Dedicated sales teams and passionate hand-selling...
Yeah, that would be a tough effect to replicate without being costly.
The book trade does it for the books it publishes. But then, those books have a reasonable to good chance of selling enough copies to cover their costs and then some. Self published books? Not so much.
EDIT:
Further thoughts. So, putting my business hat on... and this is just brainstorming... we have a barrier that we do not wish to exist. There is a beneficial service that would be good for the bootstrapping self-publisher, that is not available at what our demographic considers a reasonable cost.
My first question is well, can we bypass the barrier? What's the end effect we're going for here, enhanced marketing impact without costly outlay?
Assume that current publishers are strong here, and that competition with them on such a level isn't possible without a good-sized buy-in. So can the field or means of attack be shifted to an area that they don't cover or cannot explore?
You're not seeing the big problem.
Trade publishers sign books because they think there are enough readers out there who will want to buy the books to make their publishing efforts worthwhile. They then invest a huge amount of expertise and a less-huge amount of money to bring those books to market in the best possible way they can. The books are then sold by teams of sellers into bookshops across the country, and those books appear on the shelves at the same time as a coordinated marketing campaign hits the media. So lots of people hear about the books and go looking for them; and at the same time, lots of people who go into bookshops see those books, and give them a try.
Self publishers publish their own books because they love them, and want to see them out there. There is no guarantee of quality in self published books: many of the ones I've seen have been incredibly badly written, and are not likely to sell at all. And while some self publishers publish with skill and forethought, many do not. They don't have the skill to publish them well.
As you've already pointed out, good sales services are expensive to run. You can't sell books in this way unless you can be sure that most will do well enough to cover their costs and then some. Most distributors won't risk wasting their time on books which won't sell; that means they won't risk taking on self published books, as they've not had the external validation which trade published books have had.
In other words, you can't buy into these services.
Next step: Look to your advantages.
What advantages does self-publishing have that can be brought to bear, here?
Speed: Speed comes to mind. Any marketing efforts that we initiate don't have to go through multiple people, and don't have to wait on initiatives for other books.
Working at great speed isn't necessarily an advantage. For example, doing so prevents you from ensuring your launch coincides with reviews or author interviews as reviewers often require a few months' lead time, to read the book and write the review, and interviewers need to interview and write up their work. Yes, self publishers can sometimes respond to current events in a timely fashion: but when it's really necessary, so can trade publishers. I've written a 60k book in a week; I've edited a book which went from commissioning to publication within six weeks or so, and we got that book reviewed and written about in the nationals, too.
Trying to speed your marketing work is difficult, because marketing in particular requires the input of other people. It's far more effective if you spend enough time on this.
I'm not sure what you mean by "and don't have to wait on initiatives for other books".
Flexibility: We can try approaches that make existing companies hesitate. Viral marketing, kickstarters, releasing select products for free, posting series online as web serials, and models I haven't encountered yet.
You can't knowingly run a viral marketing campaign. Viralness (is that a word?) can't be predicted or controlled, it can just be enjoyed. And all the other things on your list are things that good trade publishers do. Except for kickstarters. Although there are some smaller and perhaps dodgier presses which use it as a funding stream.
Can we find a model that puts these qualities to good use? If we can do that, then some of the monetary issues might be overcome.
I have seen so many different attempts by self publishers to make their work stand out through the various things you've suggested. People have been trying for decades to make their works a success every way they can. But without some element of judgement, or gatekeeping (I hate that phrase), to separate the books with commercial potential from the rest of the books, those efforts are usually wasted. And if you're going to submit to gatekeeping, you might just as well take the trade publishing route.
The thought occurs to me that the Kindle Scout program seems to be trying a cautious riff on this subject. Yeah, at the end of the day they're a trade publisher, but their entry model always seemed like a cross between self-publishing and kickstarter's model. Been thinking of giving it a whirl myself, for some upcoming projects...
Have a go. Let us know how you get on.