Creative Marketting ideas

1. Create relevant content on your website. Blog categories or an on-site article directory are excellent for this.
2. Publish articles in trade or local magazines. Most people think published work is more valuable than a simple blog post, and articles cost less than advertising in the same magazine.
3. Reuse content. If you have great content but no one is consuming it, repurpose it. Blog posts can be collated into an ebook, a webinar recording could become a subscriber-only video, a magazine article could be reprinted and distributed as a booklet…the possibilities are endless.
4. Try article marketing. Publishing articles online creates good backlinks to your website, shows expertise, builds credibility, and more. It’s also relatively affordable and easy to outsource.
5. Write a book or ebook. Books have more value than most other types of content and establish your expertise. You can sell them or offer them for free in exchange for email addresses.
6. Sponsor a local sports team. Send out a press release or feature article and get your logo on the team uniforms. This makes you a valuable community member and builds awareness.
7. Speak at seminars and teach workshops. You’ll get publicity from marketing the event and from the event itself.
8. Enter business award competitions. If you win, you get a badge on your website and a lot more sales. Even if you don’t win, you can still get lots of publicity if you place high enough and broadcast your participation.
9. Create your own business award competition. If there isn’t a competition in your industry or there’s no way you can compete in one, hosting your own unique competition creates buzz as other businesses scramble to win your award.
10. Host free events. Reporters are always looking for a good story. Give them what they want and get some free publicity by hosting a free event. You’ll get more response if there’s food or freebies involved. Use this list of 109 ways to get media attention to make the most of any event.
11. Network at your local Chamber of Commerce. This is a classic marketing idea for small businesses because it can yield big dividends. Association with the Chamber will make your events more credible, and you can find new partners or clients, or discover opportunities to teach or speak.
12. Join associations and use the provided resources, including local networking events, online forums, and job boards.
13. Build a referral network. Referrals and word of mouth are the most powerful advertising, so build relationships with professionals and other businesses you would happily refer your customers to–and who can send referrals your way, as well.
14. Make partnerships for co-promotion. Several related but non-competing businesses working together on a promotion can afford bigger ad space, better prizes, and other advertising expenses.
15. Be a people person. Never stop networking, follow all leads, and participate in conversations wherever you find them. Don’t be afraid of the phone, internet, email, or face-to-face meetings.
16. Send handwritten holiday, birthday, or thank you cards to past and current clients, valued partners, vendors in your referral network, connections who have helped you–everyone you can think of. This is a low-cost and unique marketing idea for small business, but many entrepreneurs have reported its effectiveness.

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Types of Marketing

Marketing is a strategy used by companies to communicate with the consumer and make him knowledgeable about the various features of their products and services. It is an essential part of attracting the target buyers to a particular product, and companies use various innovative or tried-and-tested techniques to stay ahead of their competitors and make their place in the market.

• Affinity Marketing -  Also known as Partnership Marketing, this technique links complementary brands, thereby creating strategic partnerships that benefit both companies. While one adds value to existing customers by generating more income, the other builds new customer relationships.
• Alliance Marketing - Here two or more entities come together to pool in their resources to promote and sell a product or service, which will not only benefit their stakeholders, but also have a greater impact on the market.
• Ambush Marketing - This strategy is used by advertisers to capitalize on and associated themselves with a specific event without the payment of any sponsorship fee, thereby bringing down the value of sponsorship. It has sub-categories like direct or predatory ambushing or indirect ambushing by association, to name a few.
• Call to Action (CTA) Marketing - CTA is a part of inbound marketing used on websites in the form of a banner, text or graphic, where it is meant to prompt a person to click it and move into the conversion funnel, that is, from searching to navigating an online store to converting to a sale.
• Close Range Marketing (CRM) - Also known as Proximity Marketing, CRM uses Bluetooth technology or WiFi to promote their products and services to their customers at close proximity.
• Cloud Marketing - This refers to the type of marketing that takes place on the internet, where all the marketing resources and assets are transferred online so that the respective parties can develop, modify, utilise and share them.
• Community Marketing - This technique caters to the needs and requirements of the existing customers, as opposed to using resources to gather new consumers. This promotes loyalty and product satisfaction and also gives rise to word of mouth marketing among the community.
• Content Marketing - In this case, content is created and published on various platforms to give information about a certain product or service to potential customers and to influence them, without making a direct sales pitch.
• Cross-media Marketing - As the name suggests, multiple channels like emails, letters, web pages etc are used to give information about products and services to customers in the form of cross promotion.
• Database Marketing - This utilizes and information from database of customers or potential consumers to create customized communication strategies through any media in order to promote products and services.
• Digital Marketing - This strategy uses various digital devices like smartphones, computers, tablets or digital billboards to inform customers and business partners about its products. Internet Marketing is a key element in Digital Marketing.
• Direct Marketing - This is a wide term which refers to the technique where organizations communicate directly with the consumer through mail, email, texts, fliers and various promotional materials.
• Diversity Marketing - The aim of this strategy is to take into account the different diversities in a culture in terms of beliefs, expectations, tastes and needs and then create a customized marketing plan to target those consumers effectively.
• Evangelism Marketing - It is similar to word-of-mouth marketing, where a company develops customers who become voluntary advocates of a product and who promote its features and benefits on behalf of the company.
• Freebie Marketing - Here a particular item is sold at low rates, or is given away free, to boost the sales of another complimentary item or service.
• Free Sample Marketing - Unlike Freebie Marketing, this is not dependent on complimentary marketing, but rather consists of giving away a free sample of the product to influence the consumer to make the purchase.
• Guerrilla Marketing - Unconventional and inexpensive techniques with imagination, big crowds and a surprise element are used for marketing something, a popular example being flash mobs.

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