The strategies of marketing They are essential in any business. However, there are some that, in an attempt to grab the attention of the public, end up being intrusive and uncomfortable, causing a reaction of rejection among consumers. We see a clear example of this in those phone calls that often interrupt our rest. In contrast to these strategies, which come under direct marketing, we find those called indirect marketing, much more subtle and organic practices to attract customers. Below, we’ll tell you more about what they are, their benefits, and how to implement them in your business.
What is indirect marketing?
The indirect marketing It is made up of all those customer acquisition techniques that are done subtly and through the transmission of valuable content. In other words, they are marketing strategies who try to promote products or services without appearing to do so or that there is a commercial purpose behind them.
Unlike indirect marketing, we find the Direct marketing. This type of marketing is the best known and does not seek to hide its intention to sell, since it consists of attracting the attention of the public through more intrusive advertising messages. An example of this type of marketing is seen in television commercials, sales calls or sales emails.
Benefits of Indirect Marketing
Direct marketing can be very useful to increase sales of a brand in the short term, as well as to start positioning it. In addition, its implementation is also interesting if you want to attract a lot of attention or persuade a certain audience to carry out a specific action. However, indirect marketing has another series of advantages that can help you more if your objectives are other such as:
- Strengthen your relationship with existing customers.
- Attract new customers.
- Increase brand awareness.
- Stand out from your competition.
- Build a long-term relationship with your customers.
- Pay more attention to the needs of your users.
- Increase the confidence of your audience.
While we’re comparing the benefits of one type of marketing and another, as a brand you don’t have to go for one and despise the other. The two are complementary and the ideal is to use both to the appropriate extent. to help your brand goals.
Prerequisite to achieve it: digitization
The basics to start making a indirect marketing strategy to succeed is to have a company that has a minimum of digitalizationsince most indirect marketing techniques are going to be carried out in the virtual world (although, as we will see later, there are also some that develop in the physical plane).
A business that doesn’t have its own website, social media profile, and ways to measure customer behavior in the online world will have a hard time growing. indirect marketing techniques. Indeed, controlling the comments of our public on the networks is essential in this type of strategy.
5 ways to implement indirect marketing
As we said, most indirect marketing techniques are developed in the digital world, but that does not mean that we do not find some in which presence is the main characteristic.
Below, we have selected 5 ways to implement indirect marketing in your business.
content marketing
The most used and well-known strategy to promote indirect marketing in a company is content marketing. It consists of creating relevant content for your audience that is informative, fun or entertaining. In short, that it generates value. The most common platforms to share them on are social media or corporate blogs, although YouTube videos, podcasts and downloadable ebooks are also a widely used option.
Economically, indeed, content marketing can be a great option to save marketing expenses, because costs 60% less than traditional marketing and can generate up to three times more sales opportunities (leads).
Conferences and events
If you’re interested in face-to-face forms of indirect marketing, this is one of them. Hosting events where you share useful information for your audience and pass on valuable content will help gain notoriety and position yourself as one of the leaders in your sector. Specifically, attending academic events is a way to gain authority with the public and lead them to trust you more. So much so that until 70% of traders they consider face-to-face events to be very effective.
However, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, online conferences and events have been promoted as an alternative way of meeting people. If your brand is in the start-up phase and you do not have a strong investment capacity for this type of activity, it may be worth organizing an event online, as it will be cheaper. Another advantage of these digital events is that your meeting capacity will be higher, since people from different parts of the world will be able to attend.
influencer marketing
This indirect marketing strategy consists of contacting influencers from social networks or blogs so that they collaborate with your brand by trying your products or services and telling their followers about them. It will help you increase the level of public trust in your brand and increase its reach.
Public relations
This practice is very common and, unlike others like influencer marketing, it has been practiced for many years. It consists of contacting a media through a press release (the most common practice) so that it devotes part of its content to talking about your products or services. Many brands have longstanding contacts with journalists to regularly engage in this type of marketing.
