet with salespeople started with a cold call.
You can think of them as an extension of personal selling.
With all these methods, don’t be afraid to mix digital and traditional selling. If anything, I’d advocate for it. This way, you can more easily track the metrics that matter to your campaign’s success.
Read more: 14 Low-Cost Local Marketing Ideas That Will Make a Big Impact
Creative Low-Cost Marketing Ideas
Is yours a shoestring budget?
It’s tough to gain much marketing traction when you can’t afford to spend thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. However, you’re not totally without hope. I have some awesome marketing ideas that don’t cost a small fortune to implement, so let’s get right into them.
Creative content
Content marketing is among your best bets if you’re tight on cash. These days, producing a lot of content doesn’t cost much money.
You can set up a podcast with minimal equipment, film videos on your smartphone, and upload them to YouTube or TikTok, write a blog post and eBook without incurring a large expense, and use free images to break up text and make the content more SEO-friendly.
The same goes for newsletters and infographics. You can use Canva for most of these pieces of content. That’s one of the coolest parts about living in the digital age. Everything is a lot more accessible.
Social media promotions
If we set aside social media advertising (which can be pricy), you can use social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Pinterest to springboard your small business.
The key is posting high-quality, valuable content. You can’t just share an endless mirror of your blog content. You need relevant content your audience will appreciate, whether they find it valuable or it gives them a nice chuckle.
It’s fine if it’s third-party content, although obviously, don’t share your direct competitors’ posts.
As you gain followers, encourage them to share your content if they find it interesting.
This can result in an influx of new followers. Oh, and also, ensure your website is ready for the traffic. The goal is to direct your social followers to your site to get them to make a purchase, so your website should be cleanly designed, responsive, and mobile-optimized.
Guerilla marketing
Why not make a splash with guerilla marketing? The whole point is spending as little as possible while still going viral for a crazy infectious marketing technique.
And guerilla marketing doesn’t all have to be cheap shock tactics.
Sometimes, the small and simple things make the most significant difference. For example, do you remember when IHOP was briefly called IHOB, changing its name from the International House of Pancakes to the International House of Burgers?
People were outraged, and rightfully so! And you know what? This guerilla marketing campaign worked because people were so upset. Suddenly, people were talking about IHOP everywhere, including on social media.
Of course, IHOP didn’t leave people in suspense for too long and soon went back to its original P instead of B.
Here are a few guerilla marketing ideas to add to your playbook:
- Do an unconventional giveaway.
- Look for a Guinness World Record you can reasonably break, then do it.
- Change your company name for a holiday or seasonal promotion.
- Create a social movement or join in on a big one.
- Gather a flash mob.
- Host a treasure hunt.
- Take over a public space.
- Go for a publicity stunt.
Low-cost and free tools
Here’s another great thing about low-cost marketing: plenty of tools to support your budget. Some are available at inexpensive prices, and others are entirely free.
For example, EngageBay’s all-in-one marketing, sales, and service software has a CRM that’s free forever as well as plenty of digital marketing tools you need to get underway.
Google Keyword Planner is also free, as is Canva for graphic design, Mailchimp for email, and Ahrefs for SEO.
Read more: Top Local Advertising Ideas to Elevate Your Marketing
How to Build Customer Relationships
No matter which of these marketing ideas you decide best suits your small business, you’ve got to put the customer first all along.
After all, long-term customer relationships will help your business grow and keep you afloat after you reach a higher level of stability.
So, how do you hang on to these cultivated bonds between you and your audience? I’ve got some pointers to help you.
Consistent engagement
This first tip sounds like a no-brainer, but I figured it’s worth mentioning. Some businesses get so caught up in capturing more leads and converting them into customers that they can forget all about their existing customers.
However, you’ll lose the customers you want to keep, so try not to gloss over them. The ones who have been with you for the long haul are your most valuable customers.
Listen to customer feedback
When your customers say something, do you listen or sweep it under the rug? You can send feedback surveys, but there are many more places to put your finger on the pulse of what your audience wants.
For example, read reviews. Check out some UGC. Look at social media comments and DMs (and respond to them as time allows).
Once you’ve gotten some feedback, sit down with a few other key team members to determine which feedback is the most recurrent and thus needs the most prioritization. Implement changes and let your audience know that they made their voices heard.
Keep accepting feedback and making positive improvements based on what your audience wants to see. Your customers will feel like their opinions matter, driving more brand loyalty.
Prioritize customer service
Putting your customers’ needs above all else is never an unwise decision. Evaluate your current level of customer service and look for any gaps. Customer feedback is valuable here.
Next, take a step back and determine what you can do to improve your customer service. You should hire additional staff. Maybe you should begin using AI chatbots to help your audience. It could be as easy as hastening your response times.
Once you improve your customer service, connect with your audience again and ask for their feedback. Continue making tweaks and adjustments from there.
Personalize interactions
Another of my favorite marketing ideas for elevating customer relationships is personalization. Using a customer’s name in an email is not enough.
You must show you know them by segmenting them, identifying their pain points, and making product/service recommendations based on their purchasing history.
Fortunately, all these tasks are easily achieved with the help of an AI tool. You can look like a personalization guru even if you aren’t doing it all yourself.
Make them feel like a VIP
Customers love feeling special. Harness that and give them opportunities to rejoice often. Start a referral program with tiered rewards, provide early product/service access to your most loyal customers, and offer exclusive discounts.
Word of mouth is still a valuable form of marketing, and when your customers have a positive experience with your brand, they won’t be able to help but want to talk about it.
Read also: The Small Business Guide to Growth Marketing Strategies
How to Measure and Adapt Marketing Efforts
By now, you’ve executed your first campaign due to the awesome marketing ideas you read here. Congratulations. But did your campaign do well? You can be assured of that by studying analytics.
Many marketing tools provide analytics, from EngageBay and Ahrefs to social media platforms and Google if you use Google Ads. The analytics are available in real-time and often configurable, so you can focus on the ones most important to your business at the moment.
There are so many KPIs to focus on depending on which area of your marketing you’re eager to improve. For example, impressions, engagement rate, and brand mentions exist if you build a social media presence. If you’re more concerned with email marketing, you’d focus on open and click-through rates.
Of course, the classic marketing metrics include conversion rate, website traffic, sales-qualified leads, marketing-qualified leads, and overall sales.
Analytics are key to tracking your marketing success, but you might not hit a home run right out of the gate. That’s okay. Adapting your strategies according to the data is the best way to improve.
Besides your data, you must be agile and responsive to changes in consumer behavior and market trends.
Read also: 7 Incredible Guerrilla Marketing Examples To Learn From
Future Trends in Marketing
Okay, so what are some emerging trends that will continue to impact the marketing landscape throughout the rest of the 2020s and beyond? Here are a few predictions of mine.
More AI
We’re only scratching the surface about what AI can do. Its generative capabilities include image and video production, blog post writing, social media post preparation, financial projections, audience segmentation, and customer behavior projections.
That said, AI is imperfect in a lot of areas. For instance, you can usually tell when an image is AI-generated, and AI writing can pull facts out of thin air.
Will it get better? Probably, but whether the AI nexus will have passed us by or become an everyday part of our lives by that point is hard to tell. Marketers who begin working with AI now will stay on the same playing field as their competitors and be readier for whatever changes AI ushers in going forward.
TikTok will continue to be huge
Did you know that by the end of this year, it’s estimated that more than 1.8 billion people will use TikTok? While it still has about two billion users behind Facebook, which remains the most popular social network, TikTok is expected to continue upward between now and 2029.
That makes TikTok the social network to focus on now if you haven’t already. You can sharpen your shorts skills on this platform and jump in on or create trends that may go viral.
An increase in social commerce
Social commerce is also having a big moment as the 2020s carry on, with projections that its sales volume in the US will exceed $100 billion. Social commerce enables consumers to purchase products through a social media platform without visiting a company’s website.
Consumers love social commerce for its convenience, and brands enjoy it because it facilitates faster purchasing decisions. Since it’s mutually beneficial, I foresee it becoming a booming trend.
UGC will be the new advertising norm
User-generated content, or UGC, is also worth its weight in gold. It drives social trust in a way that advertisers, salespeople, and marketers can’t. And it’s not because you’re bad at marketing, but because consumers trust their fellow consumers more.
That’s why savvy marketers have begun incorporating UGC into their campaigns, especially advertising. Showing a potential customer how much their fellow customer loves X Product could inspire the prospective customer to purchase X Product. It’s pretty genius!
Read also: The A-Z of Predictive Lead Scoring: Insights and Strategies
Conclusion
The most creative marketing ideas put small businesses on the same playing field as the bigger fish.
Experimenting with diverse business marketing ideas and marketing strategies to find the most effective mix for your business will elevate you to an advantageous position to enjoy more growth.
EngageBay is an all-in-one marketing, sales, and customer support software for small businesses, startups, and solopreneurs. You get email marketing, marketing automation, landing page and email templates, segmentation and personalization, sales pipelines, live chat, and more.
Sign up for free with EngageBay or book a demo with our experts.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. What are the most effective marketing strategies for small businesses in 2024?
You should use digital marketing above all else. Your small business can also experiment with traditional and guerilla marketing tactics to undeniably impact your target market.
2. How can I integrate traditional and digital marketing methods?
Combining digital and traditional marketing is easier. For instance, you can add geotargeting to a billboard, promote your website via a flier, or advertise on Pandora or Spotify.
3. What are some cost-effective marketing ideas for startups?
Guerilla marketing, social media marketing, and content marketing are cost-effective ideas.
4. How do I measure the success of my marketing campaigns?
Track analytics like engagement rate, email open and click-through rate, qualified leads, conversion rate, sales over time, and website traffic (organic and inorganic).
