Innovative Marketing Strategies That Work for Any Business or Brand

Whilst the fundamentals of marketing such as crafting messages for particular audiences have remained the same, more has changed in the last decade than in the previous fifty years.

From artificial intelligence (AI) to big data, virtual reality to augmented reality, immersive videos to live streaming, new emerging technologies continue to revolutionise digital marketing and the way brands and their customers interact.

If you are not yet using any of these tools to supercharge your marketing strategy, you are falling behind your competitors. The brands that are winning are those that are not afraid to experiment with new technologies to take their marketing efforts to the next level.

Below are some innovative marketing strategies you can implement today irrespective of your niche or industry.

Get More Views on Facebook with 3D Photos

By now, you already know that attracting attention for your posts on the organic Facebook newsfeed is increasingly difficult. The newsfeed is incredibly noisy and overcrowded and your marketing efforts may not get you the results you want.

Enter 3D Photos…

If you are looking to get more eyeballs on your photos, then you should be experimenting with the new 3D photos feature on Facebook.

3D photos are digitally rendered portrait photos taken on the latest dual-camera smartphones such as the iPhone 7+ and subsequent models.

The technology behind this new feature gives portrait photos a real-life vibe. As users scroll in the newsfeed, these photos literally pop out of the screen.

According to Facebook, scenes with objects or people in the foreground and a visually captivating background would benefit the most from 3D photos.

If you are already using your dual-camera smartphone to create content, 3D photos will be an exciting addition to your visual marketing strategy.

Once you have taken a photo in portrait mode, you will see an option to share it as a 3D photo on Facebook. People who view this photo will be able to tilt, pan, and scroll their phone to see a life-like image.

This innovative technology is a powerful way to reclaim the typically noisy newsfeed and get more views for your visual content.

Boost Video Viewership with 360 Degree Videos

Are you looking to get more engagement from your video marketing strategy? 360-degree videos are certainly worth a try. These revolutionary videos have been popular for a while now but only a few have taken advantage of the technology.

Even then, when done well, 360-degree videos can deliver significant payoffs. Findings show that 360-degree videos increase customer intent purchase by more than 7 percent.

Additionally, more than 12 percent feel that brands that display 360-degree videos have a unique brand story. The study also shows that up to 88 percent find these videos to be highly entertaining and plan to interact more with 360 video ads.

Like 3D photos, 360-degree videos can be effective in driving brand engagement and encouraging purchase intent. Unsurprisingly, immersive videos have up to 46 percent video completion rate (VCR) and deliver 14 percent more ROI than regular video. Customers are also more likely to share a 360-degree video.

360-degree videos are simply interactive videos that you can capture using a video camera that can record multiple shots of a scene from all angles. The video allows the viewer to see the scene from all directions and more importantly feel as though they are physically present in the scene.

Unlike a 2D video or ad that the audience watches passively, a 360-degree video puts the audience at the forefront, allowing viewers to immerse themselves into the video. This experience elicits a strong emotional connection with the brand.

Facebook marks interactive videos with a 360 logo and offers innovative tools that allow the user to navigate and view the scenes from different perspectives.

Using the available navigational tools, you can emphasise certain scenes that you want your viewers to see. Users can see 360-degree videos on both desktop and mobile devices.

Immersive video content is set to take over the marketing world by storm. Here are a few tips to make these videos work for you:

Invite Users to Interact with Your Brand

360-degree videos are an interesting way to showcase your products or services. In particular, viewers appreciate unedited behind-the-scenes footage. Why not give them a tour of your office or workplace, show them how to use your product, or give them a sneak peek of a product you are building just for them?

Create A Documentary

One of the ways brands are engaging users with immersive videos is by creating captivating documentaries. Short films can be a great way to show your audience how your brand is impacting the community, what you are passionate about, and your brand’s value, all of which go a long in improving brand awareness and engagement.

Showcase an Event

What better way to enable your audience to interact directly with you and your brand than to share footage of a live event that you are hosting, attending, or are a participant in. Even if they could not attend the event, your fans will feel privileged and excited that you let them see what you are up to.

Attain 10x Engagement with Chatbot Marketing

It is no secret that artificial intelligence (AI) is already changing the marketing strategies of small and large brands equally.

One such change is the increasing popularity of chatbots. Chatbots are innovative platforms that enable brands to supercharge their marketing efforts by offering quick customer support, engaging users, and conveying the brand’s message and personality in a consistent tone.

The popularity of chatbots can be attributed to the fact that consumers are requiring brands to be more responsive. However, in addition to providing customer service interactions, chatbots can be a powerful tool for taking your marketing strategy to the next level.

For example, brands are already using chatbots to collect crucial data arising from interactions with customers. This way, chatbots do not just play the role of a virtual assistant. They also serve as a source of valuable information on customers’ needs so you can formulate effective strategies to meet these needs before your competitors do.

Interestingly, being able to interact with a brand via a chatbot can improve purchase intentions. Findings show that customers who use chatbots feel more confident about purchasing. With modern chatbots, customers can interact with a brand as if they were speaking to a human, an experience that helps to build a connection and help them make purchase decisions.

Here are a few tips for successfully incorporating a chatbot into your marketing strategy:

Focus on Solving A Specific Problem

This might sound like a no-brainer but before you set out to use a chatbot, think about the function that you want the program to serve and the problem you want to solve in relation to your overall marketing strategy. Customers are more likely to use a chatbot that solves a particular pain point.

Do you want the chatbot to act purely as a virtual assistant, do you want to use it to nurture customers down the sales funnel, or do you want to upsell your products or services? Each of these goals will require using a very different chatbot.

Select Your Preferred Type

As chatbots become more and more popular, marketers have many options. Some of the most common types of chatbots are visual chatbots and ready-made bots.

As the name suggests, visual chatbots allow customers to interact with your brand via pictures. So, for example, if a customer wants to order a certain product, they can simply attach an image of what they want.

Unsurprisingly, visual-based chatbots can generate high levels of engagement and turbocharge the sales cycle.

The other alternative is to use ready-made bots such as the popular Facebook Messenger. This does not give you all the custom options of building your own chatbot. However, the upside is that you do not have to get into the technical specs and financial commitment of building your own chatbot just yet and can do this when an ROI is established.

More than 1 billion people already use Facebook Messenger to interact with brands so this is an easy place to start from if you want to try chatbots.

Here is the best part though: Facebook offers a widget that lets you integrate the Messenger bot into your website. This way, your website visitors can receive the same customer service experience they would on Messenger.

Align Your Brand Tone with Your Brand Message

Chatbots are all about offering your customers a seamless and expedient experience when interacting with your brand. However, it is not just about the message you convey; it is also about how you convey it.

When it comes to conveying your message via a chatbot, think about how you want anyone who interacts with your brand to perceive you. Even though a chatbot is technically just a computer program, the experience should feel as human and as personal as possible if you are going to engage your audience at all.

So, think about what makes your brand unique and the type of tone you would like to use to communicate with your type of audience. Are you quirky, geeky, formal, or maybe humorous? Inject these traits into your messaging to create an authentic connection with your customers.

Use Your Local Chatbot To Generate Leads

As mentioned earlier, there is more to chatbots than just answering customer queries. Chat is packed with opportunities for collecting customer insights, which you can use to segment your audience for effective lead generation and product positioning among other business objectives.

When installed in your website or landing pages, you can use a chatbot to gather all sorts of data including customers’ name, email, address, and product references to get a feel of where they might be in the buying cycle.

Get More Results from Your Email Campaign With AI

You already know that when done right, email marketing can deliver significant ROI.

With this knowledge in mind, you have done everything by the book. You have developed customer personas, segmented your audience, and built complex sales funnels. However, your competitors are also doing the same thing.

While email does deliver a high ROI, nurturing and converting customers who are receiving piles and piles of emails every day is becoming increasingly challenging.

Business, as usual, is not working anymore.

If you are looking to get better results from your email campaign, artificial intelligence is the way to go. There is a host of things you can do with AI technology to supercharge your email campaigns.

For example, in the recent past, segmentation was the holy grail of email marketing. However, consumers are increasingly demanding that brands cater to their personal tastes and interests as opposed to interests based on demographic characteristics.

AI helps you to move your marketing campaign from a focus on segmentation to personalisation. New marketing platforms that are powered by AI allow you to really refine your audience interests, stay up to date with their changing behavior, and personalise content to each email recipient.

Brands are also using AI to create and test email content such as varying subject lines, images, and body much faster and more accurately. Testing these elements manually is not only cumbersome; it may also not provide accurate results. AI saves you time but more importantly helps you to identify the most optimal combination of email elements.

If your tried-and-test email marketing strategies are plateauing, it is probably time to invest in an AI-powered email platform.