8 Ways to Liven Up Your Strategic Marketing Initiatives

Author: Rachel Durkan Category: B2B, B2C, E-commerce & Retail, Marketing, Social Media & Digital Date: June 19, 2015

Is your marketing strategy outdated and unexciting? Not to fear, here are 8 ways to liven up your marketing strategy.

1. Embrace user-generated content

In the age of social media marketing – content is king. Everyone wants to product something that will grab consumers’ attention and better yet cause content sharing.

Why?

• Millennials spend 5.4 hours a day with content created by their peers
• Represents 30% of their total media time
• User generated content is 20% more influential on purchasing decisions

How?

• Share personal stories
• Exchange ideas
• Customer interaction

2. Partner with allies to drive content marketing

A partner can be anyone who has a similar target audience as you.

• It’s better. As marketers, we can create better content if we’re willing to partner with others who know the audience perhaps even better than we do. Two heads are better than one.
• It’s faster. Most content marketing is a slow-grow strategy. But brands that partner with other brands see much more rapid success with the content they create because of cross marketing initiatives.
• It’s cheaper. It’s much less expensive to share with other audiences than it is to advertise.
• Increase consumer reach

3. Collaborate with influencers

You can achieve this through…interaction with your customers and product reviews.

4. Help customers solve a problem

• Provide exclusive offers that make their lives easier
• Listen and respond to your community

5. Use humour

Consumers are statistically more likely to remember an ad that makes them smile or laugh. They associate that favorable emotional reaction to your product, service or brand. Be funny with caution…make sure your brand humor is appropriate.

6. Use big data

Use data to target specific customers under certain circumstances. Large data sets that may be computed are able to reveal patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions.

7. Tap into nostalgia

A recent study published in the Journal of Consumer Research found that people who were asked to think about the past were willing to pay more for products than those who were asked to think about new or future memories; another experiment showed an increased willingness to give more money to others after recalling a nostalgic event.

8. Storytelling

Storytelling is one of the most effective methods in marketing.

• Stories are more memorable and can produce an emotion (as well as invoke nostalgia)
• Promote your story across various platforms and tell different pieces of the story to ensure it is better received since people will be doing different things when they hear about the story and associate new emotions with it