These days, most businesses are focusing on online marketing methods to both gain new clients and retain the ones they already have, but that doesn’t mean that physical marketing methods have become any less important.
This is especially the case if you’re trying to tap into your local population, but even if you’re not, there are several physical methods that offer elements online methods don’t.
In this article, you’ll learn about 10 strategies you can employ today to cover your bases.
- Posters
The humble personalised posters still has a great deal of utility in the modern age. They’ve got a great return on investment considering how little they cost, as can be up on a shop window or other prominent space, continuing to turn heads, for months.
The A4 piece of paper is the perfect size to display all the information and techniques you could need, whether it be your contact details, key details of services, calls to action, or conveying branding. A few of these, positioned strategically around town, are a surefire way to increase your rate of customers.
- Branded Merchendise
Branded merchandise is an excellent way to convey your message in unique and interesting ways. Everyone loves a freebie, and it’s even better if you can make it either cute or useful (or better still, both!).
Little puzzle games, pens, stress balls – anything is fair game. If you’re looking for a good place to start, pens are usually a solid bet: whenever someone reaches for them, they’ll see your brand name and telephone number. Proliferate enough of these throughout your local area, and you’re onto a winner.
- Sponsoring a Local Event
Another great choice is sponsoring a local event. Events like marathons or even school fairs offer a superb opportunity to flood the place (tastefully, of course) with your branding, and help get your business into people’s psyche.
But it goes further than that. By sponsoring events people believe are important or those they love going to, you’ll build up a positive association in their minds; ultimately, marketing is about more than just selling when you really get down to it.
- Sidewalk Chalking
Sidewalk chalking has become particularly popular in recent times for its uniqueness.
It’s simple, really: write or draw (or stencil) whatever marketing materials are important to you in a prominent place on the sidewalk. You won’t be able to do this everywhere, so you’ll need to check that you have permission, but this is an excellent way of catching people’s attention. Often, the best marketing strategies are bold, and being bold is much easier to do with physical marketing.
- Business Cards
Even if your marketing efforts are entirely online, and you don’t really feel you need to dig into physical methods, having business cards on your person at all times is something that all businesses should do.
Ultimately, you never know who you’re going to meet. Often, the best customer or client you’ll ever find is someone you’ve met organically in person, and it’s not enough to simply say, ‘look us up online’ or give them your social media handle. They’ll easily forget unless it’s written down, so a business card with your name, phone number, website, and social links is invaluable.
- Collaborating with Other Brands
A big mistake a lot of businesses make is to see everyone as their innate competitors when, in actuality, there’s a huge amount of benefit that comes with collaborating with others.
Building mutually beneficial relationships with brands and coming together to form unique strategies is always a good idea – as the old saying goes, two heads are better than one.
This is also much easier to do in person. Try to locate brands that identify with your ethos or offer similar services, and see how you can join together to offer a special deal or product.
For example, if you run a gym, you could collaborate with a local restaurant or cafe to provide healthy, anabolic meals; there are a ton of different ways you could set it up, so drill into what’s important for you, and see if there are others around you that share your values.
- Billboards and Other Large Installations
If you have the cash to spend, you could also consider a billboard or some other similarly large advertisement. These sorts of installations have fantastic visibility and are great when you need to make a big impact.
They’re often best when tied in with some of the other marketing strategies discussed above and below. For example, you could use it to promote a partnership with another brand to help get the message out, or for advertising an upcoming sponsorship, both promoting yourself and a given event, so that more people attend.
- Interactive Advertising
One area where physical advertising really shines is with those that are bordering on art. Collaborating with artists to create ads that are interactive, in that they can be touched, smelled, walked on, or otherwise, is a great way to have your brand stick in people’s minds.
From Reebok’s speedcam ad to Volkswagen’s interactive phone test drive installation, the possibilities are truly endless. All that really limits you is your imagination and available funds, so if you can, bring together the best minds in your area and see what you can come up with.
- Vehicle Wraps
You’ve almost certainly seen several vehicle wrap advertisements in your life, and there’s a reason why they’re so ubiquitous.
What better way to catch your potential customers’ attention than by driving around in a vehicle covered in your brand colors, logos, and contact details? The beauty here is that it’s completely passive: once you’ve had the vinyl livery installed, all you need to do is go about your day.
They’re long-lasting and don’t really degrade significantly over time, and of course, there’s also a benefit in the fact that you’re not limited to your own city or town. If you head off on a business trip to a bigger place, you get a ton of free advertising targeted at a whole new audience just by driving around.
- Projection Mapping
Projection mapping is a particularly unique form of physical marketing that involves physically projecting images onto a given surface. This is much more technical than traditional projection methods, allowing for images and video to be realistically wrapped around the target area for impressive results.
You can truly do anything with this technology, be it displaying a powerful, mostly static image, a full feature-length video, or some other large-scale projection for when you need to showcase a particularly impactful message.
Naturally, they work best for nighttime events, and simply by advertising during the night, you’re already placing yourself in a more interesting select minority.
These sorts of installations gather a lot of attention, so you may even have the opportunity to go viral on social media. They’re expensive, but definitely worth exploring if you have the means, and it’s something you could never accomplish through any form of online marketing.
Wrapping Up
Hopefully, this article has inspired you to explore the exciting options available to you within the realm of physical marketing. Given that most businesses have moved entirely online, there’s a real opportunity to do something different and change the game for your given industry.
Do some thorough research to investigate which of the above methods would be most appropriate for you – and collaborate with other like-minded individuals to create a coherent vision – and you’ll be well on your way. Good luck!
