Time to Swing the Bat

A few weeks ago, a self-proclaimed "non-marketer" approached me with an unusual marketing request.

He'd been following a traditional marketing strategy for months and wasn't seeing the desired results on his offer.

In this case, the traditional approach included several passive marketing tactics. Product information is distributed to the usual places, and then you wait for someone actively searching to find it.

Don't get me wrong; passive marketing is an essential part of your overarching marketing strategy. A search engine optimized website is critical for any company, for example.

However, it's unusual for passive marketing tactics alone to move the dial. Your best bet is usually to partner passive marketing with some attract marketing tactics. This gets your product in front of people in your target audience, even when they are not actively searching for your product or service.

Think about all those Black Friday sales popping up on your websites and feeds these days. There is nothing passive about those ad campaigns!

In most cases, digital marketing would be an obvious add. However, the target audience for this client is incredibly niche, so reaching them through paid ads would be challenging. That's why, historically, paid digital was not utilized for this type of offer. Traditional, passive marketing is how it is done.

But he was unwilling to be limited by the standard assumptions. He wanted to try some out-of-the-box ideas.

"Let's swing the bat," he said.

I was intrigued.

So we did. We applied digital marketing best practices where typical marketers in this industry don't.

And within hours of launching our campaign, the first lead landed in the funnel.

We all knew this was a bit of a gamble, given the unique scenario, so I'm keeping my excitement in check while we move through these first few weeks.

But I have to say that I was inspired. While some would say that digital marketing as a tactic is a bold idea, the truth is that I stick with what I know. This is my comfort zone - SEO, paid ads, lead generation, etc.

I don't remember the last time I tried something completely new or took a gamble. Especially something similar to this case, where industry peers would say this new approach won't work.

Moving forward, I'm going to give some additional thought to how we can reach a bit farther and try some new things. What about you?

When was the last time you swung the bat?