The great thing about the business world is the fact that there are so many avenues to success. You can employ all types of marketing strategies in order to grow your business. For the new entrepreneurs, it is ultimately up to them to do the research and choose from the different types of marketing strategies for their brand. Here are just seven of those strategies, ranging from the newly innovative to the old but effective ones.
7 Types of Marketing Strategies to Try
1. Target Marketing
Know who your audience is. If you know what the needs and desires of your audience are, then you can shape your marketing tactics so that it targets those needs. Among the types of marketing strategies, niche marketing can be a surprisingly effective method.
2. Paid Advertising Marketing
Among the various types of marketing strategies, this one might be the most famous. It is also fairly straightforward – you pay others to advertise your business in order to gain the attention of potential buyers. There are multiple avenues to perform paid advertising in, and choosing one should depend on who your target audience is and where they spend their time. For instance, if you are targeting a younger demographic, then it’s a good idea to put more money into online advertisements. If you are targeting an older demographic, then invest more into traditional media outlets.
- Television advertisements are one of the most traditional methods.
- Print media, like newspapers and magazines, will include paid ads.
- Post ads on websites and online areas with a lot of traffic. It’s best to advertise on websites that are related to your industry.
- Youtube ads are an alternative to television ads. Video sharing sites are becoming increasingly popular to use.
- You can use Pay Per Clicks ads, a model where the advertiser pays a website whenever the site’s user clicks on the ad.
- Find personalities or events to sponsor. If you run a beauty products company, find a famous beauty guru to sponsor and have her mention your products.
3. Loyalty Marketing
Also related to relationship marketing, these types of marketing strategies focus on building a loyal customer base. Get customers to love your brand so that they return over and over again. Establishing your business as trustworthy and quality oriented is a great way to bring in returning customers. Excellent customer service is another good way. There’s also loyalty programs, designed to incentivize certain behaviors in your customers. You could:
- Offer premiums.
- Offer reward programs and giveaways.
- Perform email marketing to encourage customer loyalty.
4. Content Marketing
Start a blog or a website. Content marketing falls under the umbrella of inbound marketing, a new and innovative technique that uses online content, social media, and search engine optimization to draw in leads. Web content will not only bring in an audience, it will inform that audience of your brand’s identity. Use your blog’s articles to let people know what your business is about, who you cater to, and how you can service people.
If you do go with content marketing, then you need to educate yourself about specific types of marketing strategies used over the internet. Learn about SEO (search engine optimization) and link building so that your blog can receive more relevancy online.
5. Cause Marketing
This method involves attaching your brand to a non-profit organization or cause. This could be a charity or a general movement that calls for positive social change. Signal to the world that your brand cares about social responsibility. Cause marketing is mutually beneficial, it can give lots of exposure to your favorite non-profit organization.
When choosing a cause, most businesses go with an organization that is related to their industry in some way. For example, Cheerios received a stamp of approval the American Heart Association, a non-profit that’s concerned with the cardiac health of American citizens.
6. Social Media Marketing
Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, LinkedIn, Google+, Yelp, Instagram, Reddit, Pinterest, and Craigslist are all major websites that have been used by companies for marketing purposes. Among the different types of social media marketing, this one has increased enormously due to the growing popularity of social media. Who doesn’t have a social media account nowadays?
Because this kind of marketing is apart of inbound marketing, it also involves SEO and link-building. Social media marketing relies heavily on social connections to gain traction. It is very similar to the word of mouth marketing strategy, only it’s based on online activity.
7. Diversity Marketing
As the name suggests, diversity marketing concentrates on connecting with diverse individuals across the market. Companies will try to cover different demographics by catering to different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. Race, gender, age, class, religion, and sexuality are the different demographics that are considered in diversity marketing.
The usage of diversity has grown over the years due to globalization of the global economy. In today’s age, countries are becoming more and more diverse with cultural customs and beliefs. In order to survive and thrive, businesses need to be able to adapt to this world and keep up with the latest changes.
We’ve only delved into just some of the various types of marketing strategies, there are many others to choose from. When coming up with a business plan, entrepreneurs need to think about what strategies would work best for their enterprise. It shouldn’t just be a matter of picking the ones that sound good on paper. It should require research into the kind of business you will have. Once you have evaluated and chosen the right strategies, then it becomes a matter of application.