Creative limits are being pushed each day with new technology, styles and minds. Marketing a person or business can be difficult. Some could even blame decision fatigue for the lack of effort put into self-promo. It’s important to ensure self-promo is intriguing enough to create a lasting impression and generate sales. Self-promo can be found everywhere, especially on political campaign trails, but finding the right self-promo for your client can be challenging. Let us help you with some styles and options.

Use Influencers

Self-promotion doesn’t always have to look like physical products – it can also look like investment and user-specific marketing. In a digital age, this investment can be just as impactful as a product and is often easier for small businesses. One example is the increased investment in long-term influencer brand relationships, which are much more respected than single package ads with influencers. This is because influencers often have the same recurring audience. Watching a favorite influencer use the same product and partner with a brand repeatedly shows that it’s a person, brand or product worth investing in over and over again, and not just a paycheck. This is just like knowing your friend buys the same makeup or running shoes time. Reoccurrence adds a layer of credibility that a one-time deal can’t give.

A great way to start a long-term partnership with an influencer is to target “micro influencers,” who are creators with 3k-10k followers. Your brand can grow and become integrated with their brand. Using this style of promotion is especially helpful for reaching audiences across countries and internationally. This can lead to brand collaboration with other companies for limited edition products, events or anything else that increases brand salience. Small creators are a good place to start because they often have a highly engaged audience.

Improve User Experience

Another option for non-product promotion is by increasing UX across all platforms. People are drawn to cohesive and organized designs, including social media pages and websites. When people want to look into an unfamiliar company and the website is hard to navigate or not built for mobile, you’ll often lose the chance to convert them into a customer. People want to discover new things, but not if it’s too much work or confusing. Project management platform Asana recommends, “When designing your site, keep the layout simple, include easy-to-use navigation, and don’t overwhelm users with too much information on the main landing pages. You should also be optimizing your website for mobile, especially since more than half of users worldwide use their phones to browse the web.”

All this ties into making sure brand initiatives and appearances are spotlighted. Customers, especially younger generations, are extremely conscious of where they spend money and what each brand stands for. Animal welfare, diversity and inclusion actions, fair living wages and sustainability initiatives are some of the top non-negotiables for conscious consumers. Further, it’s important to avoid “rainbow washing” or “green washing,” because they’re both major turn offs for customers.

Reliable Self-Promos

This brings us to the tried-and-true business card. There are many examples of how you can get creative with business cards. One example is by printing information on custom playing cards. Another example is by adding a name and a scannable QR code that leads to a website, informational guide or social media page. Interactive and different, it will help create the lasting impression that converts prospects into customers. Other marketing tips include selecting stand-out features like rounded corners or folded cards, which are less creative intensive and more available.

Another physical self-promo option is the timeless and lasting sticker. Add it to a water bottle, folder or laptop and not only is the recipient always be reminded of the company, but anyone who sees it is introduced to the brand. Stickers can be fun and creative with different shapes, layering or made into collections. They’re also relatively inexpensive and can be used as little extras for special orders, at front desks or at tabling events.

Self-promo can feel overwhelming with all the possibilities and seeing what everyone else is saying and doing, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to stand out. Self-promo can be the difference between a client staying as a small business and going international. Boost sales for years to come by making sure clients are using the right self-promo and understand the possibilities of this effective marketing tool.