Types of Marketing Strategies

Nowadays, marketing strategy is a need of every organization or company. It doesn’t matter if you’re the manager of a large multinational company or you’ve just started your first small business. In this article, we’ll walk through different types of marketing strategies that you can use to prospect and grow your brand.

There are various types of marketing strategies, including digital marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, influencer marketing, and traditional marketing. Each strategy employs different tactics and channels to reach and engage with target audiences, depending on the goals and preferences of the business.

The most important and best of these strategies are business-to-business (B2B) & business-to-consumer marketing strategies, digital & traditional marketing strategies, outbound & inbound marketing strategies, word-of-mouth marketing strategies, and more.

So stay with us.

Types of marketing strategies and definitions

In an era when the concept of marketing is becoming more complex and incomprehensible day by day, it’s possible to draw a roadmap to advance marketing goals by using different types of marketing strategies, which can be called strategic marketing.

In fact, strategic marketing or marketing strategy is a subset of branding, which is a set of key elements of strategy and some goals and methods used to achieve them.

What is a marketing strategy?

A marketing strategy refers to an effective approach in which a company attempts to introduce its products and services to potential customers, nurture the audience about them, and encourage them to purchase.

A marketing strategy can be completely innovative or it can be a tried and tested strategy.

Simply put, marketing strategies are the tools marketers use to outline their various campaigns and marketing models to get potential customers interested in their products or services.

Always keep in mind that the marketing strategy should be formed based on the needs, goals, target market, and product or service characteristics of a business and is specific to that particular business.

As a whole, a marketing strategy aimed at understanding your target audience, the company’s objectives, and advertising methods and techniques for better and more prospecting.

However, there are different categories for marketing strategies.

What are the types of marketing strategies?

In general, it’s important to bear in mind that although there are many different marketing strategies, there are two main types of marketing: Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C).

So we start our review with these two.

1. Business-to-customer (B2C) marketing strategy:

As you’ve probably guessed, business-to-consumer marketing occurs when your intent is to sell a product or provide a service to a real consumer.

Accordingly, you have to attract them to your brand and turn them into regular customers with different marketing methods; A customer who purchases a lot and keeps in touch with you.

2. Business-to-business (B2B) marketing strategy:

It seems that the meaning of this kind of strategy is clear to you. Business-to-business marketing is for businesses that offer products or services to other businesses.

For example, they sell wholesale goods or provide marketing services. Consequently, it’s necessary for their marketing to target other businesses and nurture them.

3. Traditional marketing strategy:

Using traditional methods to market a product or service is called traditional marketing. This can include the use of various tools such as television, radio, billboards, catalogs, print or paper marketing, etc.

4. Inbound marketing strategy:

However, in the modern digital world, it’s no longer necessary for you to go to the customers and disturb them so that they might buy from you.

You must be asking what other way to prospect. Inbound marketing!

Inbound marketing means that you spend your money on building a strong brand with the right identity, providing useful information, guidance to potential customers, establishing a relationship with current customers, etc.

Inbound marketing includes different types such as SEO (to make sure customers find you), content marketing, relationship marketing, etc.

5. Outbound marketing strategy:

Sometimes, it’s important for companies and organizations to announce their existence to their potential customers.

This is done by knowing the best advertising methods and targeting prospects.

6. Word-of-mouth marketing strategy:

This type of marketing is completely based on the transfer of information from one person to another through verbal communication.

Word-of-mouth marketing is traditionally the most important type of marketing strategy.

When you provide high-quality products or services to customers, there is a high chance that they’ll recommend your products or services to their friends & relatives and promote your brand.

7. Digital marketing strategy:

Digital marketing probably doesn’t need much introduction.

With the development and expansion of the Internet and IT, a new form of marketing was also formed.

In this regard, marketers have tried to attract the customer’s attention in every possible way. From annoying online pop-up ads to eye-catching graphic banners.

Most online marketing strategies strive to maximize visitor attention.

This marketing strategy encompasses all of online marketing, SEO strategy, social media marketing strategy, social media lead generation, performance marketing, and more.

8. Paid advertising marketing strategy:

This strategy includes several diverse approaches to marketing. That is, from traditional to digital. Therefore, it involves traditional approaches such as TV ads, show ads, and print media ads.

In addition, one of the most well-known marketing approaches is Internet or online marketing, which includes various methods such as PPC, CTR, and Google ads paid advertising.

Why should you learn about different types of marketing strategies?

As a rule of thumb, it’s always good to know what you don’t know.

By knowing different categories of marketing strategies, you can adopt the best advertising methods for your business and also gain more share of the capital market.

Of course, knowing these methods will help you avoid unnecessary trial and error and additional costs as well.

Some people may think that learning about all the marketing strategies will take a lot of time, but they’re completely wrong. Why?

Although there are many types of marketing strategies available to any business, it’s enjoyable to know and read about them all.

In general, we must say that knowing these strategies and techniques is very vital for any marketer and sales representative, manager, and even every ambitious employee.

On top of that, it will undoubtedly help you a lot in business growth and marketing success.

How to create a marketing strategy that works well?

An effective marketing strategy can be created based on the following five-step process:

1. Understanding the market environment and marketing strengths and weaknesses

2. Developing a marketing strategy

3. Coming up with a proper marketing plan

4. Carrying out the marketing plan

5. Monitoring the success of the marketing plan

Based on the marketing strategy process, since a true marketing strategy provides a roadmap for creating and delivering real value to various groups of customers, all successful marketing strategies must begin and end with the customer.

Therefore, marketers must constantly test their assumptions about their clients.

Marketing plan examples and definitions

After learning about the types of marketing strategies and how to write an effective and efficient marketing strategy, let’s review the best marketing plan examples.

But before that, let’s get to know the concept of a marketing plan:

What is a marketing plan?

As the name suggests, a marketing plan is a strategic roadmap that all businesses, from small to large, need to organize, implement, and follow up their marketing strategies in a specific period.

In other words, marketing plans also include various marketing strategies that are used for the activities of different sales and marketing teams in different departments of the company or organization towards the same business goals.

What is the goal of a marketing plan?

If you want to know what the overall purpose is, we have to say that it all comes down to marketing strategies.

That is, writing effective marketing strategies in a completely organized and coherent manner is a marketing plan’s goal.

As such, writing the right marketing plan will help you to:

1. Get on the road to progress

2. Launch and measure successful marketing campaigns

3. Focus on each campaign’s mission, budget, tactics, and buyer personas

4. Easily and quickly step in the path of campaigns

5. Understand the purpose of your marketing

What is the difference between a marketing strategy and a marketing plan?

According to what has been said, a question may occupy your mind here, whether the marketing plan is the same as the marketing strategy or it’s different!

The answer is very simple.

It’s worthwhile to remember that a strategy is completely different from a plan in marketing.

A marketing strategy describes how an organization or company will achieve its objective or execute its mission.

As a matter of fact, a marketing strategy can include marketing campaigns, content, and channels that are used to pursue and accomplish marketing goals and success.

But this is while a marketing plan will consist of one or more marketing strategies that relate each strategy to a larger marketing operation and business goal.

In other words, it is a general framework through which all strategies are drawn up.

For example, a marketing plan in a business can take advantage of three marketing strategies to introduce a product and market it, containing publishing visual content on social media or blogs, holding an event or a webinar on LinkedIn, and running cold email campaigns.

In order to better understand the matter, in the rest of the article, we’ll examine some examples of the marketing plan.

What are the best marketing plan examples?

It’s better to know that depending on the type of company or organization you work in, undoubtedly different marketing plans are used.

Here are some of the best marketing plan examples depending on your needs.

So let’s get started!

1. Mid-term or long-term marketing plan: Forbes Marketing Plan

As mentioned earlier, some marketing plans involve strategies or campaigns that are carried out over a given period.

For example, Forbes has published an excellent marketing plan template that has had nearly 4 million views, according to HubSpot.

Forbes’s marketing plan model presents a marketing roadmap with a completely realistic perspective to marketers.

Furthermore, this plan teaches marketers that there are several critical factors in a marketing plan that should always be considered by them.

These key factors in Forbes’s marketing plan are, as follows:

• Research
• Competitive analysis
• SWOT analysis
• SMART goals
• Milestones
• Target customers
• Target Markets
• Tactics
• Budget
• Message
• Timeline

Since strategies are the heart of a successful marketing plan, the best tactics are used in the Forbes marketer plan, such as

Blogging, articles, brochures, digital ads, banner ads, print ads, websites, direct mail & cold email marketing, events & seminars, inbound marketing, infographics, logos, branding, SEO, surveys & telemarketing, trade shows, word-of-mouth marketing, etc.

2. Social media marketing plan: Shane Snow Marketing Plan

In this type of marketing plan, the channels, campaigns, and tactics used are specifically implemented by social media.

For example, Shane Snow’s marketing plan is a great example of a social media marketing plan.

In Shane Snow’s marketing plan, all energy and resources are invested in social media in order to promote your business.

It’s worth mentioning that the social media marketing plan is based on the paid marketing plan or paid strategies such as paid advertising and PPC, or paid social media ads.

Shane Snow used this marketing plan to promote his new book, The Dream Team.

This type of plan is based on the data-driven content strategy framework and is a great example of social marketing and social strategy optimization.

Some of the goals of this plan are here, which include:

• Encourage more customers to share your content
• Convert more subscribers to buyers
• Increase brand awareness
• Encourage buyers to promote your products to others
• Get more target audience on social media like LinkedIn
• Know your audience better

Snow’s marketing plan is based on a system with a linear and sequential approach called Content Strategy Waterfall, among the tactics used in this plan can be mentioned:

• Performance analysis
• Audience analysis
• CMS or platforms
• Tagging on social media posts
• SEO
• Content patterns
• Automated talent recommendations

What are marketing strategies examples?

Now it’s time to look at some examples of marketing strategies and how they work as part of a marketing plan:

As mentioned, there are different types of marketing strategies that you can make the most of depending on your business needs.

These are some of the main ones you’ll likely encounter:

Example #1: Social media marketing strategy:

One great example of a digital marketing strategy is social media marketing. Today, social media marketing is a huge part of any business’s marketing plan.

Because it’s a very compelling way to drive traffic, build brand awareness, and take advantage of the social awareness that online marketing has taken over.

According to recent research, nearly 55% of social media users leverage social networking platforms like LinkedIn to research and promote brands and products.

Moreover, 89% of clients who follow a particular brand will definitely buy from that brand.

According to these statistics, if you aren’t yet using an effective social media marketing strategy, you’re missing out on a lot of points.

Among the social networks, we recommend you use LinkedIn to grow your business for the following reasons:

• Promoting your products or services
• Finding prospective clients
• Introducing yourself, your company, and your brand by posting on LinkedIn company pages
• Getting email leads from LinkedIn
• Interacting with prospects
• Publishing and sharing articles and posts on LinkedIn
• Getting incoming roles and better job opportunities
• Finding target candidates

Example #2: Email marketing strategy:

Another great example of a digital marketing strategy is email marketing campaigns, which are increasing in use and popularity day by day.

Emailing likely customers for newsletters is part of your marketing strategy and is a great way to continue engaging prospects who have expressed an interest in your brand.

You can convert readers into buyers by writing persuasive and creative emails, for example, a professional thank you email.

Example #3: Content marketing strategy

Content marketing is one of the best examples of marketing strategies and a key tool in inbound and digital marketing.

That’s why it’s one of the best ways to attract your target audience.

This includes creating, publishing, and distributing content to your target contacts via various channels such as social media platforms, blogs, podcasts, video posts, e-books, and webinars.

The overall goal of content marketing is to help your audience and prospects along the buying journey.

On top of that, you can easily manage sharing and publishing of your content using a content management system (CMS).

Example #4: Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Strategy

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) includes strategies that help your business and brand rank high on search engine results pages.

Search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising are the best examples of marketing strategies.

With the help of SEM, by searching for specific keywords, you can place your business and brand on the first rank of search engines.

In order for your content to rank high on Google, you must follow SEO rules and frameworks, including

• Using the most unique keywords
• Choosing an attractive and catchy topic
• Choosing an eye-catchy and short title
• Writing simple and short sentences and paragraphs
• Using links, hashtags, and tags on posts
• Using call to action (CTA)
• Using emojis

For instance, by doing the right SEO strategy, you can make your LinkedIn posts get noticed in your LinkedIn network and even outside of it, and increase the number of views of your posts on LinkedIn pages.

What are the 4 types of marketing strategies? (The 4 Ps marketing)

Although there are many types of marketing strategies on the market, some specific types of strategic marketing have become popular and are used by many organizations due to their greater effectiveness and ease of implementation.

Now, in this section, we want to explain the 4 Ps marketing strategies.

Most businesses assume that marketing is just advertising to attract prospects.

But as we mentioned earlier, marketing is a much broader concept and covers all parts of a business. What parts?

This is where a concept called marketing mix comes into play.

Marketing strategies can lead to the buildup and implementation of the marketing mix.

What is the marketing mix?

It’s a marketing model that helps you to know your business better, manage it and finally, reach your desired goal which can be more sales or profit.

Moreover, the marketing mix, also known as the 4Ps, refers to product, price, promotion, and place or distribution.

The 4 pillars of marketing are actually the combined strategies and methods used by marketers to achieve their marketing goals.

Like a marketing plan, your marketing strategy should focus on the 4 pillars of marketing.

What are the 4Ps of marketing?

1. Product: A product is a good or service that is marketed to the target audience and also it means what you want to sell.

2. Price: It includes your marketing budget, as well as pricing strategies, payment methods for goods and services, or benefits and discounts.

3. Place: This means what channels or platforms you’ll use.

For example, are you using the LinkedIn social network to promote your book or are you using word-of-mouth and referral marketing?

However, consider that your prospects are already spending their time on optimal marketing places.

4. Promotion: It means what you’re attempting to achieve.

For example, are you hoping to build your social media presence, increase brand awareness, promote a new product, or something else?

Overall, once you’re able to understand these product, price, place, and promotion policies in marketing, you’ll have excellent opportunities to start building your company’s marketing strategy.

Conclusion

Every company in the world needs effective types of marketing strategies to build brand awareness and drive new customers to their products and services.

In this guide, we defined the marketing strategy, marketing plan, and their importance for the growth of any business, and then we looked at some of the best and most important marketing strategies examples.

Hence, by knowing the different types of marketing strategies and a written marketing plan, you can identify your target audience, find out how to reach them, and maximize your ROI in the least amount of time, as well as ensure that your target audience converts to loyal customers.

Different types of marketing strategy with examples

There are various types of marketing strategies that businesses employ to promote their products or services and achieve their marketing goals. Here are a few examples:

1. Social Media Marketing: This strategy involves utilizing social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn to connect with target audiences, build brand awareness, and engage with customers. Companies create compelling content, run targeted ads, and interact with users to drive engagement and conversions.

Example: A clothing brand using Instagram to showcase their latest collection, collaborate with influencers, and encourage user-generated content through hashtags.

2. Content Marketing: This strategy focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. It includes blog posts, videos, infographics, e-books, and more. The aim is to provide helpful information, establish thought leadership, and nurture relationships with potential customers.

Example: A software company creating informative blog posts and video tutorials on their website to educate their target audience about industry trends, best practices, and how their product can solve specific challenges.

3. Influencer Marketing: This strategy involves collaborating with influential individuals or popular social media personalities who have a significant following and influence over their audience. Brands partner with influencers to promote their products or services and leverage their credibility and reach to reach a wider audience.

Example: A fitness brand partnering with a popular fitness influencer to endorse their workout gear and share their fitness journey with their followers.

These are just a few examples of marketing strategies, and each business may adopt different approaches based on their target audience, industry, and objectives. The key is to identify the most effective strategies for reaching and engaging with the right audience and achieving desired marketing outcomes.

Marketing strategy template

A marketing strategy template is a structured framework that helps businesses outline their marketing goals, identify target audiences, and plan the actions and tactics necessary to achieve those goals. While there are various templates available, here’s a simple two-paragraph overview of what a marketing strategy template typically includes:

1. Executive Summary: The executive summary provides an overview of the marketing strategy and its objectives. It outlines the company’s mission, vision, and unique selling proposition. It also highlights the target market and key competitors. This section sets the tone for the entire marketing strategy and captures the essence of the company’s marketing approach.
2. Market Analysis: The market analysis section delves into the target market and industry dynamics. It includes a detailed analysis of customer demographics, preferences, and behaviors. It also examines the competitive landscape, identifying major competitors and their strengths and weaknesses. This section helps businesses understand their market position and the opportunities and challenges they may face.

The marketing strategy template would then typically cover areas such as marketing goals and objectives, target audience segmentation, positioning and messaging, marketing channels and tactics, budget allocation, and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success. It serves as a guide to align marketing efforts with business goals and ensures a focused and consistent approach to reaching and engaging with customers.

FAQs

0