Types of Marketing
Marketing comprises the activities undertaken by any organization to promote the buying and selling of a product or a service. It has been an important part of the business for very long. With the advent of the digital age of marketing, the scope for marketing has increased manifolds. Marketing has evolved at an amazing speed. Some types of marketing have been around for a long time while some are new in the scene and are establishing their position in the market. Each type of marketing has its own benefits and the choice depends on the needs of the business and the products to be promoted.
Let us have a look at some of the most popular types of marketing.
- Traditional Marketing
The types of marketing strategies that have been around from before the advent of the internet comprise of the traditional form of marketing. It includes using traditional means such as print, television ads, billboards and radio for the purpose of disseminating messages and marketing the product or service. They are more memorable. Before the internet, this was the go-to way of marketing for all businesses but even now businesses invest a considerable amount of their budget in traditional forms of advertising. These types of marketing strategies reach a large amount of audience and are considerably momentous and more impacting.
2. Digital Marketing
Digital Marketing encompasses a variety of marketing strategies that are used by a business in order to market or promote themselves digitally on the internet. It includes a wide array of web tactics such as social media marketing, blogging, search engine marketing, and much more. Businesses use various channels and mediums such as social media, emails, and websites to connect with their prospective customers. The various forms of digital marketing have also emerged as a stand-alone type of marketing such as Search-Engine Marketing (SEM).
3. Inbound Marketing
Inbound Marketing is focused on attracting customers rather than interrupting them. It includes strategies to attract business by staying relevant to your target audience and being helpful to them. It makes use of tactics such as email marketing, Pay-per-click advertising (PPC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), content marketing, and many more. The focus of this type of marketing is to aid the customers or consumers throughout the buyer’s journey. The main purpose of inbound marketing is to attract the customers to the website again and again, in turn creating a positive experience for them.
4. Outbound Marketing
Outbound Marketing involves bombarding the customer with messages from the organization. For a very long time, this has been the most common and preferred approach for businesses. It includes tactics such as cold mailing, TV ads, cold-calling, etc. These types of strategies lack context for the customer and hence they might see less ROI, also known as Return-on-investment which is a ratio between net profit and cost of investment. The brand pushes its message out to people in order to spread awareness regardless of whether they need it or not. The people targeted aren’t looking for your product/service and so might not take any action for conversion and sales.
5. Content Marketing
Content Marketing is a booming industry nowadays. It plays an important role in digital as well as inbound marketing as quality content plays a major role there. It involves the creation, publishing and the distribution of relevant content to the target audience of your business. Blogs, webinars and social platforms are the major components of the field of content marketing. The content is created as such that it stays relevant to the business whilst also guiding the customers on their buyer’s journey. Having a content management system and a content calendar is also helpful to manage and publish the content easily.
6. Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Marketing refers to the paid search advertising of the content for a business. It allows businesses to gain traffic, engagement and impressions to their website for some particular keyword searches for which the business might not have ranked on top otherwise. You can pay a certain amount of money to advertise your website or a particular webpage for the search of a given keyword. You can then accordingly pay per each click to your website. This method is known to generally return great ROI as you are only charged when someone actually clicks on your website.
7. Call to Action Marketing
Call to Action Marketing, also known as CTA Marketing, often overlaps with other forms of marketing as it shares features with them. You can see everywhere businesses using a call to action in their messages. A call to action is typically a button or an image that is meant to grab the attention of its viewer so that they click on the link, which will eventually lead them to an offer or to a landing page for the business. This tactic is a great way to get your customers to take an immediate step by performing an action that will benefit the business.
8. Social Media Marketing
The potential of social media for the growth of a business is ever-growing. Social Media Marketing is a relatively new concept than other types of marketing yet it is the one that businesses today are willing to invest large amounts of their budget and time into. It includes creating content to promote your brand on various social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Unique content tailored to the audience can be efficiently disseminated through social platforms of the company and it can also increase the engagement and loyalty of the customers.
9. Acquisition Marketing
Many types of marketing are focused on brand awareness and driving traffic to the company’s website while acquisition marketing is solely focused on acquiring customers for the business. It is an umbrella term that makes use of the tactics of other types of marketing and uses them to generate revenue for a business. Acquisition marketing is targeted on lead generation from various content on websites or on the social media channel of the company. It includes devising strategies to increase the conversion rate so that there is a link from marketing to sales.
10. Influencer Marketing
To involve those who already have an engaged following on social media, influencer marketing is used. Influencers are looked upon as an expert in their certain niches and have the power to influence a large set of audience. Using influencers to reach out to a large set of audience and to increase brand awareness and buying of products and services through influencers is a great way to reach a large set of targeted audience.
There are many more types of marketing. Choosing which marketing works best for your organization depends on the products and services you market and the audiences you are targeting. Make use of the right strategies to come up with a good marketing plan and keep updating it as time passes.
To know more about marketing, its scope and making a career out of it, click here.
