Staying active and engaged with clients is essential for any brand, but finding new ways to garner more attention is one of the most vital growth strategies for businesses. Regardless of what kind of goods or services your business offers, utilizing creative new strategies to market your brand will keep your brand on the cutting edge and give your business a boost this year. 

As more businesses transition to offering services online, digital marketing is fast becoming the key component of every good marketing strategy. In a year when so much has changed so quickly, having a healthy creative marketing strategy is the most effective way to set you apart from the crowd. Here are ten of the top creative marketing ideas for 2022:

1. Educate, Don’t Sell 

Of course, the natural endgame behind any marketing strategy is to increase sales. However, long-term customer loyalty is more about building trust. By refraining from making an explicit push for a sale, your audience will naturally feel more comfortable with you and your brand. Rather, offer your audience some helpful knowledge or answer an oft-asked question. This will help establish trust and reinforce customer perception of your business as an authority in your industry/service. The best jewelry stores aren’t the ones whose sales associates merely showcase the available offerings but are the ones whose associates spend a little extra time with the customer, educating them about diamonds. 

2. Tell a Story

It’s not enough merely to have a great product or service; you need to establish the “why” behind your “what.” What will make your brand stand out against all the other great products or services offered by your competitors is your ability to tell your audience a story. This is your chance to “show” rather than “tell.” Walk your audience through a specific experience. Engage them with a relatable experience or anecdote. Don’t just tell them what you have; show them why it would add value to their lives and how it solves a relatable problem.

3. Get Personal

Social media is essential for digital marketing and engagement. If it’s not an integral part of your strategy, you’re using it wrong. With social media platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook, you can tell your personal stories to better connect with your audience. Getting a little personal makes your brand more relatable. This also gives your business a greater tone of authenticity. Wondering whether your brand should use TikTok? It’s always helpful to know which current trends to join and which to avoid.

4. Incorporate Videos

While photos alone used to be enough to grab people’s attention while scrolling through a post, they are no longer enough. With an increase in bandwidth and a decrease in attention spans, the internet continues to evolve, and so should your marketing strategy. Consider using videos to showcase products and services, tell stories, and give a little more personal touch to your business’s brand marketing.

5. Give Gifs a Try

Creativity in digital marketing can take several forms; why not try something new, like using gifs on social media posts. These short, looping images can take the place of a video and appetize your audience’s attention. They are highly shareable and show that your brand stays on top of modern trends. Additionally, creating a branded gif that can be shared keeps you in the minds of a wider audience and gives you extensive exposure.

6. Meme What You Say

Like gifs, memes are shared so regularly and have well-proven their cultural longevity. Because of their powerful popularity, memes have higher potential to become viral – an obvious boon for both brand and marketing. Whether it’s a really good ad meme or a really bad one, you can expect lots of engagement.

7. Sponsor Events

Company engagement in the community is always important, whether local or virtual. Find events and conferences that support the same values as your company and sponsor them. This not only puts your brand name all over the event but also associates your brand with whatever feeling or ideal the event is promoting. 

8. Engage Your Audience

Encouraging your audience to engage with your social media and other marketing is top priority. Find ways to elicit audience participation, such as by hosting a photo contest. Give your audience an idea or theme, and let them submit photos. Let them know if they should use a specific hashtag, and be very explicit about what incentive they might receive. 

9. Pop a Quiz

If you’re looking for engagement, one popular way is by creating a quiz. You could put this on your social media or on your website. Creating a quiz not only brings viewers to your content, but it can be a fun way for a customer to engage by answering questions and sharing their results. These can be directly related to your product, such as a “How Well Do You Know Diamonds?” quiz, or they can be pure fun, such as a “Which Fantasy Creature Most Matches Your Personality?” 

10. Use What You Have

Do you have an employee who’s great at drawing? Know someone who’s a writer? Pool your resources and utilize your internal talent. Pair the artist and the writer together to produce a comic or feature the amateur photographer’s skills. Using your internal resources adds value to your business while also helping those staff members feel invested in the success of the business. It will also show off a little unique personality for a more special, genuine touch.

While not everything on this list translates equally across every industry, these ideas should provide you with a way to brainstorm further creative marketing strategies fit for your brand. If you’d like a more personal approach to creative marketing strategies, contact us. We’ll guide you through the best 2022 strategies for your brand.