If your competitors are sending run-of-the-mill email campaigns to promote their goods and services, stand out from the crowd. Put your consumers in suspense with these promotions that are sure to win them over.
A. Do What Competitors Won't
If you want an out-of-the-box idea, there's nothing simpler than doing what's uncommon practice in your industry. For example, if standard practice is to send email correspondences to land meetings, send the prospect a handwritten letter instead with an invitation they can't refuse. Don't copy ideas and assume you'll get the same results. Be creative and navigate uncharted territories! - Kam Diba, Reverge
A. Track Your Guerilla Campaign
Working with a lifestyle brand a few years ago, we created a change of "scenery" during a trade show, which had the brand personalizing each day (creatively) to fit different markets. This allowed us to have individual conversations with all our consumer groups while focusing on conversion and lead-gen. Too many times guerilla campaigns are crafted without goals in mind, making them uncrackable. - Steven Picanza, Latin & Code
A. Work With Influencers
One of things I did early on is identify some of the biggest influencers in my area of business and find ways that I can work with or help them. Do anything you can to work with these people and establish a firm relationship with them. In the end, if they trust you, then everyone they know will trust you as well, and you've just quickly built yourself a reputation and a client base. - Kyle Van Dyn Hoven, Creation Burst Studios
A. Offer a Free Consultation
While nearly every business says they give a free consultation, what they mean is they will meet with you for free, to see if you're a good fit instead of providing value. We leveraged this by actually providing deeper value and doing a real consultation or market analysis on prospective businesses to give them valuable insight. We let them know we're about value, not just our profits. - Steven Newlon, SYN3RGY Creative Group
A. Join Entrepreneurship Networks
Joining entrepreneur and startup groups did wonders for our early stage promotion. Not only did they advertise our services to their existing audiences (and still do to this day) but they also introduced us to investors and nominated us for awards -- which led to further promotion. -Katrina German, OneStory
A. Offer Free Products
When we were an early stage startup, we needed help honing on every aspect of our business. We used events and social media campaigns for potential customers to participate in surveys and vote on the most compelling aspects of our business. For their support, we gave away demos or held raffles. These people helped spread the word about our company and have continued to fuel our followership. - Laura Johnson, Salty Girl Seafood
A. Plan a Launch Date and Take Pre-Orders
The best way to get people excited about something is to tell them how awesome it is and then tell them they can't have it yet. Create a launch date and start accepting pre-orders one or two months in advance to build hype. - Lisa Curtis, Kuli Kuli
A. Create a Custom Site
When social networks started gaining attention back in the mid-2000s, everyone was trying to figure out how to cash in. We took a completely different approach and created a site that made it easy for anyone to customize their social profile page without the need to upload files or touch a line of code. We also made it completely free and became a leader in that space. - Zac Johnson, How to Start a Blog
These answers are provided by members of FounderSociety, an invitation-only organization comprised of ambitious startup founders and business owners.