As a digital marketing agency with a primary focus on inbound advertising, marketing a unique new product that nobody has ever heard of can be difficult, because there is no direct inbound search to capitalize on. In this case, the market needs to be created via targeted outbound marketing strategies. The traffic from these targeted outbound strategies needs to be captured into a retargeting list so a well structured Retargeting Ad drip campaign can be executed, bringing back increased inbound traffic and sales over time.

Creating a market for a unique product via targeted outbound strategies

If you are trying to generate buzz about a new product that nobody has heard of and there is no inbound search traffic for it, try the targeted outbound strategies listed below:

• Social Targeting Ads™ on Targeted Websites – This is the strategy of running display ads (banner ads) on targeted websites that have visitors who would also be interested in your product, if only they knew it existed.
• Guerrilla Text Ads – This is the strategy of running text ads on Google (or whatever search engine you wish to advertise on) against competitor names and products that capture traffic that might also be interested in your product, if only they knew it existed.
• YouTube Ads Targeting Specific Videos – This is the strategy of targeting highly watched videos on which to run your video ads, where the visitor viewing the highly watched video would also be interested in your product, if only they knew it existed.
• Facebook Ads Targeting Specific Demographics – This is the strategy of running targeted Facebook ads toward users with specific demographics that would make them potentially interested in your product, if only they knew it existed.

Before you can do any of these things, you need to do a great deal of research. In this case, it goes well beyond keyword research (which is the primary focus when building inbound campaigns) and focuses also on relevant website research for display ads, creative guerrilla text ad research, relevant YouTube video research, Facebook demographic research and more. The great thing is that Google’s free Display Planner tool allows you to do a lot of this research in one spot! See the screenshot below to understand what I mean.

Watch this quick video which breaks down the Google Adwords Display Planner:

Let’s use an example for better understanding

To make this strategy easier to understand, let’s use a pretend product and put together a quick marketing plan for it. Let’s say the product is a new spray for golf balls that can be applied to (sprayed on) the ball, allowing the ball to last longer and float in water. Plus, the spray product comes with a pair of glasses that, when put on, make the ball glow bright orange in a three-foot radius around the ball, to help make its location easy to find. The idea of the product is to save golfers money, by making balls last longer and easier to find. While this product is cool, nobody is searching for it or anything like it, since they do not know it exists. However, if golfers did know this existed, it would most likely be something they were interested in. Therefore, the goal here is to create a market for this product using the targeted outbound strategies below.

Social Targeting Ads™ on Targeted Websites

The first thing I would do is design some very nice banner ads and pinpoint some targeted websites to run them on. Using the Display Planner tool referenced above, I’d compile a list of highly relevant websites on which to run my ads. For example, maybe I’d run my ads on golf.com, which is a high traffic website targeting my perfect demographic.

Here is a screenshot of golf.com and some of its available ad space:

More about how Social Targeting Ads™ work:

Guerrilla Text Ads

The next thing I’d do is research some good opportunities for guerrilla text ads, such as running ads on the term “golf balls” with ad copy that suggests the user wouldn’t need to purchase as many golf balls if the new spray technology was used. I would also run ads on brand name golf balls like “Top Flite” with the same objective.

YouTube Ads Targeting Specific Videos

I would then research YouTube videos and find videos that have had a high number of views and would target the type of person I’m looking for. In other words, I would find videos where people watching that video would also like to watch my video and buy my product. For example, running my ad here might work very nicely:

Facebook Ads Targeting Specific Demographics

Another thing I’d do is target Facebook users that are interested in golf. I’d do this by using Facebook’s ad targeting options and pinpointing the “interest targeting” feature which allows you to target any user who talks about golf on their timeline. This way, I know the users seeing my ads at least have some interest in golf.

Putting it all together and making it work

Finally, I’d retarget all this traffic. I already know that 97-98% of traffic will not convert on their first visit to the site, as this is normal no matter how good the traffic is. This is especially true with a new product. However, by retargeting that traffic over the next year, the traffic will begin to build trust in and credibility for the product, and will eventually come back to the site to convert. This will increase the overall site conversion rate and marketing return on investment. If the outbound strategies brought in 2000 relevant visitors per month, for example, after a year there would be 24,000 people being retargeted, and the list would only be growing.

Remarketing drip campaign

I think it’s important to set up an automated retargeting/remarketing drip campaign which displays a different set of banner ads and calls-to-action every 30-60 days for a year after the visitor leaves the website. This will keep the banners and product fresh in people’s minds and increase re-visits, sales and trust.

Closing

Marketing a unique new product can be tough, but it can definitely be done. The goal is to capture as much relevant traffic as possible with targeted outbound strategies and then retarget that traffic long-term to gain the highly convertible inbound clicks down the road.

If you have a product you’d like us to help you market give us a call or contact us online.