12 Types of Marketing Your Company Can Benefit From

From the moment the first newspaper advertisement appeared in 1704, marketing has been an ever-present reality in Americans’ daily lives as businesses have sought to raise awareness of their products and services — and gain an advantage over their competitors.

Marketing has also continually evolved. In 1922, the first radio ad aired, and it was followed 19 years later by the first television ad. From that point forward, businesses continued to get more sophisticated and savvy.

In 1983, the advent of the Internet signaled a new age of marketing, one that’s given us social media and search engine optimization — not to mention email and content marketing. While studies have shown that most people don’t mind watching televised ads, companies began spending more on digital ads than traditional ads in 2019 and, just a year later, advertisers were spending $151 billion on digital ads vs. $107 billion on televised ones.

So yes, marketing is vastly different than it once was, but the goal remains the same: raise brand awareness, attract customers and remain a step ahead of the competition. At the same time, it is important to note that, while digital marketing has risen to prominence, there remains a place for traditional marketing. One study revealed that marketing campaigns combining digital and traditional elements are 400 percent more effective than those that do not.

Why Do Businesses Need Marketing?

Marketing is essential because it engages and informs potential customers, enables brand enhancement and builds stronger relationships with existing customers. The bottom line is greater profits, greater brand recognition anda healthy, growing company.

The more potential customers know about a company’s product (not to mention the company’s reputation), the more likely they are to buy from that company. Assuming a positive product experience, this also builds brand loyalty which, in turn, helps the company understand its customer base better through behavioral/transactional data collected. With this data, the company can make better decisions and set achievable goals.

David Mahbub, founder and CEO of the Mexico City-based marketing and advertising firm Wakkamole, wrote in a November 2020 piece for Forbes that it has been especially important to build relationships with customers during the pandemic — that it is “the best investment a brand can make.”

He added that brands have proliferated during the pandemic, making it essential for a company to differentiate itself through its marketing strategy:

That is why a digital marketing bootcamp can be so helpful, as it teaches learners how to develop digital marketing strategies, build audiences, analyze metrics and optimize workflows.

Marketing Mediums: Traditional Marketing vs. Digital Marketing

Broadly speaking, digital marketing involves online strategies and newer technologies, while traditional marketing encompasses ads that appear in newspapers and magazines, as well as on television, radio and even billboards. Conversely, digital marketing involves website content, social media posts, content marketing, and online ads.

The internet’s ubiquity and reach make digital campaigns appealing. Statista reports that, as of January 2021, there were 4.66 billion active internet users in the world and 4.15 billion social media users. Moreover, it is estimated that U.S. adults will spend nearly eight hours a day immersed in their digital devices in 2021, compared to just over five hours in traditional devices — and this disparity is expected to increase in the years to come.

Digital marketing is also more cost-effective and ROI-positive than traditional approaches.

At the same time, there still remains a use for traditional marketing. That’s especially true for those businesses targeting a certain geographic area or a certain age demographic. Adults aged 65 and older are three times as likely to read a newspaper than those between 18 and 34.

However, it would be a mistake to discount younger viewers when it comes to TV marketing. According to Statista, those between the ages of 18 and 34 account for 55 percent of that audience, compared to 43 percent between 35 and 54. Moreover, Nielsen reports greater trust in TV and radio ads than those that appear online.

The trend toward digital marketing is only growing, and those looking to transition into a career in digital marketing need a blend of hard skills (i.e., design thinking, data analysis) and soft skills (e.g., empathy, people skills, creativity) to succeed. Programs such as Berkeley Digital Marketing Boot Camp offer in-demand, practical skills while teaching students the necessary soft skills to set them up for success in the workplace.

Five Types of Traditional Marketing

Seven Types of Digital Marketing

Search engine optimization (SEO) involves increasing a website’s visibility so that the site can be more easily discovered by potential customers using search engines such as Google. There are many ways of increasing website visibility, but at the very top of the list is achieving keyword density so that a given site ranks higher among the top search results when a user receives their search engine results, called the search engine results page (SERP).

This is important because 67.6 percent of the 3.5 billion Google searches undertaken daily result in the user clicking on one of the first five results — with users clicking on the first result on the SERP 32 percent of the time. What does that mean for a business? SEO marketing is the most profitable form of digital marketing, and its close rate of 14.6 percent is eight times greater than that of traditional marketing.

Given that 82 percent of the U.S. population uses at least one social media platform, it only stands to reason that businesses would employ social media as a means to raise brand awareness and engage potential customers. They conduct this form of marketing aware that different audiences gravitate toward different platforms. Millennials and Gen Z, for example, are more likely to use Instagram, while Boomers and Gen X are more apt to use Facebook. YouTube, however, tends to reach across a broader range of demographics.

The result is that various platforms have served as forums for companies’ marketing efforts. Apple’s #ShotOniPhone campaign resulted in 21.5 million photos being posted to Instagram. Another example is Spotify’s “#yearwrapped” campaign, where the Spotify app shows you your most listened to artists, genres, and songs; garnering some 60 million users on Instagram Stories.

Also of note was the Planters Peanuts Twitter campaign surrounding the death of Mr. Peanut in 2020. That approach was successful because it was so off-beat, and led to the birth of a meme, not to mention 50,000 retweets.

Email might appear to be an outdated mode of digital marketing, but consider that four billion people around the globe use this means of communication. Nearly every one of them — 99 percent, according to one calculation — checks it at least once a day. Small wonder that nine of every ten content marketers see email engagement as the most important metric.

Here is the most telling statistic of all — every dollar spent on email marketing led to an average return of $42 (as of 2019). Such campaigns take many forms.

For example, Buzzfeed communications are often viewed as entertaining and user-friendly due to their newsletter editor following several key steps. Among the more important ones are writing catchy subject lines, preheaders and headlines; including appealing GIFs and content with broad-based appeal. Specifically, Dan Oshinsky (Buzzfeed Newsletter Editor) says he composes every email with a 20-something friend and his mom in mind. If he believes both would be interested, he’s quite certain the email will be well-received by a wider audience.

Netflix also has a successful email approach which uses subscriber preference data to curate communication content. For example, if you’ve watched 70 percent of a given series, you are likely to receive suggestions about what to watch next based on your previous viewing history. Netflix also uses 250 machine-learning-based tests a year to determine which emails are most effective against a variety of KPIs.

Yet another example is the email strategy used by Amazon which relies on simplicity, clarity and consumer curiosity. The email provides several questions that consumers can ask Alexa, Amazon’s virtual assistant/smart home device. The goal is to encourage the consumer to engage with Alexa more often in a fun way, which engrains the technology in the consumer’s lifestyle and facilitates ongoing engagement with additional Amazon products and services.

In content marketing, brands are taking on the role of publishers and creating compelling, consistent content that addresses topics and needs potential customers might have. Such content might be visual, like State Farm’s ads, which use humor to establish a certain resonance with viewers. Still, the content is just as likely to be written — as is the case with a blog by Recreation Equipment, Inc., which is informative and keyword-rich, thus drawing a considerable amount of traffic.

A study undertaken in 2019 revealed that content marketing enabled companies to land on 434 percent more search engine results pages (SERPS) than those that did not and led to 97 percent more backlinks. Moreover, eight of every 10 B2B buyers preferred to learn about a brand via written content instead of ads, and six of every 10 said that thought leadership was preferable.

Eighty percent of brands, including such recognizable companies as Amazon, eBay and Home Depot, engage in this practice, enlisting websites or bloggers to promote products. These affiliates, which may run ads or links, are paid only according to sales converted.

In the case of eBay, it collaborated with a company known as Glory Cycles, a shop that has peddled bicycles and related equipment since its founding in 2001. The result is that both companies have benefited. Glory Cycles, in fact, recently showed a year-over-year increase in eBay revenue of over 2,000 percent.

Affiliate marketing is estimated to be worth $12 billion globally, and by 2022, it is expected to be worth $8 billion in the U.S. alone. It is even estimated that 16 percent of ecommerce can be traced to this practice.

Paid marketing, sometimes called digital advertising, is advertising purchased across social media and search engine results pages (SERPs). It enables brands to target consumers according to their interests or queries — a logical approach, given that there are 75,000 Google searches per second — and that 87 percent of retail purchases made online or in person begin with an online search. In addition, digital content plays a role in two of every three B2B purchases.

Paid marketing can take many forms. Search engine marketing (SEM) involves purchasing text-heavy ads that appear at the top or bottom of search results, while display ads bear some similarities to their traditional counterparts. They are more graphics-heavy and appear on websites of interest to a given audience.

Generally, SEM is geared toward new customers and builds brand awareness, while the aim of display advertising is to increase the brand awareness of customers who already know something about a company.

Influencers can be big-name celebrities like Cristiano Ronaldo, Ariana Grande, or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Other examples include comedian Whindersson Nunes or makeup artist Huda Kattan. Anyone endorsing a product to a dedicated social media following falls into the “influencer” category, and this marketing method has only increased in popularity in recent years — from $1.7 billion in 2016 to an estimated $13.8 billion in 2021. Consequently, many young people see this as a possible career path. One poll showed that 54 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 38 are interested in becoming influencers.

There are different types of influencers. Nano influencers, for instance, are those with fewer than 10,000 followers, while micro-influencers are those who have between 10,000 and 50,000. Further categorization varies, but one outlet defined macro-influencers as those having over 150,000 followers and mega influencers as having over 500,000. Brands have increasingly focused their marketing efforts on smaller influencers, as they tend to be more available, more cost-effective and more focused on a specific clientele.

Seeking a career in digital marketing? Berkeley Digital Marketing Boot Camp will enable you to gain necessary experience while populating a professional portfolio to share with prospective employers.

Most Effective Types of Marketing Strategies

Digital marketing strategies are fast becoming brands’ preferred method for connecting with potential customers. According to Berkeley Digital Marketing Boot Camp’s article, the five most in-demand marketing skills are search-engine optimization, content marketing, video (e.g., ad-based multimedia), marketing analytics and social media.

There are nonetheless advantages to combining traditional marketing strategies with digital marketing strategies, the simplest being this: Even in an age when digital consumption is rampant, consumers are offline on occasion, and thus exposed to traditional marketing. It remains a sound method for attracting and converting consumers.

An example would be the manner in which video content is consumed. While streaming services like Netflix are all the rage, Nielsen reports that viewers still spend 64 percent of their time watching network and cable TV, meaning that they are still exposed to the ads that appear on such outlets.

It’s also worth noting that while smartphones are always within reach, consumers are inundated with traditional forms of marketing. The average American household receives 454 pieces of direct mail a year, and each piece remains within that household for an average of 17 days.

The point remains that traditional marketing is still effective and it can be used side by side with digital marketing.

Marketing Strategy Template

A marketing strategy differs from a marketing plan in that a marketing strategy outlines a company’s overarching scheme for connecting with potential customers. In contrast, a marketing plan refers to the specific steps needed to market a specific product or service (e.g., it is a component of achieving the overall marketing strategy).

Here are the steps to creating a marketing strategy:

Learn the Different Types of Marketing Today

To become a digital marketing professional it is important to learn about all aspects of marketing. This will help you understand the overall marketing field, how digital marketing fits into it, and which areas you are most interested in pursuing. Once you’ve determined the focus that’s right for you, start your marketing journey with Berkeley Digital Marketing Boot Camp and begin your future today!