If you integrate these five powerful lead-generation tactics into your holistic lead-generation plan, you can give your campaigns that extra oomph that they need to stand out.
Engage in guerilla marketing
Guerilla marketing is a strategy that uses unconventional methods, often at low cost, to get your message across. This could be as simple as putting stickers or posters up around your neighborhood, or could be something more robust like organizing a flash mob. Guerilla marketing techniques work particularly well around an event.
For example, at Salesforce's Dreamforce 2013 conference, a competitor, SugarCRM, created a guerilla campaign called Escape Dreamforce. Outside of the conference, they gave attendees a chance to win a trip to Hawaii by putting on a SugarCRM T-shirt and taking a "selfie" photo and tweeting the picture with the hashtag #DF13 #SugarSelfie. Because guerilla marketing is disruptive, this campaign got a ton of discussion among attendees and journalists alike.
Delve into influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is akin to relationship marketing. Every industry has a set of people who are deemed influential: Maybe they are the CEO of a leading company, an author, a blogger, or a speaker. Create a list of at least 10 people (sometimes there can be hundreds) you would love to have on your side. Then create relationships and network with those people. Swap blogs, links, and invite them to speak on a webinar.
Generally, if you help them with additional exposure to your audience, they will also help you.
Use memes
Use memes in social campaigns to generate additional engagement. An internet meme is an idea that spreads virally online. Memes are often funny, include a simple statement or popular phrase, and can take the form of a video, photo, image, microsite, or hashtag. For example, you can use memes in the form of photographs with funny phrases or quotes. You can be super-creative with memes. Using a pop culture icon and creating copy that relates to who that person is often results in a ton of engagement on Facebook and Twitter.
Create campaigns around current events
Newsjacking is a great marketing technique. Basically, newsjacking is taking a popular current event and creating a marketing campaign, blog, or ebook that speaks directly to that event. Consider using a television show or movie as inspiration for your next infographic.
For example, you could create an infographic that references a popular television show. You could relate this to marketing and launch it during the television show's mid-season finale for extra lift. Post the infographic on Twitter using the show's hashtag so that everyone who follows that hashtag will see the infographic. That is just one example, but there are tons of ways to use current events or pop culture as part of your marketing strategy.
Engage with infographics
An infographic is a piece of content that conveys a story or data in a highly visual way. This could be your product story or usage stats, or maybe even an infographic focusing on something hot in your industry. If you can, work with a design team to make sure that each infographic not only speaks to your audience, but is also buzzworthy for the press. Your infographic design firm should also do media outreach for you to pitch the infographic so that it can be seen on other industry sites.