What is one unconventional marketing strategy that significantly grew your small business? How did you implement it and what results did you achieve?

One unconventional marketing strategy I took to grow my competitive intelligence startup, Playwise HQ, was to take a proven distribution channel (Linkedin InMails), but combine that with an outreach message and personalized (2-3 minute) video of our platform that showed I had taken the time to record something specific for them. This lead to a 37% response rate, more than 19 demos being booked and 15 new customers signing up in the first 6 weeks of running the campaign. The way I ran this campaign was to leverage Sales Navigator to find people within our target ICP, largely Sales Enablement and Competitive Intelligence Managers at other SaaS companies with between 50 and 500 employees. I then leveraged AI to identify their top 3 most likely competitors. With this information I then recorded a short 2 - 3 minute video our of solution, Playwise HQ, and how in just a couple of minutes our AI-competitor battlecard platform could generate tailored, and highly relevant battlecards for them and their sales team. I then messaged these contacts via Linkedin InMails and instead of asking for a meeting, or for them to download a PDF, I sent them the demo video link directly. This reduced the friction in getting our tool in front of them and led to the strong positive response we received. If you do choose to use my quote/story it would be great to get a link back to https://playwisehq.com If you have any other questions please let me know Paul

I leveraged my restaurant background in an unexpected way--I started hosting 'Masters Week hospitality tours' at my Airbnb properties for potential investors and curious homeowners, where I'd serve food, share renovation insights, and tell stories about creating five-star guest experiences. This wasn't your typical property showing; it was an immersive experience that showcased what's possible in our market, and it resulted in three joint venture partnerships and a steady stream of wholesale deals from attendees who wanted to invest but lacked the operational expertise I brought from fifteen years of hospitality work.

One unconventional marketing move that really grew our small business was giving away two free nights at our place instead of running paid ads. We promoted it on Facebook and used a simple giveaway tool to collect emails. The prize generated widespread sharing because people believed it presented an actual opportunity instead of being an empty marketing promotion. We followed up with everyone who entered, even those who didn't win. The marketing campaign brought in new email subscribers, boosted direct hotel bookings, and strengthened customer confidence in the brand. My takeaway? People need valuable content, which should have simple membership procedures and ongoing dialogue maintenance.

One unconventional move was turning long form content into a direct sales asset instead of a brand play. Articles were written to answer objections, show real decision frameworks, and quietly qualify readers before they ever reached a call. Implementation was simple but disciplined, publishing fewer pieces with sharper intent and updating them relentlessly. Results showed up in higher quality leads, shorter sales cycles, and conversations that skipped the usual education phase.

The cheapest marketing we ran ended up being the most effective. Putting posters up in local gyms worked because it got us through the door. It gave us a reason to introduce ourselves, have a proper chat with gym owners, and build relationships with supplement shops. That face to face time built trust fast and opened doors we didn't plan for. Through those conversations, we got connected to content creators, local events, and other businesses in the strength space. For a growing fitness e-commerce brand selling weight lifting belts and gym gear, it created real momentum without big spend. It wasn't about ads or reach, it was about being part of the gym community.

One marketing channel that has worked very well for me and my clients is SEO. It's not exactly unconventional or new, but its often overlooked. Especially by brands that focus heavily on paid ads, social media and want quick leads. I run an eCommerce SEO agency, and over the years, I've seen how organic search consistently outperforms other channels. Through SEO, I helped a UK based furniture retailer achieve 394.22% revenue growth in a single year. Another brand, an e-bike startup generated over £245K in extra revenue from SEO. SEO is one of the few channels that can drive consistent traffic and sales long-term, without the ongoing pressure to pay for every click. Further, in the age of AI, SEO will play an even bigger role, driving a brand's visibility in both traditional and AI-driven search.

I believe that an interview-based program, built on genuine interest in the interviewees and with the audience in mind, is a great marketing strategy. And not only as a way to reach an audience or for the personal learning that comes from conducting these interviews. Also because, more than likely, some of the people you interview will end up becoming clients or will recommend your business to others. Having a coffee with microphones is one of the best ways to attract high-quality clients to your business.

Unconventional Play #1: The best out-of-the-box technique we've tried has been Engineering-as-Marketing: building free, highly-utility technical tools that solve a diagnostic problem for our clients. Instead of gated whitepapers, we build diagnostic sandboxes like AI ROI calculators or a cloud-readiness tool. We put this into practice by auditing our sales team on what questions they faced most frequently "friction" on. Once we codified this logic, we transformed it into a self-service web app that allowed prospects to input their own data and come back with a personalized report, flipping the script on our role from vendor to utility provider even before the first discovery call. This approach improved our target lead quality and shortened the close time, given the prospect already came with a pre-validated business case. HubSpot claims their "Website Grader" has assessed more than 2 million URLs and we can attest to the power of even niche interactive content formats based on scale and usage rates. Cropink analyzed the power of interactive content and found it yields twice as many conversions as passive content - a pattern we've also consistently experienced across our own digital transformation projects here at CIS. Final Thought: If there's one most valuable thing you can gift to a lead. It's clarity. The moment you give a tool to a leader and help them to quantify their own problem, you really aren't doing marketing, you're delivering the service..

Early on, I noticed most 'we buy houses' mailers were just generic postcards that ended up in the trash. So, I flipped the script by sending letters with a specific, pre-calculated cash offer for the property right on the first page. This showed homeowners we had done our homework and were serious, which immediately built trust and led to a response rate nearly three times higher than our old method, fueling our ability to acquire properties at scale.

Something that really helped us was customer reviews. As a vacation rental platform, reviews are everything for us. Not just for the individual rentals on our site, but for us as a business. So, when the reviews started coming in, we incorporated those into some of our marketing materials in order to show prospective guests that there is proof of the quality of our service. We would always ask how people found us, and after we started this strategy, tons of people began saying they found us through our online reviews.

Something we did was attend a lot of conferences and in-person events to help make our presence more known. Even now we still do this often. With this strategy, we wanted people to be able to put faces to our company name, and we wanted the opportunity to market ourselves in-person since we are a service business and the connections we make with people go such a long way. Over the years this has not only helped us secure a ton of business, but it's also helped a lot with branding, solidifying our position and expertise in the region.

Honestly, we did a ton of cold outreach. While cold outreach is always a strategy that's existed, most businesses don't rely on it very much anymore, or they at least don't expect it to be very successful. For some reason, however, it worked very well for us. We primarily focused on outreach via email, but we did also do some physical mail as well. We looked for people that we thought fit our target demographic and focused our efforts on reaching out to them specifically.

One unconventional move was intentionally narrowing our messaging instead of expanding it. I focused communications on people who needed short to medium term storage during moves or renovations. We stopped trying to appeal to everyone. That clarity improved enquiry quality and reduced sales friction, which mattered more than raw lead volume.

What is one unconventional marketing strategy that significantly grew your small business, and how did you implement it? A remarkably counter intuitive strategy which broke things wide open was shifting the focus of acquisition away from lead volume and to borrower education as the primary driver of growth. Rather than attempting to push rate sheets or deals, we connected the dots and explained away a complex loan product (i.e., DSCR, cash flow Underwriting and portfolio loans) in broker dialogues, written words and even by how we named products. It's this approach that helped us become a partner instead of just transactional lenders, broker loyalty and deal flow and growth from referral over paid demand.

My personal development journey included utilizing one of the non-traditional strategies which significantly impacted my small business through a community collaboration project. The competing local businesses, which were not doing any business with each other, came together and created an appealing "Sustainable Living Experience" package that superseded our target customers' values and confirmed them. The concept was to sell a limited edition voucher booklet, whereby every booklet would give a customer a discount or an experience from a group of ethical and local businesses. The entire operation was through social media and in-store displays in all the participating shops. The focus was on the collective reinforcement of craftsmanship and the solidarity in the production of goods as the local benefits. Retaining customers and connecting with the community went up significantly as well. The result was a local environment of pride and support that was shared by all.

What is one unconventional marketing strategy that significantly grew your small business, and how did you implement it? We used one very unorthodox tactic to gain some serious traction which was leveraging the acquisition analysis process itself as a form of marketing, as opposed to starting by promoting the product. We publicly showed how we underwrite deals, why most of the properties don't make our criteria and how small assumptions translate to large differences in outcomes which positioned STR Search as a filter/adviser versus a sales funnel. This process also brought in more credible investors, accelerated sales cycles, and generated fewer wasted leads - since prospects already knew what we wanted from them before they contacted us.