In the previous article we have discussed why you need a marketing team. Assuming that you have built one here we’re explaining different type of marketing strategies you can execute for your business.
If you want to survive as a business in our world today, one of the main things you need to do is to use marketing. In the world of business, the word marketing is arguably one of the most common terminologies used. But what does marketing actually mean?
According to American Marketing Association (AMA), “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large”.
To explain it with simpler words, Marketing refers to any activity promoting products or services to consumers to make a sale. Marketing allows companies to share information about their products or services with potential customers so they can turn them into sales. It is all about getting the word out and explaining to customers the benefits of products to increase visibility and interest.
To promote your business, you can use many different marketing types. Marketing is a constantly evolving field. Existing concepts are analyzed and re-envisioned to reflect modern economic and social changes. As a result of technological developments and marketing research, newer ideas develop.
No matter what type of business you have, you need to find right marketing strategies to increase your brand awareness, reach more customers, increase sales, and boost revenue. Since there are so many different types of marketing in the business world, this may not be as easy a task as it sounds. That’s why it’s crucial to understand what the different types of marketing mean.
What are the Different Types of Marketing?
When it comes to types of marketing, there are two main categories of marketing: offline (traditional) and online (digital).
A. Offline (Traditional) Marketing – means using top-of-funnel, old school marketing channels to drive awareness like print, radio and television advertising, attendance at trade exhibits, fairs, and conferences, word-of-mouth, etc.
1- Television and radio advertising
When it comes to marketing, perhaps the first examples that come to mind are radio and television advertisements. We are sure that everyone has come across a commercial on the radio or television many times in their life, simply because we all use them. Even if television and radio ads have evolved over time, they remain effective marketing strategies – the only problem is, they can be expensive for small businesses.
2- Print marketing
This form of marketing is the use of print media to generate brand awareness about your company. That includes advertisements in magazines, newspapers, billboards, and brochures. Print marketing can help gain attention for a business at either the local or national level and can be effective for any type of business.
3- Direct mail marketing
Direct mail marketing works similarly to email marketing. but instead of sending information to their digital mailbox, businesses send advertising materials directly to the customer’s home. Direct mail includes different kinds of printed marketing materials, such as catalogs, coupons, brochures, newsletters, postcards, product samples etc. Direct mail marketing allows businesses to speak directly to their target audience.
4- Word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM)
Word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) is the process of influencing and encouraging natural discussions about a product, service, or company. It’s about getting people to talk about you for free. The reason why this works is because people place a lot more value on the recommendations of a trusted friend than those of a biased seller.
5- Event marketing
Event marketing is all about organizing and conducting different social events to communicating with the target audience and creating awareness about the products or services. It’s a marketing strategy that involves face-to-face contact between brands and their customers at events like conferences, product release celebrations, trade shows, and seminars. 74% of consumers say that branded event experiences make them more likely to buy promoted products.
B. Online (Digital) Marketing – means using a paid or unpaid online channel to market your products or services.
1- Content marketing
Content marketing means planning, creating, and distributing valuable content to attract and retain customers. Content provides a solution to a problem the lead is researching. Leads discover promoted products by learning about their applications. Examples of content marketing includes producing blog articles, social media posts, e-books with in-depth information, infographic presentations that include data, video creation etc.
2- Email marketing
Email marketing is a marketing strategy where businesses sending emails to current and potential customers with the goal of increasing brand awareness, promoting specific products and services, driving engagement, nurturing leads, or making a sale. Similar to direct mail marketing, email marketing delivers promotional materials straight to a person’s digital mailbox.
Email marketing is one of the most direct and effective ways a business can connect with leads at a considerably lesser cost than some other types of marketing.
3- Social media marketing
Social media marketing means using social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, etc. to foster relationships with current customers and expand your reach. It is a cost-effective and popular marketing strategy for any business with an online presence or want to build one. The goal of social media marketing is to grow an audience and engage with them by creating and posting to brand’s social media accounts.
4- Influencer marketing
It is one of the new concepts that entered our lives, but it is one of the most powerful marketing channels of the last period: influencer marketing. It means paying creators with a high profile and many followers on social media to promote your product to their followers in their posts. It is similar to social media marketing, but instead of establishing a company account, marketers work with influencers to get the word out about their brand.
Influencer marketing is one of the most effective types of marketing since it can widen your reach to a great extent. It allows companies to engage with Millennial and Gen Z audiences.
5- Search engine marketing (SEM)
SEM, or search engine marketing, uses search engines like Google or Bing as the principal tool for displaying promotional content. The goal of SEM is that your business pages appearing on search engine results pages. SEM relies mostly on the keywords customers might enter when looking for certain products or services so that a brand’s ads can appear alongside those search queries. Any business can benefit from SEM because many people use search engines as their first stop when they try to search for solutions.
6- Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing means sharing revenue with affiliates who promote your product and bring in new customers. It is a performance-based strategy wherein an affiliate earns a commission through marketing another business’s goods or services. You can see affiliate links on blog posts or YouTube Channels. Whenever someone makes a purchase by clicking those affiliate links, owner of the website/channel receives a commission.
Affiliate marketing often combined with influencer marketing strategies to target a very focused demographic of customers.
7- Guerrilla marketing
Guerrilla marketing technique isn’t particularly common. It is all about using the unexpected and unconventional to make a strong impression at public events or high-traffic physical locations. Guerrilla marketing means doing something creative, cheap, and impactful to reach potential customers. Graffiti, stickers, flash mobs, etc. are all examples of guerrilla marketing. For example, if an unexpected graffiti suddenly appears in an unexpected part of the city, many people will take a photo of it and share it on social media. It is cheap to execute, allows for creative thinking, grows with word-of-mouth, and creates a strong, memorable impression.