In a room that’s full of people, how will you manage to stand out? The same predicament is faced by many start-up entrepreneurs today who engage in profitable but popular businesses – which is why the need for a creative marketing idea has emerged. Creative marketing concepts are necessary to be able to separate your business from everyone else’s. To avoid the crowd when everyone else is gunning for the same prize in the same way, it is best that you take detour and be innovative in your marketing strategies.

Marketing, mind you, has always been a big part of business. It is that which attracts potential customers and brings in the money. But apart from being important, marketing is also expensive and tricky. So an entrepreneur has to be careful of the type he chooses to apply for his business. Traditional advertising methods like radio and television streams have proven their strength in marketing. But they have also gained the reputation of being impractical in light of the financial constraints we all feel today. In replacement, a lot of new marketing methods have emerged like search engine optimization, social media marketing and pay-per-click ads. But these have also evolved to conventional marketing means and are patronized by a lot of congruent businesses. To some extent, its popularity has also made it lose its credibility.

Creative marketing concepts are hard to come by. And they may be a bit questionable to conservative marketers or those who are looking to save on costs. But considering that they are less explored and potentially captivating means for product or service promotion, these marketing ideas might just be that missing piece you should incorporate in your business to make it successful.

1.) Give away stuff.
If there’s one thing people love, it’s free stuff. If you want to get folks to flock to your business, give them an incentive. It can be a simple towel or an educational book they can download from your site. Just make sure that what you share is something relevant to your business. And make sure you don’t give away EVERYTHING. In replacement of stuff, you can give away free advice on something that is important and connected to your market.

2.) Establish your own YouTube channel (which is cheaper).
People love videos. Google loves videos. Ergo, make and post videos. Relate some to your business. Make some that are intriguing, funny, romantic – address all types of preferences and emotions. The good thing about videos is that they are viral and can be passed on from one person to another, thereby ensuring that your marketing campaign reaches a wide market base.

3.) Lend a hand.
Whether by funding charities or participating in fund-raising event, helping out is good publicity. Aside from this, it is also an opportunity for profitable exposure especially if you are targeting a local market.

4.) Attend conferences and tradeshows.
You not only get to get your goods out there, you also will be able to build you and your business reputation. Conferences and tradeshows spell legitimacy and a drive for development. Who knows, this marketing strategy may not only open doors for clientele support but partnerships as well.

Creative marketing concepts does not actually only involve flashy, colorful marketing mediums. In a broader sense, it means ingenuously and uniquely conceived ideas for business promotion.

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Justin_Timory

Imagine for a moment that you manage the marketing activities for a relatively well-known, non-alcoholic drink. You’re competing for buyers’ attention at an upcoming industry trade show. How can you take on Coca-Cola®, Pepsi®, Maxwell House Coffee®, Lipton Iced Tea®, 7 Up®, Gatorade® and all the other mammoth brands? They have huge booth spaces, monstrous marketing budgets and worldwide distribution.

Is there any hope for you?

Not if you try to compete on their turf. You simply don’t have the resources available to you to make a difference. Your only hope is to battle them on the fields where you have a distinct advantage. Here is where you can use your most effective combat weapons – creativity and imagination.

Because the big brands have so many resources at their disposal, they rarely rely on “thinking skills” (most small business owners don’t either because they’re too lazy). And that is precisely how you attack them and win.

Suppose your brand on the trade show floor is Yoo-hoo®, the delicious chocolate drink. You don’t have name recognition like the big brands and you certainly don’t have their advertising budgets. To grab the attention of the attendees at the show, you decide to out-think the other guys.

As visitors approach your booth, you pop open a bottle, pour it into a specially designed boot-shaped cup, put a straw in it and serve a “Shoo-hoo”. You immediately put smiles on their faces and create a constant buzz on the show floor as everyone walks around drinking their “Shoo-hoo”. You’ve got thousands of walking billboards for your product. Great results for very little money.

This is the essence of creativity.

Perhaps you’re thinking….

“Well, that worked for those guys…but…

…I’m not in the beverage industry.

…I don’t market at trade shows.

…My product is a high-dollar item.

…I sell a service not a product.

…That just wouldn’t work for me.”

You’re missing the key point here. Don’t focus on the specific marketing technique and application. Think in terms of how you can morph the idea – tweak it, modify part of it, add to it, reverse it, substitute something, combine a related idea, create something similar, use it in a different way, whatever.

In other words, what is your version of the “Shoo-hoo”?

Hopefully you can find a Shoo-hoo idea in the marketplace and adapt it as-is and run with it in one of your promotional campaigns. But ideally you shouldn’t focus on a singular idea, rather, arm yourself with a method of thinking that will allow you to solve marketing issues from a “conceptual” perspective.

You’ll achieve better and more profitable results when you pay attention to all the creative ideas that surround you, and develop your ability to strategically think about solutions. Is there more to learn by discovering how someone else faced and solved an individual challenge? What can you adapt and gain from their experience? Are there other and better ways to approach your individual situation?

There’s nothing wrong with morphing someone’s specific idea, but so much more to gain from the entire process.

So keep your creative antennae on full alert….always looking for the next great idea. And use it to grab your prospects’ attention.

Larry Baltz runs a company called More Sales – More Profits. He works with small business owners who want to get more clients and sell more products and services. Larry is a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach and small business marketing expert. For his free report, “Knock-Their-Socks-Off” Promotion and Marketing, go to [http://www.moresales-moreprofits.com] for your copy.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Larry_Baltz

Blackbird convention on my lawn. The feathered creatures followed the maintenance workers who spread the winter seed and winter fertilizer. Birds provide a valuable lesson for marketers. Go where the pickings are available. Go where the customers are located.

Lexus used this principle at the beginning of the economic downturn, nice way to say the beginning of the recession. Since customers were not coming into the showroom in sufficient numbers, a few creative Lexus dealers followed the blackbird method. These energetic salesmen took the fleet of cars to where the customers were located. What a novel concept – go to the customers. While other dealerships, domestic and international, were making another pot of coffee and boo-hooing the lack of business, Lexus became creative. Lexus took the fleet of cars to the country clubs, golf courses, and any other place they would expect affluent people to inhabit. They simply introduced themselves and asked if the people had ever test driven a Lexus. If the individual was interested in a test drive, and many were, then the opportunity presented itself to demonstrate the luxury features of a Lexus. Being a Lexus owner, myself, I know the impressiveness of that test drive.

Once the people settled into the cushy leather seats which wrapped around them like their favorite snuggly blanket, experienced the smooth “won’t spill a drop of your open coffee cup” ride, enjoyed the quadraphonic sound and all of the other delightful toys which come as features on a luxury automobile. After such a delightful experience, getting back in their old car (even though it was probably only a year or two old), the old car felt shabby in comparison. Lexus closed an amazingly high percentage of those test drives.

Once you are accustomed to luxury, stepping backwards becomes even more difficult. Everything is relative. If you are currently driving a basic car which is ten years old or older, driving a new car with even a few more features presents a pleasing experience. The point is that Lexus thought creatively and took their fleet to where the customers were located. If Mohammed is not coming to the mountain, then take the mountain to Mohammed.

The old Southern expression is “Do not expect fried chicken to fly in the window.” You must design and take action on your success plan. The blackbirds which infested my lawn came to the location of the seed. They did not expect the seed to be delivered to their nest.

Are you expecting customers to be deposited in your business or sales funnel or are you taking creative and massive action to attract customers to you?

Amazon called everyone into their offices at the beginning of the recession and said, “There is a big recession coming. Let’s miss it.” Like Lexus, Amazon took a carefully designed massive action plan and aggressively implemented that plan. Consequently when everyone else was whining about holiday sales being off last Christmas, Amazon sales were significantly higher.

So many salesmen and businesses sit back waiting for customers to come to them instead of using the Doobie Brothers approach and “Takin’ it to the Streets.” Be creative, go to where the customers are located and expect positive results.

Even a blackbird knows where the find the seeds. Find your own seeds of success.

28 years experience as a successful entrepreneur, post-graduate degrees in Communication and Alternate Dispute Resolution, and a proven track record as a teacher, coach and mentor, revealed the success formula.

Network marketing achievements for the last 4 years. Executive Committee, Ethics Committee, Certified Consultant Seminar Program, Leadership Support Team, Leadership Award Synergy Saturday, Empower Magazine, Millionaire Mastermind Group and selected as Consultant of the Month by Network Marketing Magazine in July 2007.

Elaine Love, Owner
Results For Life LLC
Certified Master M3 Consultant
303-284-0514
resultsforlife@gmail.com

http://www.Elaine4Success.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Elaine_Love

To some, it means bottom line only. To me, it means increasing teamwork, building communication systems that work, centralizing a message, generating a consistent message and assuring the fundamentals are clearly communicated within your company first to maintain a marketing edge, which then makes your bottom line healthy. With these fundamentals in place, good creative and honest communications can be created.

This includes and makes necessary on my behalf, the need to understand management goals and to then be able to lead your creative marketing team in implementing those goals. You will receive experience which provides significant value to your company in my ability to conceptualize, articulate and implement strategic creative across a broad range of marketing initiatives, including creative, print, direct mail, advertising, brand identity and the internet and it’s increasingly large share of the world’s markets.

You will receive a proven ability to lead a creative team in achieving company visions, and this provides companies we work with well trained knowledge based staff with clear company visions.

This is an investment in your company, not an outsourcing of knowledge.

Part of my philosophy is the need for leaders to trust that their staff have a vested interest in the organization and given the right information regarding revenue and business models, will act in the best interest of the company. To that end, your company will enjoy working with a leader which empowers staff and encourages them to get out into the organization and learn more about the company and be more a part of each and every initiative implemented as a team.

In order for company’s to be successful, they must have good communications, and my experience will bring that to the forefront.

To nurture and mentor individuals in understanding where their piece of the marketing puzzle is most important and keeps staff working within their core competencies, and this helps build great creative and marketing.

Steve Roper provides award winning creative direction, brand identity, web strategies and marketing management in Victoria and has worked with clients in Bermuda, Florida, Costa Rica, Belize, St. Martin, Windsor and his home city of Montreal.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Stephen_Roper