Let's explore 33 proven marketing
channels that you can use to get more customers
or attract more clients. And closer to the end of the video,
we'll address how to select the best marketing opportunity
for your specific business. Now, this list is organized
into three categories. We have organic strategies,
paid strategies and social strategies. Let's begin with organic strategies. These options are probably best known
for the fact that they are free in that, unlike paid advertising, they don't
require money upfront to get started. But what they do require is
a willingness to invest a considerable amount of time
and effort with no guarantee of success. Now, what I love most about organic
strategies is once you build momentum, once you get them working,
they tend to pay off in a really big way. Oftentimes delivering a steady
and reliable stream of new customers to your business for years or even
decades to come, in some cases with very little need for
ongoing time and effort to maintain these
different marketing options. Now, we're going to go through this list
quite quickly, but if you're interested in any of these options being covered
in more detail, click the like button down below, post a comment to let
me know, and I'll consider creating a follow up video
for some of the more popular options. Let's begin with content marketing. This involves creating
high quality content that people want to consume
and then leveraging that content to raise awareness about your products
or your services or your business brand. Now, typical examples of the kinds
of formats you might consider using for this kind of content
include videos, articles, case studies, how to guides, podcasts,
or even infographics. Number 2. Search Engine Optimization or SEO. This is all about getting your website
to rank very well in search engines like Google or Bing for keywords
or keyword phrases that relate to your business. For example, if you happen to offer
piano lessons in the city of Portland, of course it's very valuable to have your website rank
very highly in the search engines. When someone conducts a search for
something like piano lessons in Portland. Number 3. media coverage. This involves getting free publicity
by working with media outlets such as the traditional news media
or even industry publications. Now, the key to success in
this area is understanding what makes for a great story
and then crafting a narrative that is likely to resonate with people so that media outlets are interested
in sharing it with their audience. Number 4. Content Partnerships. The idea here is to team up
with other businesses or other brands to increase the overall exposure
of your message. So for example, you can write
guest posts for another blog. You can participate
as a guest on other podcasts or even trade audiences by co-creating
or co publishing content together. Now, before we continue on with the list,
let me just say if you're starting to feel overwhelmed
by the sheer number of options and of course, you realize that there are
many, many more options yet to come, the goal here is not to pursue
everything that we're talking about. The purpose of this list
is to broaden our horizons and become aware of the many options
that we have available to us. And closer to the end of this video,
we'll talk about how to select the best marketing opportunity
for your specific business. So with that in mind,
let's continue on to Existing Platforms. A great way to spread the word
about your product or service is to capitalize on the momentum
of existing platforms such as Amazon, YouTube, Medium
or even the Apple App Store. These kinds of platforms
tend to have large, established audiences that you can reach through some of their
built in features such as a search engine, a recommendation algorithm,
or other social sharing tools. Number 6, book publishing. This is a form of content marketing,
but it's one that's so distinct that it really does deserve
to be treated as its own category. And that is in part due to the fact that a book is not just content,
it is in and of itself a product. And as a result, it can be marketed
to prospects, gifted to potential customers, or even serve
as a bonus for your primary product. Number 7. Tools and Widgets. The idea here is to create free
online tools that help people solve simple problems. For example, HubSpot, the very
popular inbound marketing platform, offers tools such as
their blog idea, generator website, SSL checker and
email signature generator. These are completely free tools,
but they help to attract visitors to the HubSpot website. Number 8. Freemium Model. This is a very popular approach
in the tech space where businesses like Dropbox, Slack, Figma and many others offer a completely free tier
to their core service so that they can attract a huge
number of users to their platform. And in doing so, they often become the most popular
brand in their product category. The key to making this strategy work
is to ensure that the free tier fully showcases the core
value of the product or service, and at the same time making sure
that you're offering a compelling reason for power users to consider
a premium paid tier. So, for example, when it comes to
Dropbox, the core functionality of sharing files through cloud
storage is completely free. But if you want increased file
storage to better make use of that core functional tie,
that is where they charge. Now, when it comes to offline businesses,
I think the offline alternative to this approach is to offer free samples. And this of course is very popular and common
when it comes to consumable products. Number 9. Tripwire offers. The idea here is to make
an exceptionally compelling offer at an unusually low price,
something that is so attractive that it converts people who wouldn't normally
consider buying your primary product. This approach leads to two great outcomes. First, it creates an opportunity
for you to upsell your primary product on the back end. And number two, it creates an important
psychological shift in the minds of the customers
who take advantage of your tripwire offer, because now they no longer
think of your business and some brand that
they've never dealt with. They've now purchased from you,
which means they have an increased level of trust in you. And as a result of this one interaction
or this one transaction, they now think of your brand differently
and are far more likely to buy from you again in the future. Number 10. Community Building. This is a powerful way to connect
with industry leaders and highly engaged prospects. And of course, there
are many ways to do this. You can create an online discussion forum. You can start a Slack channel,
invite people to a Facebook group, host in-person events. There are all kinds of ways that you can
bring people together, and once you do, you can then facility interesting
conversations, answer member questions, and establish yourself
as an industry expert. And of course, this kind of approach
creates all kinds of possibilities for creating relationships or making connections
with potential customers or clients. Number 11. Email Marketing
A list of loyal email subscribers is one of the most valuable assets
that you can build for your business, because it creates the opportunity
for you to immediately direct attention to new products or new services
or, for example, content that you've recently published or even just offers
for existing products and services. Now, of course, there are other ways
to stay in touch with customers, including things like social media,
Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. There are all kinds of ways
to reach an existing audience. But to this day, email marketing
is still the most direct way to stay in touch with
prospects and customers alike. Now, the one challenge here, of
course, is it does take time to build a loyal
following of email subscribers. And there's a lot of effort involved in creating great content
for these subscribers so that they're eager to check out your latest email
and they continue to open them and they continue to click
on various links and things like that. So it's not easy, but it's one of the most valuable things
that you can do for your business. Number 12. Lead Magnets. This tends to go hand in hand
with email marketing because it involves creating something valuable and then offering it to people
to attract new subscribers. To your email list. So for example, you might create a PDF
report, a how to guide or a short video tutorial and offer that to people for free
in exchange for their email address. The key to making this strategy work
is understanding your audience and creating something that offers
immediate and practical value to them. That way, not only
are you attracting people to your email list, but you're also creating a very strong
first impression with them. Okay. Next up, we have paid strategies. These options require money upfront, but
they tend to create results much faster and typically they're much easier to track
when it comes to return on investment. Now, once again, I'm going to be going
through this list quite quickly. So if you're interested in a follow up
video covering any of the options in more detail, click the like button and
post a comment down below to let me know. Let's start with search advertising. The idea here is simple
You place ads on search engines like Google to get in front of people that are already searching for keywords
that relate to your business. Now, Google ads is easily
the most popular option, but you can also advertise
on search engines like Bing or even YouTube or
even platforms like Amazon. Number 14. Social advertising. This involves buying ads on social media
platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, LinkedIn,
or even Twitter. Now typically these ads are seen
in the newsfeed, but depending on the social network, you
can advertise in other places as well. Now the great advantage to this
method is even if people aren't actively searching Google for keywords
that relate to your business, you can target them on social media
platforms based on demographic data such as age, gender, location
or personal interests. Number 15. Content Advertising. This involves reaching out
to content creators to place ads on their articles or their videos,
or perhaps their podcasts. Now, in some cases, you can
reach out to larger ad networks and have your ads placed across
multiple creators at the same time. But of course, the key behind
this strategy is finding content creators that are relevant when it comes
to reaching your target audience. Number 16, Offline Advertising. This involves making use
of traditional options like print ads, billboards, television ads,
magazine ads and even radio ads. Now, the one issue with these options is
they tend to be harder to track because, of course, you can't track the number
of people that click on a billboard. But what you can do
is use this for brand marketing. And this is really geared
towards just simply keeping your brand in the minds of your prospects for
when they might be interested in buying. Now, of course, when it comes to direct
marketing, it's much more effective to use online advertising options
so that you can track the entire process. Number 17. Influencer Campaigns. This strategy involves identifying influencers
that hold sway over your target audience and then paying them to promote
or endorse your product or service. And this is a really powerful way
to build credibility because you're effectively
leveraging their reputation that they have with their audience and using it
to enhance the reputation of your brand. Number 18. Celebrity Collaborations. This is different than
an influencer campaign because it involves bringing in a celebrity or an influencer
into the process much earlier. And rather than just paying them to endorse or promote a product,
they're actually part of the product development process. And oftentimes it can
even be built around their brand and rather than paying them a one time
fee to promote the product. This often involves offering them
a royalty or even a stake in the venture. Number 19. promoted content. This is a great strategy to use in
combination with content marketing because rather than just waiting for people
to discover your content on their own, you can actually pay services
like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and others to promote your content
directly to a larger audience. And in doing so, that content can build momentum
much faster than it might on its own. And as a result, more people will see it,
more people can share it, and a larger, larger number of people discover
that content, which of course, helps you build leverage to promote
your products and services. Number 20. Audience Retargeting. The idea here is to track
when people visit specific pages on your website and then display ads
to those people across platforms like Facebook, Instagram
and the Google Display Ad Network. And in doing so, you have the
opportunity to bring people back to your website who might
not actually return on their own. Now, if you've ever visited
a product page on Amazon only to suddenly start seeing
ads for that product across the web, then you have
experienced audience retargeting. Now, it's also worth noting
that this isn't limited to product pages. For example, you might run
a blog on your website with some content that
has high commercial intent. In other words, you have content
that specifically relates to things such as purchasing your products or discovering
if your products are right for people. And as a result, you might determine
that if someone is to visit that kind of article,
they're likely to buy and so you can track that
behavior and start displaying ads for the relevant products
and services to that audience. Number 21. Affiliate Marketing. This involves offering some kind of
incentive to existing customers or two independent businesses
to promote your products or your services. Now, typically, this involves paying some kind of a commission
for every sale that they generate. But this can also involve paying
for leads, paying for email signups, or even paying for
free trial registrations. You can work with a major affiliate
network like ClickBank or Share A Sale, or alternatively, you can work directly
with your own affiliates by creating a custom program. Now it's time to talk about
social strategies. As the name implies, these strategies
are built around social connections. And what I love most
about these strategies is they tend to scale well with
the growth of the business. So while other strategies often
hit a plateau or a point of diminishing returns. These strategies tend to
continue to grow as your business grows, as you get more customers,
as you reach a larger audience. These are the kind of strategies
you can leverage to take advantage of that growth and continue
to reach new customers. First up is word of mouth referral. This is easily one of the most important
marketing strategies for most businesses. It involves taking your
existing customers. People that already buy from you, they already like your products,
they already trust you. And leveraging the relationship that
they have with other potential customers to promote your products and services
in a way that is more effective. And you could promote your own stuff
directly to that audience. Now, when it comes to word
of mouth referral, many people tend to think of this as
something that either happens organically or it doesn't happen at all. But the more you dive into the subject, the more you'll discover that there are all kinds of strategies
and tactics that you can use to not only make it more likely
that people will think to promote your product or your
service to other people, but also so that they will do
so more effectively. 23. Joint Ventures. This involves identifying other
noncompetitive businesses that serve your ideal customer
and then looking for opportunities to work with that business
to promote your own products and services. Now, typically, this process
starts by asking questions like What other products or services
do my customers buy? Who do they buy them from? Can I partner with that business? You can opt for a formal arrangement where you're offering
some kind of a finder's fee, or you can come up with more creative
options, such as offering that business the opportunity to give their customers
free gift cards or product samples or other things like that that not only create value for
that business and their customers, but also at the same time end up
promoting your business and your products. 24. Brand Merchandise. Having customers wear or display
your brand name in public is a powerful way to attract the attention
of other potential customers. And not only is this a way
just to simply get your logo out there, but there's a certain element of social
proof that comes along with this. Because when a friend or family member
sees that you're wearing a brand logo, they understand that
you must trust that brand and that you consider
that brand to be credible. And as a result, they're more likely to trust it
and they're more likely to be interested in that brand's products
and services as well. Number 25. Public speaking. This is a great way to reach a large
audience and build a deeper sense of trust with that audience. And that's because great speakers have the ability to create
a sense of connection with their audience in a way that a sales page
or a sales video simply cannot. And of course, if you record that talk
or that presentation and publish it on a platform like YouTube,
you can reach an even larger audience, especially if the talk took place
at a prestigious event such as a TED Talk.
Number 26. Hosting Events. The idea here is to host anything from
a small gathering to a huge conference. You can start with a small, informal
local meetup group and eventually work your way up to hosting multiple speakers
and putting on a major production. This approach allows you to strengthen
your brand, position yourself as a leader in this space, and create valuable long term
relationships with potential customers. Number 27. Viral Content. The idea here is to create highly
shareable articles, videos, social posts, or other content that is specifically
engineered to spread socially. So. Whereas, traditional content marketing
typically involves creating content that is more or less timeless
and is typically discovered through keyword searches
or perhaps through subscribing to a blog or to a specific creator. Viral content is engineered to spread
socially through things like social networks or in some cases,
through instant messaging services. Number 28. Live streaming. This is another great way to make a deeper connection
with an audience by speaking live to them. In this case, over the Internet and this is something that has grown
in popularity as mainstream services like Facebook, Instagram
and YouTube have incorporated this functionality into their platforms
and made it easier than ever. And unlike public speaking. Using this approach allows you
to reach a global audience in real time. And of course, you still have the option
of recording your talk or your presentation to allow other people
to view it later on an on demand basis. Number 29. Referral Programs. The idea here is to reward
existing customers that recommend your product or your service
to other potential customers. Now, the key difference
between a referral program and an affiliate program
is that referral programs focus exclusively on
your existing customers and rather than offering them
a monetary reward. Typically you want to reward them with something that
relates back to your core product. So for example, when it comes to Dropbox,
when someone recommends Dropbox to a new user, they're rewarded
with increased file storage. So the key idea here
is to think about your product. Think about why people value your product
and find some way to reward them. That relates back to what it is
that they purchased from you. Number 30. Platform Integrations. When two or more products
integrate with each other, they make it much more likely
that people that use the one product will consider using the other product. So for example, if you
run an online SAS platform and you integrate your service
with Dropbox, Zapier or Slack, people that already use
those services are more likely to discover and consider
using your particular service. Now, there are many different ways that you can apply this concept,
including physical products, for example. TV manufacturers often work with
Netflix to add a Netflix button to their TV remote. So if you're already a Netflix subscriber
and you see a TV package that shows the Netflix
button on the remote, you're more likely to consider
buying that TV. And likewise, once you buy that TV,
if you weren't already a Netflix subscriber, you're more likely
to consider the service. Number 31. Crowdfunding Platforms
such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo make it really easy to raise money
for a new product or service that you're planning to build. But even beyond this, using these
services, it's a very powerful way to evaluate a business
opportunity, generate initial interest, collect money upfront, and motivate
early customers to help spread the word. So for all these reasons
and more smart entrepreneurs often turn to crowdfunding platforms, even when
they don't actually need to raise money because it's a very powerful way
to attract attention to a new project and increase the likelihood
of social sharing. Number 32. Storytelling. People love to hear unique stories,
and they love to share unique stories. The idea here is to craft
compelling stories that relate back to your product
or your brand. These can be customer success
stories, brand founding stories, or a behind the scenes
look at how you do business. The goal is to craft these things into relatable stories
that people are inspired to share. Number 33. News Jacking. The idea here is to find
creative ways to link your brand with trending topics
or trending news items. For example, when the Tesla Cybertruck
was originally announced and everybody was talking
about its distinctive design, suddenly there were images
online of a Lego based cybertruck and whether Lego put these out on their
own or whether it was a fan. The point is that Lego benefited from attaching themselves to a story
that already had incredible momentum. So look for opportunities
to link your business or your brand to a story or to a trend
that already has incredible momentum. Because in doing so, you can gain
momentum for your own brand as well. Okay, So we've covered 33
proven marketing channels. Now it's time to identify the best marketing opportunity
for your specific business. And to do that. I've created a short step by step video that will guide you through
what is called the BULLSEYE Framework. You can find a link to that right here in the video player as well as down
below in the video description text
