15 Proven Promotional Strategies That Will Change Your Life

Here’s a shocker – almost 90 percent of “marketing influencers” ramped up their promotional spending budget last year.

Are you still researching promotional strategies? If so, it is going to take a lot more than a promotional strategy Powerpoint to keep you in the loop.

Looking for proven promotional strategies that will change your life? We’ve got your back. Take a look at 15 proven promotional strategies that will change your life!

What Are Promotional Strategies in Marketing?

Before we dive into our list, it’s important to talk about promotional strategies in marketing. Fortunately enough, you are not going to need a promotional strategies course to understand this simple concept.

That being said, this special kind of advertising is designed to target your most loyal customers. Instead of marketing to those who are unfamiliar with your brand, it focuses on marketing to your favorite clients.

Why is that?

Not only does this encourages your clients to want to come back again and again, but it also makes them loyal advocates for your company. As if that’s enough, it increases community growth and participation too. Whether it’s a social media ad or a discount offer, you need to know how to talk to your clients in their language.

You might be curious why promotional advertising is so crucial. Allow us to explain. In a nutshell, this strategic tactic increases revenue by reducing advertising costs. That’s because your existing customers are more likely to spread referrals via “word-of-mouth.”

Speaking of which, it’s way more affordable to acquire existing customers than it is to find new ones. So, keeping your existing customer base satisfied means that you’ll have a lot more cash in the bank in the end. Plus, the closer you are with your customers, the better.

What’s the point?

The answer is simple: your existing clientele will be the first to see your promotional ads.

Consequently, they are more than likely to spread the word to their friends and family members too. In the future, this can lead to a lot more glowing reviews for your company. Of course, all of this promotional marketing results in a ton of “social proof” on the web as well!

1. Collaborate With Partners

If you are not sure why you should collaborate with partners for your promotional strategy, let us explain. First of all, working with another company or individual usually leads to more quality content. Also, this is an extremely affordable advertising strategy to use.

On top of that, you will be able to meet a new audience through your new partnership too. For those of you who like to see results quickly, this is the way to go. For example, consider “Half.com,” who convinced a real city to rename itself “Half.com” for free Internet, stock, and more.

Imagine how much media attention this promotional gained. Who wouldn’t want that?

2. Increase User-Created Content

Have you thought about increasing user-created content yet?

If not, then you are already behind the crowd. You may not be surprised to find out that most millennials spend several hours per day watching “user-created content.” Yes, you read that right.

User-created content includes anything posted to social media, including audio, text, videos and images. Basically anything that engages your audience as they scroll through their newsfeed.

Incredibly enough, the rise of social media advertising is only comparable to:

• Print
• Radio
• Television

However, today’s young people base the majority of their buying decisions on social media. Why not take advantage of this?

Whether you ask customers to share ideas or stories related to your brand, posting them on your social media channels is sure to build trust.

3. Work With “Influencers”

Admit it: it is every big brand’s dream to work with social media influencers that will put their small start-up on the map. Naturally, this is the fastest way to find a brand-new target audience. Besides this, working with social media influencers will build brand recognition like no other.

For example, think about the hardware store Lowe’s. One of the ways that it used this tactic was by letting “mommy bloggers” and fashion designers post on its social media accounts for several days. The results were instant, attracting countless new customers to its retail stores.

4. Solve the Customer’s Problem

You might agree that the biggest reason why you are in business is to solve the customer’s problem. To do this, you can create tutorial videos or articles to show them how to use your products or services. Also, offering discounts that will save customer’s money on your inventory is a great idea too.

Better yet, request customer suggestions and build an app or tool to meet their needs. For example, consider what Chevy did in South America. By partnering with the small tow truck company, they save stranded people by picking them up in their new Chevy Orca.

Talk about providing solutions to the customer!

5. Interact With Your Customers

Whatever you offer to your customers, it’s more than likely that they will want to interact with that face behind the brand. If that’s not the case, then they at least need a place where that they can connect.

For instance, the movie theater AMC created a special game for their customers to have fun with nicknamed “Mad Man Yourself.”

Also, consider a promotional campaign run by American Express. They connected small companies and provided thoughtful resources for them.

6. Try out New Social Platforms

If one social media platform isn’t working out for you, why not try out new ones?

To tell you the truth, there’s nothing wrong with checking out something different to enhance your brand awareness. One great example of this involves the unlikely duo of the Four Seasons and Pinterest. Together, they created a “Pin.Pack.Go program” for Pinterest.

Remarkably enough, nobody had ever thought to let customers plan their itinerary via a social media platform before. That’s why it pays to promote your company in different ways.

7. Apply the ‘Apple Method’

What is the “Apple method,” you ask?

Fair question. Everyone knows the brand Apple, but we might be taking its origin story for granted. If you are wondering how they turned themselves into the megalith they are today, we’ve got you covered.

Back in the day, Apple first introduced the iPod with a game-changing campaign that changed the face of advertising as we know it. It focused on connecting with the customers’ emotions. They did this by using the shadows of real people dancing to music from the iPod. These silhouettes popped up everywhere from bus stations to TV ads to subway cars.

Naturally, this led to a spike in brand awareness, which translated to sales that are still charting today. How so? By connecting with the client on an emotional level, that’s how!

8. Don’t Forget to Have Fun

Although promotional advertising is a serious deal, don’t forget to have fun along the way.

For instance, picture the Dollar Shave Club, which became popular after releasing a series of hilarious YouTube videos. Now, their name is practically synonymous with the razor blade sector.

Brands like Old Spice and Taco Bell also tend to inject humor into their advertising campaigns. Even Caterpillar joined in on the fun, promoting an ad showing their massive construction vehicles playing Jenga.

9. Involve Your Staff Members

There’s no harm involving your staff members in your company promotional strategy either. As your biggest fans, they will probably be the first people to promote your business to their friends and family members.

As we mentioned above, the Caterpillar campaign inspired its employees to share its viral videos. This built a new target audience instantly.

10. Have a Playful Personality

Let’s get this straight: having a playful personality is different than simply “having fun” with your brand. Moving forward, the only way to stand out from similar campaigns is to get a little strange.

What do we mean by that?

For instance, imagine the quirky campaign that a brand-new radio station launched in Scotland. To pull this off, they placed various “guitar racks” around the town with signs claiming that they were free air guitars.

What a memorable promotional strategy!

11. Recognize Returning Clients

As we talked about above, it is essential to recognize returning clients with your new marketing campaigns. Using an upside-down funnel approach, you can make your existing customers feel like they are a one-of-a-kind member of a unique club.

By making older clients feel like “VIPs,” chances are that they will just keep coming back for more (products and services, that is).

12. Target Customers With ‘Big Data’

This might sound a bit intimidating, but targeting customers with “big data” isn’t as hard as you’d think. This strategy is working extremely well for retailers everywhere.

Consider Red Roof Inn, which analyzes missed flight info to send campaigns to travelers who are stranded. Similarly, pizza places send coupons to customers who are experiencing a power blackout or natural disaster. To make a long story short, “big data” can give you a sneak peek into what customers are purchasing and when.

As a result, getting in touch with customers before they even need your services or products should be a breeze!

13. Think About Marketing in Your City

Thought about marketing in your city?

To tell you the truth, there is absolutely nothing wrong with marketing your business off-line. Miraculously, this can even help you to generate a so-called “buzz” around your business or brand too.

Think about what Citi Bike did for their promotional advertising campaign. Paying people to ride bicycles around town with your brand name or logo on it is a smart way to capture attention.

Besides this, the Copenhagen Zoo made a splash when they covered an entire bus in shrink wrap so that it looked like it was being eaten by a boa constrictor.

14. Use the Nostalgia Factor

Have you tapped into the nostalgia factor recently?

If not, it’s probably time that you should. Crazily enough, customers that spend time remembering the past are more willing to spend bigger bucks on products. This trend is particularly true when compared to their forward-thinking counterparts.

In addition to this, reminding someone of a past event will make them more inclined to pull out their wallets.

15. Share a New Story

In terms of advertising to your customers, it’s important to share a new story every single time you interact with them. To keep it fresh, try posting different content on every social media channel.

One example of this was done by Axe, who shared the stories of “the one that got away.” Rather than rehashing the same old content, Axe told a brand-new story on each of its social media platforms. Besides this, they even filmed a short movie about it, which appeared on billboards in Times Square.

Need to boost your promotion strategy instantly? Take one of our tips and tricks out for a spin today!

Create Promising Promotional Strategies

Want to learn how to create promising promotional strategies that your clients will love?

Your search is over. Thanks to our helpful guide, your company should be able to build successful promotional strategies fast.

One of the biggest ways that this will impact your businesses is that it will expand your brand to both new and existing customers. Also, it’ll be beyond easy for prospects to review your positive customer reviews. That’s not all.

You might be wondering: why are promotional strategies so effective?

From tapping into the nostalgia factor to using the “Apple method,” there are countless ways to market to customers. Ultimately, this shows how connecting with your customer’s emotions is more relevant than ever.

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