Marketing is always thrown around like it’s some silver bullet to make your small business immediately successful. If you’re a business owner or manager, you probably already know that this is not entirely the case. Good marketing – the kind that attracts more sales – is more than a one-stop solution that you apply to make everything better. By and large, it is a process that takes time, commitment, and authenticity to work.
To better explain this point, here are three important examples of marketing done right.
Through Stories
Data is powerful. For some, the mere mention of numbers is enough to build credibility. However, many marketers found that stories are even more powerful than data. Some of the most successful marketing campaigns use narrative to be more memorable. You can do this for your products, services and brand too.
Dove
A while back, Dove completely shifted gears in their marketing campaigns in favour of promoting women’s self-esteem.
According to the story, marketing director Stacie Bright spoke with her young daughter and found out about her unrealistic beauty expectations and insecurities about herself. Bright decided to come up with a campaign that would prevent this from happening to more daughters.
She then spoke with the daughters of other executives and found out similar insecurities. She used these stories to convince their leadership team to change directions. Teary-eyed, they agreed.
As a direct result of this change, the company quickly felt a rise in revenue. From a company that sells soap, they became one of the loudest voices promoting self-esteem for women at the time.
Significant Objects
Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn had an idea – they wanted to see if they can increase the value of common thrift store objects by associating them with stories.
To do this, the two bought several random items from thrift stores and employed the help of over 200 writers to come up with stories for item descriptions. The objects cost an average of just $1.25 each when they bought them. By the end of the experiment, they received almost $8,000 for the items.
According to the experiment’s website, Significant Objects, it was done to prove that subjective value can translate into actual objective price with the help of narrative. They were right.
Through Design
Design can speak volumes about your business. The cliché is famous for a reason. Before people read your text, they’ll first see your colours, lines, curves, and so on.
Apple
It can be argued that Apple is built on a strong branding foundation. However, even before they became known as the tech giants they are now, they have always invested heavily in design. Their leadership understands that design and visual perception are very important facets of marketing and branding.
According to Medley, Apple successfully dissociated tech with the old notion of looking nerdy. They introduced people to the more stylish and sleek versions of devices that everyone can happily show off. Their designs may have been the ones responsible for their current branding and not the other way around.
For your small business, a unified design for your products, uniforms, website, can help people remember you. You may choose to work with custom web design services in Northampton to help you with this undertaking.
These three examples should help you come up with marketing strategies for your own enterprise.
