Advertise Out Side the Box, Or ON It!

When people talk about advertising they usually give you ideas for conventional advertising techniques. I’m not going to waste your time telling you how to use PPC, Banner Ads, or anything else of that nature. Instead, I want to focus on doing some more out side the box stuff.

There’s this company that uses unconventional methods for advertising. They remind me of me. Why? Because I have done some really odd things to try and advertise my many web sites. For example, I was able to convince the billing manager at a floor manufacturing plant to place stickers with my flooring site’s URL at the bottom of each invoice and statement they sent out. How? I told him I would give them free advertising on the site. It only cost me about $10 (the mini label paper at Staples and the shipping cost) for all of that targeted traffic. That’s just one way to get your company out there.

They key here is to look at what others are doing and do the opposite. Don’t just do what they are doing, do things that will make you stand out more. Whether it’s advertising on Amazon.com boxes, or a local shipping companies boxes, you need to be different.

Some ideas for advertising outside the box:

• Contact local stores in your niche and ask them to let you place flyers or business cards in the store for a price (preferably free).
• Print out some stickers and stick them in rest room stalls at malls, gyms, restaurants, etc.
• Place envelopes near mail boxes with your URL or brand (works in apartment buildings) as if they were mistakenly mismanaged by a postal worker.
• Place some flyers on pay phones or super market fruit stands.
• Place a sticker or patch on something you wear every day, i.e. purse, hat, jacket, shoes, glasses, etc.

One thing that I will always remember is that no idea is out of question. Everything goes. That company I mentioned was even able to distribute dollar bills at bars and restaurants with an advertising sticker on them. Genius, especially since everyone looks at their money when they get change back.

Think of some unconventional advertising ideas and be different. What ideas have you used to promote something?

*This post was written by Israel has been in the internet marketing, web design arena for 6 years. He currently has his own personal blog at FatManUnleashed.com and recently purchased WootAgent as a test to see if he could turn a profit with it.*

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!