Savvy business owners are always on the lookout for new forms of advertising, and unique ways to surprise potential customers. In recent years, we have seen the advent of the QR code to engage mobile phone users. Another popular method of advertising in recent years is having a viral sensation, the way the new Old Spice man has been.
Here are some other new advertising ideas that may give you some ideas of your own for your business:
Interactive ads within a magazine
You know about scratch and sniff ads, or the peel-open perfume ads. But that is just the beginning. Forbes magazine recently made an issue Wi-Fi-enabled, which means that the reader carrying it around could get free Wi-Fi. Microsoft sponsored the ad, along with T-Mobile to provide the technology to make the magazine Wi-Fi-enabled. Springwise says that “the campaign, created with advertising tech firm Americhip, simultaneously promoted the validity of Microsoft’s cloud-based program and gave Forbes’ readership another reason to carry the publication with them – killing two birds with one stone.”
You may not have Microsoft’s budget, but try to think of some interactive way that you could reach out to readers. Even something as simple as asking potential customers to identify a photo or quote, and directing them to your website to potentially win a prize, could help engage them in what you do.
Marketing to bloggers
A small business with a small budget does not have the money for a big advertising or marketing campaign. But they can easily get some good buzz by marketing to bloggers. Here’s what you can do – reach out to bloggers in your area, or your field. For example, if you market baseball t-shirts related to the New York Mets, a good way to get your product out there is to offer a free t-shirt to any blogger who gives you a plug in the blog.
There are several reasons why doing so can be appealing to you: bloggers are easier to reach than their counterparts in the mainstream media, they have a fan base and a good number of readers, and they generally are savvy in social media as well. This can help promote your business, and if the bloggers like the product, they will tell their friends, and their friends will tell their friends, and so on and so on.
Email advertising
You may already be doing internet advertising. Email advertising is less well-known, but can provide a terrific bang for the buck. Think about it – whether on a desktop computer, laptop, smartphone, or tablet computer, people will check their emails on all of the devices. So if you have an ad running in, say, a newspaper’s “Top 10 Articles of the Day” newsletter, the reader will get to read the ad wherever he or she is.
In addition, email ad platforms like LiveIntent will seamlessly update the ads, if need be. So if you had a Memorial Day sales ad in an email newsletter, but the reader does not actually open the ad until late June, you can switch out the ad dynamically to reflect the new ad in the old email.
That is just the beginning of new marketing and advertising ideas out there. Tell us about what you new ideas you have tried with your business.
Lisa Swan writes for a variety of tech and business sites, including Huffington Post. She lives in New York City.
