Some strange sounding marketing strategies

Marketing is a way of life that every brand lives.

Marketing is everywhere and it takes different avatars to make the products reach customers. Every brand follows different marketing strategies in order to tide over the competition in the business world. You may be aware of some common marketing strategies like consumer marketing, content marketing, digital marketing and e-commerce marketing. In this article let us discuss about some uncommon marketing strategies that may sound strange to you.

1.Scarcity Marketing

We all know that “Red” is perceived as a symbol of danger. What is this colour of danger has to do with marketing? We all have come across the words “only few left in stock”, “only limited stock”, “offer ends today”. These words would have most often represented in red colour.  Mentions in red colour like this creates a sense of fear that something is going to end and it makes us alert.

The same applies with marketing. The scarcity marketing is marketing with the customer’s fear of missing out the product or service. These red indications thus tempts the consumers to hurry up to buy the products within a short span before the offers ends. For example, E-commerce platforms like amazon displays how much quantity of a certain product is leftover in red font.

 

2.Ambush marketing

Execute before your competitors do.

Is the term “ambush” makes you feel something fishy? Yes, ambush marketing has a lot to do with tactics and smartness. Before having insights about ambush marketing let us know what the word “ambush” mean. The word ambush usually refers to a surprise attack arising from a concealed position. In ambush marketing companies try to associate its products and services with the events that already has official sponsors.

The year 1996 is a notable year for Indian history and for marketing too. We all are aware that India was the co-host of the cricket world cup held in 1996. Coca-cola was the official sponsor of the tournament in India during the respective year. Coca-cola’s rival Pepsi having lost the opportunity led a famous creative campaign. Pepsi launched its campaign “nothing official about it” during the world cup. This created confusion among the audience with Pepsi’s campaign name relating to the event. Without being the official sponsor Pepsi has sought the advantage what coca-cola has got being an official sponsor. Even after the world cup audience was still under confusion who was the official partner.

Here Pepsi smartly made use of the situation and successfully staged its ambush marketing by taking advantage of the cricket world cup which is already sponsored. This instance made the best of ambush marketing strategies of the 20th century.  Watch the video of “nothing official about it” campaign to get a clear picture of ambush marketing.

3.Undercover marketing

Like the word undercover deals with secrecy, Undercover marketing is a strategy used to promote the product in which the customer don’t realize that the product is marketed to them. It is a sort of hidden marketing. Undercover marketing is also known as stealthy marketing. It is one among the widely used marketing strategies in social media.

In 2002 Sony Ericson held Fake Tourist Sony Ericsson campaign to promote their T681 mobile phone. The campaign features paid actors asking the passersby to take photographs of them in tourist destinations. When the passersby take photos, the actors explained them the features of the phone. This is a perfect example of undercover marketing. Watch the Fake Tourist Sony Ericsson campaign for more insights.

4.Philanthropic marketing

You may raise a question that what does philanthropy has to do with marketing. Companies do charitable activities to the society through corporate social responsibility. They market their philanthropy to earn the goodwill for the company and brand. In other words, companies invest in philanthropic activities and promote with non-profitable organizations.

The Penguin Random House helps in paying the student’s loan of their employees. It is a strategy to retain the employees and creating a sense of brand attachment in the minds of their employees. Kellogg’s offered free meals in exchange with tweets. But Kellogg’s was accused of self-service through this campaign. Philanthropy must be handled with care while including in marketing mix.

5.Long-tail marketing

As the name denotes long-tail marketing involves the selling of the products and services in multiple niche markets. This business strategy is mainly executed by grand market leaders. The companies sell products in various niche markets with even small customer base. You may doubt that what is the use of selling in the markets with low customer base. But the aggregate sales of all the niches will give a good score for the marketer.

 

Companies like Amazon and Netflix follows long-tail marketing. Almost many of us have a purchasing experience in amazon. You could have observed many product suggestions in which you thought who will buy that in online. Amazon sells the required quantity of products in multiple niches rather than selling huge amount one or few products to a single niche market.

6.Article Marketing

One of the least cost marketing strategies is article marketing. Companies write articles about their business and placing of the written articles strategically in various online platforms. It is one among the old marketing strategies used by online marketers. Article marketing is slightly different from content marketing. The contents in content marketing will be posted in and outside the company’s website while in article marketing articles are not posted in the company’s business website but will be posted in other platforms.

7.Cultural Marketing

Culture plays a major role in people’s buying decisions. We often choose products and services which fits to our culture. Hence brands design their marketing strategies in which their products blend with the culture and demography in order to inspire the consumers.

During its 30th anniversary, Nike featured NFL Quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who is a footballer and American civil rights, activist. He took a bold stand during the national anthem saying no to racism and social inequality. This eas also followed by a negative impact from a few groups of people including burning Nike products. But the success of the campaign overshadowed those negativities. A big business giant like Nike has the power to upstage some risky campaigns like this neglecting few consumers.

8.Black Hat marketing

Some companies use unethical marketing strategies through online to promote their products and services. This is called black hat marketing. This kind of marketing tactics is usually followed to increase the website’s score and make it appear in the search engine’s first page. In other words, it is going against the search engine’s criteria or algorithm.

The best example for this can be sighted from 2013. The company global florist Interflora was penalised by google for following unethical Search engine optimization strategies. The company was severely punished and for several months it was not in the internet world till it resolved the problem.

9.Flanking Marketing

Are you struggling to compete against big business giants? Then flanking marketing may work out. In flanking marketing a company aims to capture the market which is not well served by the existing competition. This involves identifying the market which is left unimportant by your competitors.

The company Absolut v. Smirnoff when they entered into vodka business priced their products almost 50% higher than their competitors. By high pricing, they positioned themselves as premium vodka products executing the flanking market perfectly.

10.Buzz marketing

Buzz marketing is promoting your product which triggers excitement and anticipation among the consumers. It mainly targets the emotions of the people. Buzz marketing is a double-edged sword. If it works out it will rock but if it fails it may backfire.

The usual jewellery ads feature fair-skinned people wearing and gifting golden ornaments. Tanishq broke many Indian beliefs and challenged stereotypes featuring a dark-skinned women’s second marriage. It also showcased how Indian’s opinion on second marriages and single parenting changing these days. It created a buzz by relating to the emotions of Indians and long followed beliefs. watch the Tanishq ad video to get a clear picture

I hope this article enriched you with some good insights about marketing strategies. Do you expect me some other strategies or topics to write on? Drop your valuable comments and suggestions in the comment box.

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