- Above the line [ATL] marketing
Above the line marketing is using mass media to market to a wide audience.
It’s the opposite of below the line marketing [number 11], which is more specific and targeted marketing.
The strength of above the line marketing is potential reach; the downside is often relevancy.
- Account-based marketing
Account-based marketing is an alternative B2B marketing strategy that targets customers who have a particular type of account.
It’s a form of segmentation [and in marketing, specificity is always a good thing].
- Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is the act of marketing someone else’s brand, website, product or service in return for a fee.
The fee is performance-based. The more successful the affiliate marketing is, the more the affiliate will get paid.
- Affinity marketing
Also known as partnership marketing [number 106], affinity marketing is about creating strategic, mutually beneficial partnerships.
- Agile marketing
Agile marketing is about being open, receptive and responsive to change with your marketing strategy.
As the name suggest, it’s about being flexible and not sticking to a rigid plan. You could say, then, that agile marketing is more of an attitude than a strategy.
Inspiration for the term comes from the techie world of agile development, where iterations to software would be steady and incremental.
- Alliance marketing
As with affinity or partnership marketing, alliance marketing is about two businesses collaborating.
The difference with alliance marketing is that the collaboration runs deeper.
Companies that are teaming up [because it can be more than one] pool their resources to promote and sell a product or service.
- Ambush marketing
A business that uses ambush marketing will attempt to associate its products or services with an event that already has official sponsors.
As the name suggests, companies use this low-cost tactic to ambush events and compete for exposure against competitors.
- Article marketing
Article marketing is a type of advertising in which businesses write articles and then strategically placed on the internet.
Articles need to be about topics relevant to your industry. Once written, they’re usually distributed to news outlets, article banks, forums, PR sites and article submission sites.
In a sense, article marketing is similar to content marketing, but the articles don’t exist on a company’s own website. As such, the value of article marketing is questionable.
- Augmented marketing
Augmented marketing is the idea of adding value to a proposition via an additional, innovative offer.
The word ‘augmented’ means “having been made greater in size or value”. So by laying on extra benefits, augmented marketing increases the chances of a sale.
- Behavioral marketing
Behavioral marketing is marketing to consumers that’s automated, but nonetheless based on their behavior.
It is an online marketing [number 101] strategy. Typically, behaviors that trigger a certain marketing message would be when someone:
- Clicks on a link.
- Visits a certain web page.
- Downloads a PDF.
- Buys something.
- Shares or likes a post on social media
- Below the Line (BTL) Marketing
What is below the line marketing?
Below the line marketing is targeted marketing that doesn’t use mass media [so not things like TV, radio and social media].
It’s the opposite of above the line marketing [number 1].
Below the line marketing is more personal and, as a result, often more successful that above the line marketing.
- Black hat marketing
Black hat marketing is the general term for unethical SEO tactics.
Here’s the situation: Google analyzes websites against certain criteria before deciding what to rank where.
There are ways of cheating the system, but doing so would be gambling with your business. It’s just not worth it. Any gains are likely to be short-term; if Google catches on, you can expect your website to incur a penalty.
- Brand marketing
Brand marketing is the concept of marketing an identity [and not a product or service].
Most businesses know that they have to work out their brand positioning. They need to understand what they stand for, what their USPs are and what the perception of their company is.
Sometimes, certainly over the long-term, it pays off to communicate values over items because it’s more conducive to encouraging customer engagement and loyalty.
- Brick and mortar marketing
Quite simply, brick and mortar marketing is any form of marketing that exists in a retail shop.
- Business to business [B2B] marketing
Quite simply, B2B marketing happens when one business markets a product or service to another.
- Business to consumer [B2C] marketing
B2C marketing refers to any marketing that’s specifically dedicated to consumers.
- Business to people [B2P] marketing
Business to people marketing is B2B marketing [number 15] that is more personal [and, therefore, theoretically more effective].
Really, B2P is more about your attitude towards marketing.
- Buzz marketing
Buzz marketing is marketing that seeks to induce drama, excitement and anticipation about a product.
When it works, buzz marketing is amazing. The trouble is, if you get a campaign wrong, everything can fall flat. A poor result can even wreak havoc with your brand image.
- Call Centre marketing
Call centre marketing happens when a business authorizes a specialist company [a call centre or contact centre] to cold call people [and market a product or service].
- Call-to-action [CTA] marketing
This is the name given to any online marketing collateral that prompts someone to take a specific action.
So any banners, buttons, copy or graphics that ask users to do something [like download a PDF, subscribe to a newsletter or click a link].
Typically, this action would lead to the user entering a sales funnel.
- Catalogue marketing
Catalogue marketing is the act of using a catalogue to showcase products or services.
It’s a type of direct marketing [number 47] that’s most popular with mail order retailers.
Catalogue marketing might seem like a slightly old fashioned form of marketing, but, perhaps surprisingly, research indicates the people still like being able to thumb through a catalogue.
- Cause marketing
Cause marketing is attaching some sort of charitable or inspirational angle to a product, service or brand.
Crucially, cause marketing only works when you find a cause that both the business and its customers care about.
- Celebrity marketing
Celebrity marketing is getting a celebrity to endorse a product.
The logic is that celebrity endorsements increase sales because consumers can connect and identify with someone.
- Channel marketing
Channel marketing is any marketing strategy that helps a product or service reach the consumer in a quicker, more efficient way.
In business, a ‘channel’ is all the activities and people involved in taking something from production to consumption.
That’s stuff like manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, retailers, marketing collateral… etc.
- Close range marketing [CRM]
Brands who like close range marketing use WiFi or Bluetooth to send promotional messages to customers’ smartphones or tablets.
This is usually an in-store experience, because the customer’s device must be within range of the shop’s transmitter or beacon.
Also known as proximity marketing [number 119], close range marketing is a very modern strategy.
- Closed loop marketing
Closed loop marketing is the act of using information and performance data to produce more effective marketing strategies.
By analyzing what’s working with a campaign and what isn’t, a business can eliminate a degree of guesswork from their next project.
- Cloud marketing
Cloud marketing is simply using all the modern tools on the internet to continually connect with and market to customers.
Today, businesses are able to surface the same marketing message in multiple places.
So you might see one ad advert in an email, on a website, on Twitter, on YouTube, or in your Facebook feed.
- Communal marketing
Communal marketing happens when a business uses customers’ stories about a product or service in a promotional campaign.
It’s marketing that aims to create a deeper bond between a business and its customers. It’s very effective because the people are real.
When they talk about their experiences, it helps non-customers identify with the product easier. They can see themselves feeling and experiencing the same things.
- Community marketing
Community marketing is any marketing that concentrates on an existing customer [as opposed to new customers].
Sometimes known as loyalty marketing [number 86], community marketing is useful because the cost of maintaining a customer will always be cheaper than the cost of acquiring a new one.
- Computational marketing
Computational marketing uses computer technology to make marketing more efficient.
Businesses that hold information about customers can use computers to match up the right people with the right marketing campaign.
- Concentrated marketing
Concentrated marketing happens when a company has developed a product specifically for a very well defined market.
- Consumer marketing
Consumer marketing is straightforward: it’s marketing directly to consumers.
It’s the most common type of marketing… and it’s everywhere.
- Content marketing
Content marketing means creating and distributing content with the aim of driving positive action.
It’s a long-term strategy. Rather than focus on selling, content marketing must deliver value to the target audience first.
This enhances the brand perception and nourishes the relationship between the business and the consumer. Over time, this increases the chances of profiting.
- Contextual marketing
Contextual marketing is the strategy of personalizing the online marketing content that a user sees, based on who they are and what they’re doing.
- Conversational marketing
Conversational marketing revolves around talking to people. Conversations that prioritize the consumer can focus on a product, service or particular pain point.
Those conversations allow brands to market themselves in a more meaningful, impactful manner.
It hinges on the belief that selling is easier when a business has a good relationship with their target audience.
- Conversion rate marketing
Conversion rate marketing is any form of marketing that’s judged by how much money it makes [its conversion rate].
The advantage of conversion rate marketing is that it’s very honest.
The disadvantage of it is that doesn’t allow wiggle room for building relationships with a target audience.
- Cooperative marketing
Cooperative marketing happens when 2 or more companies team up to sell a product or service.
That collaboration could happen in a number of ways. Of course, multiple businesses may come up with an agreement to sell a product.
But also, cooperative marketing could be as simple as pooling resources [such as time, money, knowledge or expertise].
- Corporate marketing
Corporate marketing is about marketing [and managing] brand perception.
Corporate marketing is more about a high level interpretation of a brand than it is about how an individual product or service is marketed.
- Cross media marketing
Quite simply, cross media marketing refers to putting a marketing message in front of a customer in a variety of forms.
Usually, that means print, email, mobile and online.
The challenge for marketers is that we’re all inundated with advertising every day. People tune out to the majority of ads.
Cross media marketing aims is to continually catch customers and put a company’s name or product in front of them [without being annoying or invasive.]
- Cultural marketing
Cultural marketing is marketing that’s specifically geared towards a particular culture or demographic.
This is the most effective type of marketing segmentation.
Cultural marketing is also known as diversity marketing [number 50] or ethnic marketing [number 56].
- Data marketing
Data marketing is using large sets of data to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
It’s similar to database marketing [number 42], but data marketing puts a greater emphasis on behavioral patterns and trends.
- Database marketing
Database marketing is the process of collecting and analysing customer information to implement marketing strategies that make money.
A business can use a database of customers [or potential customers] to segment their audience and create personalised marketing messages.
It’s a form of direct marketing [see number 47] that can be executed with any method.
- De-marketing
As strange as it might sound, businesses sometimes market certain offers and promotions to reduce demand or limit growth.
Normally, this happens in a retail environment.
- Defensive marketing
Defensive marketing is any form of marketing that is designed to protect a company’s position in a market.
Maybe a start-up needs to grow. Or an innovative business has developed an amazing product with a brilliant USP.
Perhaps a company has seen a new rival emerge.
- Differential marketing
If a company decides to segment their audience and target their markets differently, they’ll use differential marketing.
- Digital marketing
Digital marketing is marketing that uses digital technology, such as websites, smartphones, tablets and display advertising.
- Direct marketing
Direct marketing is using a range of mediums to sell products or services directly to consumers [as opposed to selling via a retailer].
- Direct mail marketing
Direct mail marketing is communicating with audiences via flyers and letters through the post.
Companies will usually send marketing collateral to a particular demographic.
- Disruptive marketing
Disruptive marketing is all about finding a new and better angle for a product, either from adapting a marketing strategy, changing a product or creating something innovative.
- Diversity marketing
Diversity marketing is more commonly known as ethnic marketing.
It refers to acknowledging that consumers have diverse backgrounds and that by tailoring messaging, businesses can potentially make more sales.
- Door-to-door marketing
Door-to-door marketing is the technique for going from one person’s house to another, pitching a product or service.
- Drip marketing
Drip marketing is sending out a scheduled set of promotional emails to a mailing list [advertising a product or service].
It’s basically automated email marketing [number 54].
- Ecommerce marketing
Ecommerce marketing is all about increasing awareness of an online store’s brand and inventory.
Ecommerce marketing can take place online and offline.
- Email marketing
Email marketing is marketing your brand to a group of prospects.
Businesses normally have a mailing list of clients and leads. Emails help establish and maintain relationships so that deals can be made.
- Entrepreneurial marketing
Entrepreneurial marketing is about sole individuals executing mainstream marketing strategies.
Entrepreneurial marketing is more about having a particular mindset than execute any particular strategy.
- Ethnic marketing
Ethnic marketing stems from understanding that we’re not all the same.
In other words, we’re all individuals and marketing messages will work well with some people and communities, but not others [and vice versa].
But if a business can segment their audience, they can create bespoke marketing messages that are more effective.
It’s also known as cultural marketing [number 40] or diversity marketing [number 50].
- Evangelism marketing
If a business can create customers who will voluntarily become brand advocates, it can execute evangelism marketing.
Getting a happy customer to talk about a brand is going to be extremely effective in establishing trust with prospective consumers.
- Event marketing
Event marketing is when a business leverages an event to increase brand awareness and drive sales.
- Expeditionary marketing
Expeditionary marketing describes the concept of marketing for growth.
It’s a form of risk taking. If a business wants to move into a new market, it should use expeditionary marketing to achieve its goals.
- Experiential marketing
What is experiential marketing?
Experiential marketing is marketing a brand, product or service through some sort of immersive experience.
It’s a powerful and highly effective type of marketing because experiential events directly engage with people. Good experiences are memorable.
- Facebook marketing
Facebook marketing is any form of marketing that takes place on the social media platform Facebook.
This form of marketing can be extremely lucrative because Facebook has around 1.79billion active users.
- Field marketing
Field marketing is marketing face-to-face with prospective customers at a particular place.
It’s a direct marketing [number 47] discipline. It could mean distributing flyers to the general public at a shopping mall. But it might also be liaising with regular business clients at their head office.
Field marketing professionals will often find themselves specializing in a certain area [or ‘field’].
- Flanking marketing
Flanking marketing is marketing that aims to capture market segments that aren’t being well served by the existing competition.
The idea is that a business will spot an area of a marketing that seems to be of little importance to a rival. It’ll then market itself to try and displace the competition.
Flanking strategies are particularly useful if your business is struggling to compete against bigger companies.
- Free sample marketing
Free sample marketing is about giving away a sample of a product, with the aim of selling all of it at a later date.
- Freebie marketing
Freebie marketing is the act of giving away a product or service [or selling it at a very low cost] to boost sales of something else.
- Geographic marketing [or geo-marketing]
Geo marketing involves incorporating geographical intelligence within a marketing campaign.
If a business knows through collecting data that the majority of the customers live in a particular city, it can market directly to them.
Because it’s based on facts and statistics, geographic marketing helps lower the risk of marketing campaigns failing.
- Global marketing
Global marketing is simply marketing something internationally.
Thanks to the wide reach of the internet, global marketing is no longer reserved for big corporations. It’s something you can do from home.
- Goods marketing
What is goods marketing?
Businesses use goods marketing to increase the sales of a physical product [not a service].
Marketing can generally be divided into 2 areas:
Goods marketing and services marketing [number 133 on this list].
Companies either sell products or services. As such, their marketing strategies change accordingly.
- Green marketing
Green marketing is using an environmentally friendly angle to promote a brand or product.
In today’s climate, if a product is deemed to be ‘green’, it gives the product owner a significant selling advantage.
- Guerrilla marketing
Guerrilla marketing is marketing a brand, product or service in a creative and unconventional manner.
A successful guerrilla marketing campaign will be interesting, surprising and memorable.
- Horizontal marketing
Horizontal marketing happens when a business teams up with another company that operates in a related niche to market a product or service.
By collaborating and pooling resources, the idea is to appeal to a wide audience and maximize earning potential.
- Humanistic marketing
Humanistic marketing is marketing that appeals to the typical human needs for certain values and feelings.
In other words, marketing that targets our desire for love, altruism, knowledge, compassion, honesty, integrity, empathy, respect, trust and justice.
- Inbound marketing
Inbound marketing focuses on customers who find you, not the other way round.
The main inbound marketing strategy is SEO.
If you rank highly in a search result for a commercially valuable keyword, you attract traffic [and potential leads] to your website.
- Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is the concept of marketing something to a specific person, someone who has a degree of influence over a certain audience.
That person is normally a market leader, or someone with a particular influence over a market.
An influencer could be a celebrity, a person with a strong track record in sales, a well-known author or someone with a lot of Twitter followers.
- Informational marketing
Informational marketing explains exactly what a product or service is.
From what the benefits are and why it should be chosen over something else through to where you can buy it, informational marketing leaves no stone unturned.
Informational marketing means understanding that a target audience may have to be educated about a product or service if they are to buy it.
Informational marketing isn’t really in vogue at the moment. The trend is to use simpler, more emotional marketing.
- In-game marketing
In-game marketing is the tactic of advertising something inside a game.
Games consoles and games on apps are all the rage these days, so businesses can get pretty creative with where they place static ads and promotional videos.
The great thing about marketing a product within a game is that you can pretty much guarantee you’ll get eyes on your ad.
The trick is to marry up the right ad with the appropriate audience.
- Industrial marketing
Industrial marketing happens when one business tries to sell industrial products or services to another.
For clarity, an industrial product or service is anything that helps produce an end product from raw materials.
It’s a form of B2B marketing [number 15], but because of the nature of what’s being sold, an industrial marketing campaign requires a high level of product knowledge.
- In-store marketing
In-store marketing is any marketing that takes place in a retail shop.
It’s another name for shopper marketing [number 136].
- Integrated marketing
Integrated marketing is the strategy of trying to create a seamless experience for a consumer, no matter how they’re interacting with a brand.
In other words, no business should have a website that looks a certain way and a marketing campaign that feels like it belongs somewhere else.
To that end, integrated marketing is more of a philosophy than a tactic.
- Interactive marketing
Interactive marketing is any form of marketing that can be triggered when someone performs a particular action.
- International marketing
International marketing is, as you’d imagine, marketing a product or service in multiple countries.
Some products or services are only designed to be sold locally, but others can be marketed anywhere.
It’s another name for global marketing [number 67].
- Internet marketing
Internet marketing is any marketing that takes place online.
It’s the opposite of offline marketing [number 99].
It’s quite a broad term, since it covers a wide range of marketing practices, such as content marketing, SEO, PPC and email marketing.
For clarity, internet marketing is the same thing as online marketing [number 101].
- Left-brain marketing
Left-brain marketing is marketing that appeals to a practical audience.
Science tells us that right-brained people are creative, whilst left-brainers are more methodical.
Left-brain marketing values organization over creativity.
- Local marketing
Quite simply, local marketing is the strategy of marketing something to a nearby audience.
It’s an approach that’s most commonly used by a bricks and mortar shop or restaurant.
- Long tail marketing
Long tail marketing refers to the strategy of targeting a large number of niche markets with a product or service.
It’s mainly used by businesses that are dominated by a huge market leader.
Facing a battle to grow, a company can shift their focus to multiple niche markets that have less demand.
- Loyalty marketing
Loyalty marketing is marketing that concentrates on retaining customers through offering various incentives.
The logic of loyalty marketing hinges on the belief that the cost of acquiring new customers is far more that the price of keeping an existing one.
- Mass marketing
Mass marketing is marketing with the intention of selling something to as many people as possible.
There’s no requirement for building relationships or bespoke messaging; the focus is on volume sales.
- Mega marketing
Mega marketing is a marketing activity that’s designed to influence a third party power, one that can hugely impact a company’s revenue.
Such third parties could be:
- The government
- The media
- Pressure groups
- Policy holders
- Mobile marketing
Mobile marketing is any marketing that’s specifically designed for mobile consumption.
Mobile advertising is incredibly important in today’s world, since we carry and use our smartphones constantly.
Potential customers have never been so accessible.
- Multi-level marketing [MLM]
Multi-level marketing is a way of making money through selling products to consumers and by recruiting other people to do the same.
Also called network marketing [number 94], multi-level marketing is more of a business model than a marketing strategy.
- Network marketing
Network marketing is a marketing strategy that aims to generate revenue from selling goods to customers, but also by building a team of people under you who will do the same.
Network marketing is another name for multi-level marketing [number 90].
- Neuromarketing
Neuromarketing is the study of how our brains react to different forms of marketing [with a view to making marketing more effective].
- New media marketing
New media marketing is marketing through the latest mediums.
Whether we’re talking about online trends, social media or digital advertising, new media marketing embraces technology.
- Newsletter marketing
Newsletter marketing is promoting your company through emails.
Whether you call it newsletter marketing or email marketing [number 54] is just semantics.
- Next-best-action marketing
Next-best-action marketing is about being able to offer a relevant product or service to a customer if they’ve already said no to something else.
The point is, we’ve all passed up on a deal only to be offered something identical further down the line.
- Niche marketing
Companies use niche marketing when they spot a gap in the market for a product or service that would only apply to a particular audience.
A good product in a niche market can often make more money than an average one in a mass market.
- Non-traditional marketing
Non-traditional marketing is about being daring to be different with your marketing strategies.
This approach is risky, but can pay off.
- Offensive marketing
Offensive marketing happens when a brand attacks the weaknesses of a competitor whilst highlighting their own strengths.
- Offline marketing
Offline marketing is marketing that happens away from the internet, stuff like could be talking about television commercials, billboards, radio ads, flyers or newspaper pullouts.
- One-to-one marketing
One-to-one marketing is marketing that interacts directly and independently with a customer.
Businesses who use one-to-one marketing believe that bespoke, personalised marketing messages are more likely to foster greater customer loyalty.
- Online marketing
Online marketing is any marketing that takes place online. From emails to websites, social media to press releases, it’s all online marketing.
Online marketing is the same thing as internet marketing [number 82].
- Organization marketing
This marketing discipline exists to create, maintain or change a public opinion of an organization.
- Outbound marketing
Outbound marketing promotes a product or service to people who weren’t looking to buy anything.
Outbound marketing is the opposite of inbound marketing [number 73].
- Outdoor marketing
Outdoor marketing is marketing that takes place outside.
- Out-of-home marketing
Out-of-home marketing is advertising that’s specifically designed to reach customers when they’re not at home.
It’s another name for outdoor marketing [number 104].
- Partnership marketing
Partnership marketing is about collaborating with a person or business because they have a relationship with an area of a market that you’re interested in selling to.
By partnering with somebody, you’re able to introduce your brand to a new audience.
- Performance marketing
Performance marketing is digital marketing that only costs businesses money when it delivers a tangible result.
Depending on what a company wants to measure, performance marketing is judged on the number of sales, leads, clicks and impressions.
- Permission marketing
Permission marketing is selling goods and services to someone who has specifically agreed [in advance] to receive marketing information.
Businesses will clearly be able to sell more things to people who are open to be sold to, but the issue with permission marketing is one of scalability.
- Person marketing
The goal of person marketing is to create, maintain or change a public opinion of someone.
In particular, this strategy is used to promote celebrities, politicians and sports personalities.
- Personalised marketing
Just as it sounds, personalised marketing revolves around creating bespoke messages for customers.
The logic being, the more relevant a business can be to a person, the greater the chance of selling.
There’s no doubt that personalised marketing is incredibly effective; the issue with it is one of scalability.
- Persuasion marketing
Persuasion marketing is marketing that uses what we know about human psychology to manipulate how we feel about stuff.
As a business, it’s very easy to churn out marketing schtick without any real appreciation of selling.
Ultimately, no matter what the industry, people buy from people. Marketing that accurately grasps how humans think is more likely to work.
- Place marketing
Place marketing to create, maintain or change a public opinion of a place.
- Point-of-sale marketing
Point-of-sale marketing is the strategy of increasing sales at the precise time that someone buys something.
Point-of-sale marketing takes place by or near a till. It requires signage, merchandise displays and a good offer.
- Post-click marketing
Post-click marketing is marketing that engages website visitors after they’ve clicked on an online advertisement.
Digital marketers are obsessed with how many clicks they can generate. It’s the metric that even the top advertisers love to measure.
- Pay-per-click [PPC] marketing
PPC marketing is the strategy of paying for website traffic.
A company can place ads and only pay for them once someone has clicked on the ad and gone through to the website in question.
The price of the click will depend on how competitive the subject matter is.
PPC marketing is a type of internet marketing [number 82].
- PR marketing
PR marketing is working with the media in order to increase brand or product awareness.
- Product marketing
Product marketing is a type of marketing that tries to drive demand and usage of a product.
It’s quite a broad term.
For some people, it means marketing product features effectively.
- Promotional marketing
Promotional marketing aims to give customers an extra reason for purchasing a product or service.
Typical promotional marketing strategies would include contests, giveaways, discounts and samples.
- Proximity marketing
Proximity marketing takes place when businesses are able to communicate with consumers when they’re on the go.
It utilizes location technology [like Bluetooth or WiFi] and allows companies to connect with the public if they have a portable device [like a smartphone].
Proximity marketing is often effective because it helps businesses deliver more relevant advertising.
- Pull marketing
Pull marketing is any form of marketing that generates leads in a non-intrusive way.
It’s the opposite of push marketing [number 121].
- Push marketing
Push marketing is an aggressive, intrusive marketing strategy that pushes a product or service onto an audience who may not have been aware of it previously.
It’s the opposite of pull marketing [number 120].
- Real-time marketing
Real-time marketing is any marketing strategy that uses up-to-date information.
You can’t plan real-time marketing. Instead, a real-time marketing strategy must be focused on current trends.
- Referral marketing
Referral marketing is using an existing customer to bring in new customers.
Also known as word-of-mouth marketing [number 158], referral marketing is extremely powerful, but success hard to predict.
- Relationship marketing
Relationship marketing is about establishing, maintaining and nurturing relationships with consumers.
It’s a long-term play that focuses on customer loyalty and engagement, rather than acquisition.
- Remarketing
Remarketing helps businesses communicate with people who have previously visited a website.
It’s powerful because if someone has been on a website before, they’re predisposed to that brand. In other words, they’re warm prospects.
- Reply marketing
Reply marketing is marketing that prompts people to respond quickly if they want to take advantage of an offer.
- Retail marketing
Retail marketing is the promotion of goods and services in a retail environment.
It’s a very broad term that covers branding, pricing, packaging and promotions. Retail marketing is another name for shopper marketing [number 136].
- Reverse marketing
Rather than actively promoting a specific brand, product or service, reverse marketing aims to encourage people to seek out a business, product or service of their own accord.
In other words, reverse marketing doesn’t exist to convince someone to buy something. Instead, it causes intrigue and attracts interest.
- Scarcity marketing
Scarcity marketing is marketing that capitalizes on a customer’s fear of missing out on something.
It’s based on the psychological principle that people want what is difficult to acquire.
Stores always have sales that are ‘ending soon’. Or they offer discounts that expire on a certain date.
- Scientific marketing
Scientific marketing is the discipline of improving ROI by analyzing and testing market data and statistics.
- Seasonal marketing
Season marketing is marketing products or services at certain points of the year.
That could be Christmas, Easter or Thanksgiving, but seasonal marketing doesn’t have to coincide with an ‘official’ event.
Many businesses will flourish at certain points in the year and struggle at others.
- Search marketing
Search marketing is generating traffic and leads from appearing in search engine results. Search marketing can either use free or paid strategies.
Search marketing tactics won’t cost a thing if you implement search engine optimization [or SEO] techniques.
The alternative is to pay search engines to advertise in potentially lucrative positions online.
- Self-marketing
Self-marketing is the process of promoting a person rather than a product.
It’s effective because leads are more likely to buy from a person that they know and trust than from a faceless brand.
- Services marketing
Marketing is divided into 2 areas:
Good marketing [number 68] and services marketing.
Basically, services marketing is any marketing technique that’s applied in a service-based industry.
But the term ‘service’ is pretty broad. By service industry, I mean any place where a service is offered from one party to another.
- Shadow marketing
Shadow marketing is the act of cutting corners with your marketing because, for one reason or another, you can’t execute your campaign properly.
If you can’t spare the time to make a brochure look nice, you might have to rush the job.
Perhaps you don’t have access to adequate resources, so instead of including stylish artwork in your brochure, you use low quality stock images.
Maybe you have to resort to more underhand tactics. If you’ve seen a nice brochure online, could you just copy that?
Regardless, shadow marketing is still something you hope won’t come back to bite you.
- Shopper marketing
Shopper marketing is the art of promoting goods or services in a retail environment.
It’s the same as retail marketing [number 127].
- Shotgun marketing
Shotgun marketing is the theory of marketing to as many people as possible.
It’s another term for mass marketing [number 87]. Shotgun marketing usually attracts a large number of leads, but they’re usually of a lower quality.
- Social marketing
Social marketing is marketing activities that intend to influence people to take actions that will benefit both themselves and the communities they live in.
- Social media marketing
As you’d probably expect, social media marketing is marketing your business through one or more social media platforms.
For some businesses, that might mean actually advertising products or services on social media. But for others, it could be more about generating traffic and brand awareness.
- Sports marketing
A sports marketing campaign revolves around using a sports event or team to promote a product or service.
Many sports have a massive global appeal, which can in turn have an impact on sales.
- Stealth marketing
Stealth marketing is advertising something to a person, without them realizing they’re being marketed to.
It’s a low cost strategy that can be really valuable to a business, but the issue with stealth marketing is one of ethics.
- Street marketing
Street marketing is all about advertising products in unconventional ways in public places.
It’s a great way of capturing attention and enhancing a brand image.
- Synchro marketing
Synchro marketing is the art of offering some sort of offer or pricing promotion in industries that don’t see steady sales all year round.
- Targeted marketing
Targeted marketing is marketing that’s extremely focused on a well-defined audience.
The success of a targeted marketing campaign is highly dependent on being able to reach those potential customers.
- Technical marketing
Technical marketing is marketing that focuses on the key specifications and features of a product.
Normally, marketing should avoid the use of jargon or inside information. But crucially, technical marketing is designed to appeal to people with a basic technical appreciation of a product.
- Telemarketing
Telemarketing is cold calling people and marketing something to them.
It’s a form of direct marketing [number 47]. In general, most people don’t like getting cold-called, so it’s a difficult marketing discipline to master.
- Test-driven marketing
Test-driven marketing is all about using test results to convince consumers to buy a product or invest in a service.
The idea is that a business should attempt to identify potential objections about a product or service.
Then they should run tests and use various proof elements to clarify product features and USPs. In turn, this should increase sales.
- Time marketing
Time marketing involves marketing something at a certain time or within a particular time frame.
Want to increase your ROI? Many products sink or swim depending on when a business decides to advertise them.
A time marketing campaign might just revolve around using common sense, or it could use the results from time research.
- Trade marketing
Trade marketing is any marketing approach used by manufacturers that helps promote [and ultimately sell] a product.
Trade marketing will target customers, retailers, wholesalers, distributors… or a combination.
- Traditional marketing
Traditional marketing is any marketing strategy that’s been around for a long time.
- Transactional marketing
Transactional marketing is marketing that focuses on increasing the efficiency and volume of individual sales [rather than on establishing and maintaining a relationship with customers].
Increasing sales might sound like a good idea, but transactional marketing can come across as very impersonal, so you’d have to question its longevity.
- Undercover marketing
Undercover marketing is using intrigue to coax interest for something. Undercover marketing is designed to tease people and tap into the human desire to know more.
Consumers are often more engaged when marketers reveal partial information about a product and not give away the whole game.
- User-generated marketing
User-generated marketing can be defined as any strategy that allows consumers to participate in a marketing campaign.
By creating a more interactive and engaging experience for a target audience, user-generated marketing is as much a PR exercise as anything else.
It’s a very cost-effective marketing tactic that can transform a business into a brand.
- Vertical marketing
A vertical market is a specific market or niche, so vertical marketing is any marketing collateral that targets a particular group of people.
- Video marketing
Video marketing is the use of video to advertise a product or service.
Video marketing is extremely effective these days for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, people love to watch videos. And secondly, technology has made watching videos incredibly easy.
- Viral marketing
Viral marketing is the act of having a message spread quickly through various social media networks. The aim of viral marketing is to increase brand awareness… fast.
Viral marketing campaigns don’t last long, but they can be extremely effective.
- Voice marketing
Voice marketing involves using a particular tone of voice to maximize product sales.
The way a company speaks to consumers is just as important as how it looks and what it sells.
A business can have the perfect product, but if it doesn’t communicate with their target audience effectively, everything else is futile.
- Word-of-mouth marketing
Word-of-mouth marketing is when happy customers recommend a brand, product or service without the business doing anything.
Clearly, it’s one of the best types of marketing.
- Youth marketing
Youth marketing is any marketing strategy that’s directed towards young people.
One thought on “159 Types of Marketing (A-Z)”