Creative Strategy Tips For Small Businesses: Turning Attention Into Action

Your brand and marketing strategy should not always require half of the company’s funds to be executed. Most often, creativity is real currency when it comes to getting noticed and getting real results. 

In 2025, customers are spoilt for choice and distracted by noise, meaning you need strategies that are fast, fresh, and impossible to ignore.

Here are three bold, highly visual, and engagement-driven tactics you can use to make people stop scrolling (or walking away) and start talking about your brand.

Starting a brand isn’t enough. There’s a need to constantly and creatively put your brand in the faces of your audience with actions that make you stand out from your competitors. 

1. Flash Sales & Pop-Up Shops: Create urgency and curiosity at once

Flash sales and pop-up shops are effective because they have an expiry date, a built-in “act now” energy that triggers people to act. They both create a sense of urgency and the familiar ‘fear of missing out’ in your audience.

Why it works:

• The scarcity factor triggers urgency.
• Pop-up locations feel like a limited-time secret that only those “in the know” get to experience.
• It’s perfect for testing or soft-launching new products to understand market reactions without long-term commitments.

Download our free ebook to get a step-by-step guide on how to do this.

How to make it work for you:

• Announce flash sales with bold, visual social content with the likes of countdown timers, teaser videos, and location hints.
• Partner with a complementary local brand to share costs and cross-pollinate audiences.
• Give your pop-up a theme to make it more exciting. It might be a retro-themed or vintage-style store, so it’s more than a shop; it’s an experience.
  

Check out: Creative Marketing Ideas To Try in 2025

2. Interactive Window Displays: Turn passers-by into participants

Your shopfront or office space is a prime location for storytelling. Interactive window displays make people stop in their tracks and, more importantly, engage.

Why it works:

• Moves your brand from passive advertising to active participation.
• Creates moments worth filming and sharing on social media.
• Creates a mid-point between digital and physical advertising.
  

How to make it work for you:

• Use QR codes to launch short AR experiences or games linked to your products.
• Create touch-activated light displays or sensors that respond to movement.
• Turn your display into a “photo moment”, a backdrop designed to be aesthetically pleasing for social media.

Download our free ebook for more information on this.

3. Guerrilla Marketing: The unconventional marketing

Guerrilla marketing involves making bold, unconventional moves with a significant impact in public spaces. It’s low-cost, high-impact, and thrives on surprise.

Why it works:

• It’s shareable, both in real life and online.
• Disrupts everyday spaces, making people stop, react, and remember.
• Builds local buzz quickly without expensive ad spend.
  

How to make it work for you:

• Think playful pavement art, 3D chalk illusions, or branded street games.
• Stage a small, unexpected live performance related to your brand.
• Place teaser installations around your city, each leading people to your store or event.
  

Read more on: Unique examples and characteristics of Guerilla Marketing 

All you need is an idea that stops people in their tracks. The big budget should be a means for you to amplify your creativity in marketing and branding. Whether it’s a 24-hour flash sale, a shopfront that talks back, or a piece of guerrilla theatre on a street corner, the goal is the same: spark curiosity, create shareable moments, and give people a reason to connect with your brand.

Want more ideas like these? Of course, there’s more where these came from.

Download our free branding resource eBook: The Small Business Creative Strategy Playbook, packed with tactics you can easily implement today.