10 Creative Marketing Ideas to Increase Sales for Your Business

One of the most difficult aspects of the marketing world is that, because it is always changing and evolving, it requires constant adaptation for businesses to remain relevant.

Marketing is an exceptionally imaginative field, challenging professionals to stay up-to-date on current trends while also providing information about the brand that consumers can relate with. The process requires lots of research, time, and balance for success to occur, which is why it’s sometimes easy to hit that imaginative block.

When business owners feel low on their creative marketing suggestions, all it usually takes is some inspiration and excitement to get that strategy back on track. This article serves as a way to provide professionals with 10 proven marketing ideas to increase sales and help your business make its way to the top. 

1.  Run a Contest to Boost Excitement

More than buying new items, people love winning free things, so an online contest or giveaway is a wonderful opportunity for building excitement around your brand. Contests help new people learn about your company’s existence, while also informing potential customers about the products or services that you offer.

Make sure to have a plan for all the new leads and followers that you gain from your contest by planning your strategy accordingly and establishing the rules beforehand.

2.  Start a Blog to Establish Authority

Blogs that are regularly updated and full of valuable information help take the business-customer relationship to an entirely new level. Brands can use their blog to educate their audience on relevant topics, to entertain them with trending news, or just as a long-winded way to drive a call-to-action.

Blogging dramatically increases a website’s SEO, which is crucial to driving organic traffic, and gives small businesses a chance to build a dedicated community that can’t be found anywhere else.

3.  Partner with Businesses Related to Your Industry

While the business field was once very much an “every man for himself” arena, a major shift has been seen in recent years regarding strategic partnerships. Businesses in every industry are teaming up to get themselves in front of more eyes and increase the competitive advantage.

Of course, this creative marketing strategy must be done after lots of research, but partnering with businesses that have a similar goal to yours can provide you with significant benefits. The enhanced image and increased customer base alone are enough to heavily consider the strategy. 

4.  Start Making Video Content

As mentioned, following the trends and adjusting your strategy accordingly, is critical to successful marketing. And the trends say that video marketing is where it’s at.

This can be seen by TikTok, the Chinese video-sharing platform, which has skyrocketed in popularity throughout 2020. Video content is vital to establishing a deeper connection with your audience, and this is actually the type of content that people are looking for.

Ensure that you start creating videos that are helpful and can be shared on social media to make your hard work worthwhile.

5.  Build Your Email List

One of the best marketing ideas to increase sales is email. This method is not outdated, and anyone who tells you otherwise is severely misinformed. People still check their email, typically daily, and there’s a reason all the big brands are still collecting email addresses.

One helpful tip is to ensure that the emails you send out are optimized for mobile, as most people will probably be viewing them in that form. Then, start planning your campaigns according to what’s trending, or what time of year it is, to help drive your sales.

6.  Show Some Behind the Scenes

“Behind the scenes” content, which are posts that help humanise your business and show a vulnerable side to it, is wildly popular among today’s consumers. This is because, with all the corporate secrecy and privacy concerns, it is revitalising to see a brand with transparency.

This type of content also tends to be more authentic, providing personality to your brand and helping your audience connect.

7.  Implement a Chatbot

It’s funny how a suggestion for humanising your brand can be followed by one advocating for machine integration, but automation is so important in today’s world.

It is impossible to expect a small business owner to be able to handle all incoming inquiries during all hours of the day and night, which is where a chatbot can come in handy. Properly integrated chatbots have the potential to increase business sales by more than 60%.

8.  Create Your Own Hashtag

All business owners know the importance of using trending hashtags in their content to generate more views and get it in front of more eyes. However, another creative marketing idea that could drive your sales is to create your own hashtag.

Those with millions and billions of views are easily washed out in a period of a few minutes to a couple of hours, and a branded hashtag will put all your content in one easy-to-locate place (that isn’t your actual profile).

Branded hashtags can build a buzz around your company, while also encouraging audience members to join in on the posting.

9.  Give Your Products/Service Away for Free

Influencer marketing isn’t only for the big brands. Many influencers, especially those with more modest audience sizes, love working with small businesses and can increase sales dramatically. Influencers are actually considered “the most effective and trusted source for driving sales”, primarily because most of them produce video content. 

If you’re not comfortable with just giving your hard work away for exposure, think about the possibility of starting an affiliate program, providing discount codes for influencers, or collaborating in some other way. 

10. Showcase Your Testimonials

Besides influencer marketing, reviews, and testimonials from previous clients are probably one of the most valuable pieces of marketing a business has. Social science and research on people show us that customers like seeing proof, and witnessing someone else rave about something makes us want to try it, too.

Testimonials are helpful because they boost your company’s trustworthiness, without coming across as braggy at all.

Your testimonials are everything! Make sure to display them proudly on your social media pages and website.

Looking for more support? You can check out how to use Facebook Groups to elevate your social media marketing strategy here and start to incorporate DM sales  to connect more with your customers. If you are still feeling a little overwhelmed by the online space you can explore the option of a Business Coach. Find out What a Business Coach is and how you might benefit here.