Fun Marketing Ideas

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Marketing is an essential part of building and running a successful business or organization. Your approach to marketing will often vary depending on your end goal. A good general rule of thumb is to think of marketing as a way of getting people’s attention. It doesn’t have to be stuffy or full of fancy jargon, though. You can have fun with your marketing! Below are some fun marketing ideas that any small business or organization can implement.

Make them laugh

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: A tried-and-true way to market is to market through humor. Almost everyone likes to laugh and, because of this, funny content can be a great conversation starter. Think of all the signs you drive by every day, the Superbowl ads you view every February, or the catchy jingles you repeat every time you hear them. Fun marketing sticks with you.

Partner up

Consider the Wendy’s sign war. You may remember this little exchange from 2017, but here’s a brief summary in case you don’t: a Wendy’s from Lubbock, Texas and nearby Pure Water, entered into a sign war over who had the best product.

Not only was this exchange of funny signs good marketing for Wendy’s, but it was good for Pure Water too. People were posting photos of the exchange online, boosting the reach of both companies from a regional audience to a national one. This gave both businesses a chance to show some personality and feel a little more relatable and little less corporate. It seems as though neither company intended on starting something that would last through multiple sign changes, but they made the most of it anyway.

If you have a storefront and this is something you’d like to try, contact a nearby business and see if they’ll partner with you in a little back-and-forth. You may not make national news, but you’ll still attract attention for both your business and your ‘rival’ business.

Make it weird

If silly jabs aren’t your style, or if you do not have the means to engage in that type of marketing, try a funny advertisement. There are, of course, lots of examples of funny ads online. Here’s a Superbowl ad from Old Spice that’s still funny years after its original airing:

Old Spice took notes from the weird forms of internet-based humor that were gaining popularity in 2010 and created this fast-paced ad. It was just bizarre enough to hold viewers’ attention while being memorable enough for people to talk about it the next day. At the time, the odd form of humor was probably an appeal to younger demographics, but it wasn’t so targeted that other generations couldn’t still appreciate it. Your target audience will vary depending on your business, but it’s never a bad idea to aim for things that are universally funny.

Truth is stranger than fiction

A final fun marketing idea you can use is to share something humorous about your own field. Below are some examples of funny posts we’ve done on behalf of one of our customers that use this sort of approach:

Funny post example that reads "Did you know? In Bensalem, PA, any person convicted of a felony may not operate a game of bingo."
Funny post example that reads "Did you know? In California, you cannot legally eat a frog that died during a frog-jumping contest."
Funny post example that reads "Did you know? In New Jersey, it is believed to be illegal for a man to knit during fishing season."

The beauty of this approach is that you can use it in multiple ways. For Cornerstone Law Firm, we were aiming to boost their social media presence. We chose to share these across their social platforms and to set them up in a way that others could share them as well. This could, however, be turned into a video or funny sign or almost any other form of marketing content. Every field has something funny about it so anyone can take advantage of this approach.

We got jokes

Bold River Marketing would love to help you have fun with your marketing! We’re not promising that we can make you laugh, but we are promising to dedicate ourselves to helping you achieve the goals you’ve set for your business or organization. Contact us today to have a little fun with marketing.

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