power marketing

Everyone in marketing is talking about customers, growth hacks, and selling more products. But if you’re a small service business, you have clients and services. Time is limited and that’s all you bill for.  Since the majority of blog talk these days is about product selling, you’ve just turned off from it.  What about new creative marketing ideas for your service…?  Here are some of the best.

Creative Service Marketing Ideas — Quick Wins

Marketing can be daunting these days. Do you start with posting images on social media?  Do you update your blog?

So many options… and yet there are amazingly skilled people who are not sharing their value with people of interest. Here are a few simpler methods, which can give you some quick wins:

• • Connect with educated people of interest on LinkedIn – and if appropriate, send them your free white paper (or any lead magnet) or event invite to your event. Also click Like on what they share.

• • Run a webinar on popular business issues from a slide show and notes – invite all your connections and Tweet about it 20 times over two weeks. Because webinars can be accessed from anywhere, you might get visitors from all over the world. Also post the final slides onto Slideshare, for higher visibility.

• • Create some audios (MP3s). Just record it to share with your blog readers and get it transcribed and edited (that’s a two step process). Editors in Australia can be found at the ipEd Directory or see our copy editors.

• Referrals and word-of-mouth is gold. Remember at the end of all non-urgent business conversations to add “we rely on referrals and reviews to continue being of help”. Everybody likes to help, so it’s not a big ask.

While some of these ideas are content marketing, they were all selected because of the resounding success I have heard about from small business entrepreneurs, or experienced myself.

Five Longer Term, Brand-Building and Service Marketing Methods

Writing a business-focussed book can be a good lead-in strategy as well, but since you have to write it first, it is less accessible.  When I wrote ‘Power Marketing’ from some experiences and lessons we had in business, some people asked me if I consulted in marketing. (I didn’t at the time).

Podcasting is another area of interest for the professionals. It seems lots of people have started one but those that keep going and market their podcast as well really seem to hit on a leveraged way to attract already warmed-up clients. Their voice is doing the work for them rather than them having that first conversation each time. Ensure that episodes are structured – then pay someone to design Podcast art and deliver it to iTunes and Soundcloud.

Speaking or having a stand at local business expos – if your target clientele will be there. If not too high an expense for you, this is a great opportunity to get in front of B2B people willing to grow and network. Those that aren’t wont be there! Remember to collect cards for a prize draw and if consented to on the form, these names can be put into your automated email system.

Publishing videos that highlight key problems or give valuable insights to users in that industry. Remember to make it broader than your business. Of course, add a link to your website in the description unless loading straight into Facebook.

Building long-term partnerships with other businesses who target the niche market you do. Especially if your time in this business has not been very long, but you have expertise, a partnership with an association, a visible blogger in your industry, or a media group will help you get more traction – while they get some key industry insights and give value to their readers. (More in the clever partnerships article by LittleBlackBook Marketing).

Do generous / crazy / amazing stuff and put out a press release each time. The press release should sound ‘real’ and be targeted to the readership of the paper, web portal or station. See ‘the Happiness Ninja’ for a great example of media promotion – see video.

Conclusion:

This list of creative marketing ideas is just the start! You can see there are many ways to create a strong brand presence in your own market. Publishing helpful and relevant content… plus building partnerships for leveraging your content… are the main ways suggested to aid brand visibility and get real leads.