Ideas without marketing = a Formula 1 driver using a bicycle for a race. They have the ability to be first, but they’re stuck with a limited speed. With that perspective, the solution becomes simple — you have to use different vehicles until you find one fast enough to make you first place.

I’ve handpicked 34 marketing strategies that have been considered to give businesses and entrepreneurs unfair advantages. Interestingly, most of the strategies presented are easy to implement.

For most strategies, I either give a successful use case, tip or example so you can use little optimistic fuel to figure out how they will work for your ideas.

Here is how I’ve ordered the marketing strategies:

• 1–10: Strategies for new entrepreneurs and startups to get ahead quickly
• 11–20: Strategies to increase engagement and add brand value
• 21–30: How to position yourself as an industry expert
• 31–34: Legendary marketing strategies

1. Trading Vulnerability For Trust

No clients, ad budget, or following? This strategy is about giving value first before asking for anything in return. You could do this by giving free trials, free consultation, free samples, and open-source code.

Successful use case

Bond Halbert | Industry: digital marketing

On his copywriting site, he gives you an hour-long recording of his father (legendary copywriter) giving out copywriting secrets. Then, he lets you know he provides content like that for his email list.

Usually, people will promise to give you exclusive content once you join their email list. While this is good, visitors sometimes need strong confirmation.

2. Being Specific

Appear as a generalist and you’ll be treated like one. Specialists are specific. Elaborating on your service is necessary to distinguish yourself, especially when entering a new industry.

Example

For someone who is completely new to writing online and was searching for a freelance writing course, which course would they choose:

Course 1 description: This is a course for freelance writers to improve their writing skills and earn money online.

Course 2 description: I teach you 10 freelance-writing methods beginners are using to generate earnings in their first month and produce a full-time income.

Course 2 is very clear on the objective of the course and who it’s for. Expectation is an aspect of predictability — let people know what to expect so they know what is guaranteed.

Successful use case

Leadpages | Industry: eommerce

They provide a solution for those who want a website for the purpose of generating leads. They do this by giving users a drag-and-drop website builder and easy integration with email marketing providers.

3. Make Guarantees Your USPs

What you guarantee could be the very reason you stand out. Saying you offer the best quality product/service (even if it’s true) can only be determined after the purchase. The customer subconsciously knows this.

The best guarantees are promises that businesses would struggle to commit to. If you can deliver on those promises, it’s worth making them your USPs today.

4. Say What You’re Not

Do the thinking for your audience. Leaving it up to them could have you falsely identified — then you’re required to correct it.

Answer their hidden questions by simply telling them what you do and what you don’t do.

Successful use case

Jolt.io | Industry: disruptive education

Jolt describes their business school system as teaching reinvented and affordable. They make sure to distinguish themselves from MBAs by mentioning “Not an MBA.”

5. Write Differently Across All Social Media Platforms

The way you post content on Facebook shouldn’t be in the same format as your LinkedIn posts. This could easily be the reason for lack of engagement.

Tip: Study how different businesses in your industry structure social media posts and look for commonalities. Also, the specialists in this field are copywriters — they know how to write for social media engagement and use words that translate to results.

6. Mention Other People’s Work, Actions, or Quotes

Then relate it to whatever you’re doing. It’s a great way to give your audience more clarity on the foundation of your idea or solution.

Tip: Presentations and videos are good ways to mention other people’s work. Other methods such as homepages/articles could cause a conflict of interest.

7. Align Yourself With Industry Best

It’s important to be different; however, when starting up, it’s a strategic move to brand similar to top competitors — while selling your difference.

It’s often the psychology of your audience that you play to. Therefore, having a similar website structure, sales cycle, or payment scheme to industry leaders can be effective.

8. Promote Your Values

What do you stand for? Or what is your business against?

Taking this approach adds humanity to your brand. Presenting values give customers a sense of your commitment to solve a problem and that sense of commitment can turn into long-term trust.

Tip: Include your values somewhere in your mission statement, about us section, profile, bio etc.

9. Compensate For Your Weaknesses

Weaknesses are typically the features the best of your industry offer and you don’t. Therefore, It’s best to compensate with something your competitors don’t do (which gives reason for your business existing).

Tip: Sell your weakness. It’s worth letting your audience know that you’re working on what you lack (if you are) and can give information when it’s expected to be added.

10. Brand Consistency

When you’re consistent, people (including yourself) have an idea of what to expect next. Avoid having your audience think you’re not who you say you are.

Tips

• Speak only on industry-related topics
• Stick with a tone and personality (Example: You wouldn’t find Microsoft overselling or doing extreme discounts.)
• Visual consistency — Logos, designs, email marketing structure, fonts

11. How-Tos and Tutorials

Content marketing can’t get more engaging than this. It’s even worth doing tutorials and how-tos that already exist as people look for the most recent ones.

SEO tip: Specify your tutorials and how-tos by adding the year, who it’s for and the level of difficulty.

Successful use case

Wondershare Filmora | Industry: video editing

They’re a software company getting top places in search engine results. This is because of their extensive library of tutorials and strategically headlining tutorials based on difficulty, use case, trend and time.

12. Create Statistical Statements

Founding a statistical statement is incredibly powerful — you have the SEO advantage as content writers need truths for reference.

The difficult part is finding stats that your industry isn’t aware of. What you can do instead is find stats based on your own results and share it. People may find a correlation with your stats and the stats in your industry.

Successful use case

Copyblogger.com | Industry: digital marketing

On copyblogger.com, a page about writing headlines mentions:

“On average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest.”

As the post was published in 2006, Copyblogger.com is often the source of reference for that finding.

13. Show Examples of Your Results

It’s one thing to show who you worked with, it’s better to show what you did for them. Showing examples is really presenting a preview for a potential client.

Tip: For more credibility, show examples that are live or accompany examples of work with feedback from the client.

14. Use Figures

Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t. Figures are easily comparable so it’s an efficient way to prove your advantages or value. Presenting figures is definitely recommended when your figures are on par or better than others in your industry.

Examples: Your customer count, the income you generated for others, the number of subscribers you get daily, competition place, etc.

15. Email Marketing on Weekends

A study done by GetResponse and Dan Zarrella discovered that Saturdays and Sundays had the highest rate of email opens and clicks.

Delivering on these days are usually avoided, and depending on your industry, it could be a clear opportunity to take stage.

I’d suggest something just to give value — avoid strong CTAs unless it incorporates holiday marketing.

16. Respond to Your Fans

Responding shows you acknowledge them and that will only trigger more engagement. Interestingly, a lot of brands don’t do it on social media.

Instagram and YouTube Tip: Liking a comment can be just as effective as replying. Especially if you get many comments.

17. Ask for Feedback

This is a fast way to build credibility; however, it does require following up to get as much feedback possible. You could ask your customers to rate and review, give a testimonial, or complete a survey.

Tip: Give your customers an incentive to give feedback. This could be a small discount on their next purchase.

18. Do Giveaways

This is a fast way to bring engagement to your social media platform or website. Usually, requirements to enter would be by following a page, subscribing to an email list or liking and commenting on a post.

A sure way to receive engagement is by using an influencer to present the giveaway or share it.

Here is some stuff you could giveaway

• Amazon gift cards
• Electronics — PCs, laptops, and phones
• Products and services your audience likes
• Your own products and services

19. Walkthroughs, Calculators, Quizzes, Tests

To help your customers decide what’s right for them, introduce them to a set of questions to give them more clarity. It’s interactive and recommended if you have multiple products and services.

Tip: You can use it as a way to build your email list by sending test results only to emails.

Successful use case

Tipser | Industry: ecommerce

Tipser is a content commerce platform that helps users monetize websites and apps through embedded e-commerce (the successor of affiliate marketing). To prove the difference of using content commerce, they have a revenue calculator that gives you an estimate of the revenue Tipser can produce based on your website’s or app’s current statistics.

20. Acquire Key Phrase-Based Domains

Also, have them redirected to your website or a specific landing page.

To find the words and phrases that get your audience’s attention, having ads with different domains on search engines is an effective way. You determine the words and phrases to use based on the ad that got the most clicks.

This can also be used as retargeting — to give those that bounced your website a second look.

Some ways to find good key phrases

• Google keyword planner
• Google search auto-suggestion
• Use keywords that are in the headline for top search engine results

21. Trademarks

Trademarking a popular key phrase in your industry adds emphasis and perceived value. Businesses often use them to describe services and new tech.

My Top 2 trademarking tips

• Find a verb that describes your business function, then add a prefix or suffix to make it sound more high-class
• Keep it as short as possible

Successful use case

Dan Lok (CEO of copywriters.com) | Industry: sales and marketing

He’s trademarked “high ticket closing” and “high income copywriting.” As he focuses on generating more money from fewer people, his trademarks perfectly describe his services.

22. All-In-One Solutions

When you have a lot of apps on your smartphone, there are two solutions available to organize your apps. One is to delete apps you no longer use and the other is to group your apps in folders.

By using this concept, you can let your audience know how you’re making their lives easier by combining solutions together for a seamless experience.

23. Event Marketing

You speak directly to your audience, receive quality feedback and build relationships all in one day. Hosting and attending events in your industry can only further your position of authority.

If your reach isn’t as powerful as you’d like, consider getting someone reputable for guest speaking or co-host an event with another business (if you’re both in the same industry or have a similar audience).

24. Branding by Association

You increase your brand equity when you’re seen interacting with high-value brands and influencers. This is working smarter as you save yourself from doing so much just to convince a client.

It’s an effective way to close newcomers if your website shows a list of reputable companies you’ve worked with.

Successful use case

Grant Cardone (CEO of CardoneCapital) | Industry: real estate

He’s no stranger to interacting with individuals you most likely know. He often applies this strategy by using pictures, interviews, and events.

25. Successful Track Record as Leverage

Credibility is a reason to trust and business is about trust. It’s your credit score in the business world — you get points by improving your track record.

Successful use case

Dan Larimer (CTO of Block.one) | Industry: blockchain

Dan Larimer is responsible for the creation of 3 successful cryptocurrency platforms and third one (EOS) raised over $4.1 billion in an ICO. Without his first 2 successes, it would be very unlikely for EOS to raise 10% of what they did.

26. Personal Branding as Leverage

This is using the influence from your personal brand to enter into a market and have a good position immediately. Using yourself means you don’t have to negotiate contracts and endorsement deals with influencers to promote your business.

Successful use case

Conor McGregor (Founder of Proper No. Twelve) | Industry: retail

Conor McGregor entered a completely new market and succeeds by using himself to market the product. His business sold out six months of US allocation in just 10 days — that’s the power of leveraging personal branding.

27. Rebranding

Maybe you committed too many mistakes and ruined your brand’s image or you’re in a position where your brand can no longer grow. It will take work to undo the faults and rebranding is the fastest way to shortcut that process.

Tip: Let your current customers know you’re rebranding so you don’t lose them in the process.

28. Creating Affiliate Programs

“70 percent of internet users want to learn about products through content versus traditional advertisements” — MDG Advertising

Affiliate programs let people create content for your products and services in exchange for a small percentage of the sale — a very efficient and cost-effective strategy for growing your content marketing.

While this is effective, some level of criteria must be demanded when implementing this. To avoid misrepresentation of your business, require a form filling process and review the websites people apply with.

Benefits

Limited budget, SEO, lead generation, easily scale your business.

29. Create or Join an Awards Program

If your industry lacks them, create one, as this will grow your influence and personality in your industry.

If you’re planning to create one instead of join one, this marketing strategy is only recommended if you have a decent amount of capital — due to venue, judges, hosts, events per year, etc.

Tip: To get more perceived value, trademark the name of your awards program or make it a company.

Successful use case

Ryan Wilson (BD of World CBD Awards) | Industry: nutrition

Ryan has a worldwide CBD distributing company (United Hemp Alliance) and is able to leverage his position and influence in the CBD industry through the World CBD Awards — a transparent, honest annual awards program.

30. Write a Book

Let people know how committed you are to your industry and how much you know. This is powerful, as a book alone can position you as an expert.

Bypass publishing?

To escape the publishing hassle, write an ebook and use a self-publishing company — KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) is the most popular.

31. Speaking About Your Vision

Optimism sells.

Let the world have a reason to acknowledge what you do. Ambitious visions attract wide ranges of reactions and in return, people will talk about it and hold you accountable (gives you more of a reason to accomplish it).

It’s also an opportunity to let people know your vision is greater than your company — if it’s capable of changing many lives.

Successful use case

Marie Forleo (CEO of Marie Forleo International) | Industry: coaching

She kept speaking about her vision long enough for Oprah to recognize her and declare her as “one of the thought leaders of the next generation.”

32. Make a Strategic Mistake

All publicity is good publicity — only if you can think of a good idea that will cause controversy and isn’t likely to damage your brand.

Successful use case

Elon Musk (CEO @ Tesla) | Industry: tech

Elon Musk smashing the Cybertruck’s “unbreakable” windows stirred so much controversy and had millions of people talking about it. However, it didn’t stop Tesla from getting 250,000 pre-orders for the Cybertruck.

33. The Power of Mystery

“All men by nature desire to know” — Aristotle

Many entrepreneurs use the power of mystery. For example, influencers who talk about success or wealth have high search results of people wanting to know if they’re a billionaire. And those influencers usually don’t disclose how much they’re earning, so it will always be a mystery.

Sometimes when you say less, others say more.

Successful use case

Satoshi Nakamoto (Founder of Bitcoin) | Industry: blockchain

People will always want to know who the inventor of a great solution is. In the case of bitcoin, having an unidentified founder led to many opinions and discussions about it — giving a reason to keep the bitcoin conversation going.

34. Opportunistic

World, industry, tech, or financial events can trigger something to be in demand or create an opening for something new to exist. Capitalizing on these opportunities almost guarantees immediate success.

Some of the main successors of the internet are Amazon, Alphabet (Google), and Facebook.

When the next major event happens in your industry, will you take advantage?

Great ideas have the potential to change the world, and there’s a big issue with that — humans resist change. Most people won’t go out of their way to find better solutions (due to busy lifestyles), so it’s your mission to strategically interrupt and communicate value.

This article was originally published by Matthew Enubuje on medium.