Postcards, Booklets and More: 30 Marketing Strategies to Try

What marketing strategies will you try this year? That’s a tough question to answer for many small businesses, especially when thousands of available marketing strategies make it impossible for any company to fully explore all of them. Moreover, small businesses have a need to stick with what has historically worked or risk losing the sales they know how to earn. That said, your company’s growth is dependent on your ability to try new marketing strategies that have the potential to help you identify new and lucrative revenue streams. No matter how you traditionally market your business, in 2014 you need to make some room (and budget) space to try something new. For your inspiration, here are 30 marketing strategies to try in 2014.

1. Start by setting definitive and measurable goals for the year
2. Next, break down those year goals into smaller segments: monthly, weekly, and daily goals and tasks that must be performed to achieve your bigger goals
3. Define your focus: why should customers buy from you this year?
4. Define what metrics matter: a viral video that gets a million hits but converts no sales is not effective marketing
5. Determine what tasks to delegate so you’re free to manage your marketing efforts
6. Hold a social media contest, which can yield hundreds or even thousands of new fans and followers
7. Publish solution-based content on your website to give customers value
8. Develop a robust, repetition-based direct-mail marketing campaign
9. Optimize your website landing pages for conversions (or hire someone to do it)
10. Try re-targeting, which is online ad repetition for those who have already responded to your marketing but have not yet made purchases
11. Take lots of photos to publish via social media sites such as Facebook
12. Print letterhead that features your QR code, web URL, social media handles, and even current promotions
13. Revisit email marketing and optimize it for customer value and conversions
14. Go big with outdoor marketing: large format vinyl banners, big posters and flyers that can’t be ignored
15. Establish a Facebook sales funnel
16. Postcard-to-website or postcard-to-mobile site/app marketing
17. Go mobile: get a mobile (or responsive) website and promote a value-added mobile app to your customers
18. Try a new social media site (that’s not Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter)
19. Shoot videos for your website and social media websites – make them interesting, fun and funny
20. Produce short videos for Vine
21. Redesign your business card to share your social media profile and to offer incentives for becoming a fan
22. Become (or hire) a PPC expert to help generate greater revenue through digital marketing
23. Print greeting cards to send to your best customers. Thank them for their business and include a special offer
24. Invest in PR. It might not be considered marketing, but effective PR can boost sales dramatically
25. Print interactive brochures that engage customers and immerse them into fun, useful or valuable apps, product demonstration videos, or other resources they’ll love
26. Focus on publishing interesting, shareable content rather than SEO
27. Print booklets your customers will find useful: how-to guides, for example, to help customers with just about anything
28. Hit the streets with a well-targeted door hanger marketing campaign: it’s cheap, easy and impossible to ignore
29. Get busy blogging: on your own site and as a guest for other blogs. Forget the sales pitch and offer valuable solutions to foster your reputation as a trusted expert
30. Interact with your customers’ communities, both online and off. Get involved in your local community, and become a helpful resource on online forums and social media websites

What marketing strategies will you try?