Are you in insurance? A tax professional? Run an automotive shop? Conduct maintenance for housing developments?

While necessary and valued businesses, these are all “boring” industries at first glance, and undertaking successful marketing for this type of business can be a real challenge. Despite that challenge, creative marketing is what will set your business apart from the rest in its industry. Take advantage of solutions such as influencer marketing, Facebook ads, and infographics to cement your business’ marketing success. Below are creative marketing ideas for small business. 

Influencer Marketing

Social media is full of huge personalities just waiting for you to make a partnership. Instagram and YouTube are hotbeds for young lifestyle vloggers with millions of followers, and they’re offering you a taste of their exposure through influencer marketing.

Case in point: It doesn’t get much more boring than Band-Aids. Earlier this year, vlogger Joy Cho, whose hallmark is everything bright and colorful, partnered with Band-Aid to make the product fun again – for the third time.

Cho’s three unique lines of Band-Aids are covered in splashes of vivid neon color and whimsical sketches, making the Band-Aids instantly appealing to her legions of followers (over 382,000 as of September 2017).

The numbers don’t lie.

• 86 percent of women make their purchasing decisions with the help of social media.
• 72 percent of consumers overall are more likely to purchase items they’ve seen on social media.
• Businesses experience an average 6.5x ROI on influencer marketing.

It’s not a question. Finding the right influencer for a partnership can make a huge difference with your marketing success.

Facebook Ads

Facebook ads are a great way to capture your audience when done right.  93 percent of marketers use Facebook advertising, so you’re falling behind if you aren’t on social media. How do you make a great Facebook ad when your business isn’t creative by nature? It’s simple:

• Use high-quality, high-res images. Images account for up to 90 percent of Facebook ad performance.
• Be concise. The best-performing Facebook ads are just 5-word titles, or 13-word descriptions.
  
• Post at the right times. You’re most likely to get the best exposure on weekday afternoons.
  
• Optimize videos for mobile. Did you know viewers are 5 times more likely to view videos on a smartphone?
  
• Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Address questions your customer probably has, like price, or appeal to their motivations. 

Infographics

A fabulous infographic can get important information across in an engaging way, so it’s one of the biggest assets for so-called “boring” industries that need to get the value of their product or service across.

First and foremost, if you have an insurance company or a repair service, your target audience is probably very specific, and this is where infographics excel. The best infographics don’t generalize: they know exactly what your audience is looking for and how to answer their questions. They get across complex subject matter in a concise, easy-to-understand way with minimal text to wade through.

If you need a great example of an infographic to strive for, check out the 2016 Death & Taxes infographic by Visual Capitalist. It flows naturally, it’s easy to find different sections, and it puts together an enormous amount of information and statistical data all in one place, relying heavily on metrics to minimize wordiness.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is another great place to engage your audience, giving you the opportunity to encourage engagement and solidify your place as an industry expert all at once. If you’re reading this blog post, you’re seeing content marketing at work!

What makes content marketing so important to these business types? Content marketing is exploding, and it’s not expected to slow down any time soon. Every minute, nearly 1,500 WordPress blogs are published, and 38 million searches are conducted on Google. Audiences demand content.

Unsurprisingly, blogging is one of the most popular content marketing mediums, with 4 out of 5 content marketers using them.

Blogs aren’t the only way to go: content marketers use social media, case studies, e-newsletters, website articles, videos, whitepapers, and the list goes on. But for most businesses, they’re certainly a great place to start. 81 percent of online consumers in the United States trust information they find on blogs, and 92 percent of companies who blog multiple times daily have gained a new customer from their blogging.

Artificial Intelligence

AI is a new field in marketing, but it’s rapidly showing its colors as a vital tool for business growth and exposure. Salesforce says that AI marketing is expected to boost global business revenues by $1.1 trillion between now and 2021. Where do you even start with such a new and innovative field?

• Use AI-generated content to report market data, earnings reports, and financial data.
• Target ads toward audiences who are most likely to convert, a feature that’s already live on many social media services.
  
• Predict behavior on existing customers or potential leads so you can respond proactively and snag more sales.  
  
• Power your content curation so visitors to your blog automatically see articles tailored to their needs.
  
• Implement dynamic pricing and convert customers who are most likely to walk away if they don’t get that special deal.
  
• Automate customer service by implementing a chatbot, either within Facebook Messenger using wit.ai bot or within your website using an open chatbot platform such as ChatterBox.
  

Need more convincing? Right now, AI marketing is exactly where social media marketing was in 2010. If marketers had ignored Facebook that long ago, they’d be hopelessly behind by now, missing out on audiences of literal millions. Artificial intelligence isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s predicted to double economic growth rates by 2035, so now’s the time to get on board. 

Need help funding some of these creative marketing solutions? Mulligan Funding has alternative funding sources that can help. Alternative funding has the benefit of flexible use, generous approval terms, and manageable repayment terms, making it a great choice for new or unestablished businesses that may not qualify for a bank loan.

Call Mulligan Funding at 855-326-3564 to discuss your financing options today!

The information shared is intended to be used for informational purposes only and you should independently research and verify.

Note: Prior to January 23, 2020, Mulligan Funding operated solely as a direct lender, originating all of its own loans and Merchant Cash Advance contracts. From that date onwards, the majority of funding offered by Mulligan Funding will be by Loans originated by FinWise Bank, a Utah-chartered Bank, pursuant to a Loan Program conducted jointly by Mulligan Funding and FinWise Bank.