Undercover Marketing Strategies
Undercover marketing is advertising products or services without letting the audience be aware of them. Undercover marketing is a subset of guerrilla marketing. It is also known as stealth marketing. It is a marketing strategy which assists companies to market their product in a hidden way. This doesn’t allow the consumer to realize that the play is a marketing strategy.
Using kind unconventional tactics, the product is marketed and advertised in a less obvious manner. Undercover marketing thus affects customer decisions more effectively.
Every marketing plan has a target or aims in mind. The main goals are to raise brand awareness, increase conversions, and boost sales, among other things. Other marketing tactics are extremely distinct from stealth marketing. Its goal is to raise awareness among viewers in an indirect way and is often used by best marketing agencies in cities like Delhi, Gurgaon and all over the world. The following are the goals of stealth marketing:
*Word-of-mouth marketing: Word of mouth is essential for any brand. This method has the potential to turn your customers into salespeople and promoters. When a customer is exposed to stealth marketing, he or she is more likely to discuss it with others. It encourages others to talk about the product and raises awareness.
*Customer reaction to the advertisement: The goal of any stealth or undercover marketing campaign is also to build a positive impression of a business before someone sees an advertisement for it.
*Arouse curiosity and excitement: This type of marketing is intriguing. Customers are interested in seeing what products celebrities use. Rather than advertise first, it is more beneficial to show the products in such movies or series. It piques the customer’s interest in the goods they see through this type of marketing.
Businesses usually employ four undercover marketing strategies to stand out from the crowd. These are:
*VNR (Video News Release): Video content has always grabbed the attention of viewers. VNR is a marketing technique in which a business provides a video to the television that looks like regular news reporting, but it tries to promote its product. News producers incorporate the video in the news either in parts or as a whole
*Ad spies: Brands usually pay influencers to surreptitiously pitch their products to their followers without showing that it’s a paid gig.
*Leaners: Similar to ad spies, learners are paid actors hired by the brands. Their objective is to pitch a product or service to total strangers randomly and casually. Their conversations with the target audience are well-scripted.
*Product placement: It involves featuring a product in a movie or show or other forms of mass media.
*Buzz Marketing: This technique aims to make the target audience more receptive by making people talk about a product in a casual way to create a buzz in the market.
*Celebrity endorsements: It helps advertise a product when public figures or social media personalities casually mention the product in organic conversations.
*Social validation:It involves posting positive reviews for the company on different industry websites or ghost-writing a blog citing the company’s success stories.
Undercover marketing is not as easy as it sounds. It needs proper planning to successfully create a marketing plan that would be efficient. Let’s look at a few of the strategies:
*Understanding the product or service: A company can benefit from this marketing model if it properly understands its potential customers and its product. There is no point in hiring undercover agents and asking them to spread positivity about the product. Rather, the company must know what exact message it wants to convey and how its agents will deliver the message.
*Market research and crafting the message: Market research and data collection are an integral part of all marketing programmes. Once a company knows its target audience and its demographic values, it can easily craft a message that needs to be conveyed. One important thing that marketing strategists must realise is that they should hire undercover marketers who are well aware of the demographic and cultural values of the target audience.
*Keep undercover marketing strategy short-term: Undercover marketing is effective if a brand uses it in the short term. If a business prolongs the marketing campaign, there is a high chance that it becomes obvious to people, and it may backfire as well. So, once a business ends its undercover marketing campaign, it needs to evaluate any changes in sales, website traffic, or customer traffic to see if the strategy worked or not.
