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Don’t fall into a drab routine with your marketing efforts. While they may be working just fine, if you’re in a rut, you’re sure not inspiring anyone. Rev up your promotional game this winter and introduce some creativity into your marketing campaigns. Customers need a little extra to keep them going, so by making their day more interesting, you may improve sales productivity as well.

Start Out with Some Research

Don’t pour too many resources into a new campaign without doing some customer research first. All good promotional initiatives start with customer intelligence. Plug back into your potential buyer’s market and see what’s going on. What social networks do your ideal customers tend to frequent? Is there a big event that you can use for some timely content? Do the legwork and you’re likely to come up with some great ideas for how to swing a new campaign.

Throw in a Cartoon

Cartoons are incredibly engaging. According to Stu Heinecke for Salesforce, studies demonstrate that cartoons tend to be the most memorable part of a publication. Using cutting humor, a one panel cartoon can say a lot about a product or service. In addition, they can be fantastic tools for engagement, as The New Yorker consistently demonstrates with its caption contest. As of April 2011, 502,416 individuals had submitted 1,595,506 captions, according to The New Yorker. And the contest is still going strong. Not only is the competition fun, but it increases engagement with the publication. Heinecke also says that using a cartoon in an email campaign can double open rates. This is a relatively easy way to spice up a campaign, so why not give it a try?

Try Out Vine

Vine is no longer brand new, and it’s arguably a dying art now that Instagram does videos. On the other hand, Vine still integrates better with Twitter than Instagram does, which makes it an excellent tool. Even better, vines can be embedded in blogs, which makes them easy to share on all kinds of platforms. What is Vine? It’s a six-second video that loops infinitely. This all may sound very strange to the uninitiated, but just like Twitter, the space limitation has made it a unique medium for creative types to play around with. Because it’s so short, it’s also ideal for marketers. Show your creativity with stop-motion animation, or just demonstrate what’s going on behind the scenes at your company. The short length almost guarantees that people will watch it, and you’d be surprised what you can do in that amount of time. If you don’t believe me, check out Econsultancy’s list of the best branded vines from this month.

Get Experiential

Business to consumer companies have been all about experience-based marketing for a long time. However, as social media becomes a greater influence, marketers are looking for ways to involve the consumer in marketing once again. B2B enterprises don’t always have the same opportunities to be face to face with potential customers in the sort of playful environment that’s conducive to this kind of marketing. However, trade shows are a great place to try out some innovative ideas. According to B2B Marketing, one of the key ideas is creating an immersive experience. Show potential buyers something they’ve never seen before. With new technologies, this is easier than ever. For example, a corporate car distributor sent executives on a cruise in a 19th century ship, without ever leaving shore. Using 180 degree projection screens, the company created an alternate reality where the visitors appeared to be inside the ship watching the sea.

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