Guerrilla Marketing Tools to Strengthen Your ROI

by Brooke Samsonite November 16, 2012, 9:00 AM 1.3k Views

Sometimes theÂ biggest boost to your ROIÂ comes from the most unlikely of sources. You toil and toil away with your marketing department in all of the traditional advertising formats, wondering why you’re not seeing the return you were expecting. Instead of banging your head against all of the solutions you think should be working, you might need to take a bit of a stroll to unconventional yet brilliant ideas to get your ROI stronger.

You’ve probably spent a lot of time figuring out your packaging, but it might just be the best place to mix it up a bit. Take a look at the alcohol industry, for example. Several alcohol companies have found success in repackaging their booze in convenient pouches, including wine or pre-mixed drinks. The best way to phrase it might be an adult Capri Sun package. You might be surprised at how big of an increase the pouches produced — alcohol sales increased 153 percent. Not only were the packages more convenient for consumers, grocery stores and other product distributors took to this trend very quickly. The pouches stand out among other types of alcohol packaging and can be displayed in an attractive manner. TheÂ design of the pouchesÂ also provided enough space for branding and advertisement compared to the original packaging. Finally, consumers enjoyed how much time this type of packaging saved them. They had a complete drink in a small pouch, instead of picking up liquor from the liquor store and having to pop over to the grocery store for the juice and mixers.

Identify out-of-the-box marketing trends by paying attention to efforts in other industries. For example, the alcohol pouch trend partially got started because of baby food packaging — companies began putting their food in easy-to-use packages that allowed toddlers to feed themselves without any messes. This particular bit of marketing translated well into the booze world, cleaning up messes left by bottle overflow, spilled mixers, melting ice and the ubiquitous “party fail.”It might not seem like the type of change that would bring in that much of a ROI increase, so the 153 percent rise is rather impressive. It also proves you need to look at all of the factors before using unconventional orÂ guerilla marketing campaigns. A small change could simultaneously make your product more attractive to retailers and consumers alike.Marketing opportunities abound when you open your eyes to the possibilities. Your initial ROI might not break the 100 percent mark, but you can certainly run the numbers on some more unconventional campaigns to see whether you’d be better off focusing your attention elsewhere. You don’t want to abandon standard marketing techniques, of course, but when you’re trying to stand out among your competition, it’s best if you let loose at least once in awhile. If it doesn’t work, chalk up your efforts to a good marketing lesson learned. If it does work, pat yourself on the back and host a celebration with the folks from marketing with an array of booze pouches.

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