It’s not very hard to come up with such hacks. All you have to do is ask yourself, “What can I do in terms of marketing that doesn’t give me direct sales but people, more people will become brand or product aware?”
That’s one question only big e-commerce brands ask and not smaller brands. In fact, if you just put 5% of your total budget towards branding instead of marketing, you will see huge growth in terms of revenue.
Here we go with 10 of my favorite strategies to create a name and increase brand searches.
Quora Influencer -
Find a quora writer of your industry and reach out to them about writing 2-3 answers with an indirect mention of your brand name.Promote that answer till it becomes the most upvoted and the top answer on that question.
Ads- Start ads to get more followers and likes instead of direct sales.
Yes, to do that, your profile should be an amazing resource of that industry. It can be entertaining or motivational as well. Till the time it’s not a place to dump links or product pictures, it should work fine.
Community:
Start a spam-free community on FB or Subreddit. Don’t promote your product but start genuine conversations in your industry. You can also hire influencers for AMA to promote the community.
Create a tool -
Creating a tool/calculator on your website that makes people revisit your website regularly. For example, if you are in fitness, then BMI calculator or in the automobile industry, then a comparison tool between 2 cars.Podcast Ads-
Yes, that’s one unique way to make people brand aware or product aware in your industry. For example, if I am listening to a fitness podcast and the host talks about a protein brand in every episode, I am definitely going to check their website.
Video- Most of the e-commerce ads are about killer graphics with products in them. How about hiring a full-time video editor, creating a new commercial of your products every week, and promoting it on all social channels. (Especially the vertical format videos ads)
Hire Content Creators:
No, not influencers but content creators. Found someone funny on Twitter, hire them to write tweets for you. Found a great underrated cinematographer on Instagram. Hire them to create 3-4 videos for you.
Most brands get into the game of followers and likes and forget about the real artists.Email Shoutouts-
Find someone in your industry who sends weekly tips or entertaining newsletters to their subscribers every day/week. Pay them for a shoutout on the email. (Or start such emailers and get more similar subscribers).Exclusive Collection:
Launch a special product or collection every quarter where only 50 pcs will be available and with a promise that you will never launch this ever again. Keep the out-of-stock product and collect emails IDs for the next exclusive launch.Informational Content:
Start a podcast/youtube channel, or a blog to talk about the problem and the solutions in your industry. Again, not to sell but to help.
For more such marketing tips, listen to the last few episodes of my podcast.