When we think of marketing strategies, many people instantly think of commercials, print ads, social media ads, etc. While these are some of the more popular marketing strategies, there are a variety of other ones that work just as well if not better. Let’s take a look at the different types of marketing strategies and learn which ones you should try to help improve your efforts.
What Is a Marketing Strategy
First let’s discuss what a marketing strategy is. All types of companies use marketing strategies to advertise and interact with their consumers and are typically used to inform customers of the features, specifications, and benefits of the company’s products. A marketing strategy aims to motivate the target population to buy a specific product or service you are offering. Strategies come in many forms and are constantly evolving in order to get a leg up on the competition.
Types of Marketing Strategies
Now let’s take a closer look at some different types of marketing strategies and how they’re used to help market a product or service to the masses. Remember, there is no one size fits all approach with marketing strategies, some work better than others depending on the service offering or product. Be sure to test different strategies to help you find the one that works best for you.
Paid Advertising
This is typically the most common strategy among marketers as it places your ads where they can be seen by thousands of people, the only catch is it costs money to get that visibility. Previously this type of strategy was reserved for print ads, TV, and radio. Nowadays, you’re able to pay for top spots on search engines, websites, and social media platforms to help advertise your business. Just like TV ads, you’ll have to pay a pretty penny to show up often in the top spot.
Typically this strategy works very well for companies who can afford it on a monthly basis. The leads are typically more top of the funnel, but you often reach way more people and can increase your brand awareness significantly.
Relationship Marketing
Relationship marketing emphasizes long-term customer engagement rather than short-term goals like acquisition of new customers or individual sales. By creating strong, even emotional, customer connections with a brand, relationship marketing (or customer relationship marketing) can result in ongoing business, free word-of-mouth advertising, and lead generation from customers.
Word Of Mouth
Word-of-mouth marketing is when people talk about their experiences with a company’s product or service in their daily conversations. It is free publicity, sparked by the customer’s reaction to great service or a good product. Companies can influence this marketing by giving consumers chances to engage and communicate with one another, as well as the business itself. This strategy includes buzz marketing, viral marketing, blogging, user generated content, and other social media tactics.
Transactional Marketing
Selling is one of the most challenging jobs, even for the largest retailers. However, with the new marketing strategies, selling has become less difficult than it once was. With shopping coupons, discounts and large events, retailers encourage customers to buy. It increases the chances of sales and motivates the target audience to purchase the promoted products.
Content Marketing
If a company wants to succeed in this digital era, it needs a solid content marketing strategy. Companies can use content marketing strategies to focus their efforts on creating content, target their audience more effectively, and measure the results of their campaigns in order to adjust their approach when necessary. This is a great strategy to help inform, entertain, and engage your target audience.
Public Relations Marketing
Public relations marketing is a strategy that seeks to employ PR techniques in order to shape public opinion, cultivate trustworthiness and generate an optimistic view of a company or entity. PR is employed to effectively reach particular audiences and supplement other marketing approaches such as advertising, online marketing or direct mail campaigns.
The Takeaway
There are a variety of marketing strategies that you can use to help improve your advertising. Whether you’re looking to increase conversation about your company, increase sales, or improve customer loyalty, many of the above strategies will work for you. Be sure to conduct ample research and develop a plan of action before diving into these different strategies.
Additionally, try incorporating more than one of these strategies into your marketing mix. The more diverse you are the more it will help you reach customers in different locations and better define where you should focus your efforts.