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MARKETING | 14 MIN READ

41 Types of Marketing Your Brand Can Invest In

Like many of the people who currently work in the industry, digital marketing was born in the 1990s. Back then, email was the age of most college graduates, AT&T had just launched the first banner ad, and using a CRM became standard practice for many businesses

Since then, the industry has evolved at breakneck speed, sprouting many more types of marketing. From search engine marketing to account-based marketing, every brand can use a combination of these tactics to attract their target audience and bring in more revenue.

Read on to learn about the top types of marketing around today.

Types of Marketing

1. Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing refers to brand promotion on offline channels that were around before the rise of the internet. Think billboards, flyers and radio spots.

Because information wasn't as easily accessible and readily available, the majority of traditional marketing relied on outbound tactics such as print, television ads, and billboards.

2. Outbound Marketing

Outbound marketing refers to intrusive promotion, such as cold calling, email blasts to purchased lists, and print ads.

This marketing method is called "outbound" because it involves pushing a message out to consumers to raise awareness on your products or services — regardless of consumer interest.

3. Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is focused on attracting customers rather than interrupting them. The majority of inbound marketing tactics fall under digital marketing, as consumers are empowered to do research online as they progress through their own buyer's journey.

Inbound is built on three pillars: Attract, engage, and delight. Your initial goal is to create valuable content and experiences that resonate with your audience and attract them to your business.

The next is to engage them through conversational tools like email marketing and chat bots, and of course continued value. Finally, you delight them by continuing to act as an empathetic advisor and expert.

4. Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is the opposite of traditional marketing, leveraging technology that didn't exist traditionally to reach audiences in new ways. This type of marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that live online.

Businesses leverage digital channels, such as search engines, social media, email, and websites to connect with current and prospective customers.

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5. Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing, or SEM, includes all strategies used to ensure your business is visible on search engine results pages (SERPs). With SEM, you can get your business in the number one spot when a user searches a particular keyword.

The two types of SEM are search engine optimization (SEO) for organic search results and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising for sponsored search engine results.

To get started with SEO, you must familiarize yourself with search engine ranking factors and produce content for search engines to index.

Pay-per-click SEM involves bidding on keywords to get your ads placed, through platforms like Google Ads. There are also ads management tools to make creating and managing PPC campaigns a breeze.

6. Content Marketing

Content marketing is a key instrument in inbound and digital marketing because it's one of the best ways to attract your target audiences.

It involves creating, publishing, and distributing content to your target audience through free and gated channels, such as social media platforms, blogs, videos, ebooks, and webinars.

With content marketing, the goal is to help your audience along their buyer's journey. First, identify common FAQs and concerns your buyers have before they are ready to make a purchase.

Then, create an editorial calendar to help you create and manage your content. It also helps to have a content management system (CMS) to make publishing easy.

7. Social Media Marketing

With platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, brands can promote their business and engage with audiences on a more personal basis.

However, with social media, two things are key to success: relevant content and consistency.

No one logs on to social media looking for something to purchase, it's important to balance promotion with entertainment. Compelling images and captions that encourage your audience to like, share and comment will bring your brand that much closer to gaining a customer.

Now onto consistency – it's what keeps your followers coming back. How can they get invested in your brand if they rarely see it on their timeline? To make publishing content across platforms easy, there are a number of social media tools that automate the process.

8. Video Marketing

According to a 2021 Wyzowl study, 87% of marketers say using video in their marketing strategy has a positive ROI. Whether it's for your website, YouTube channel, email list, and/or social media following, video can boost brand awareness, generate conversions, and close deals.

Some video marketing apps even allow you to analyze, nurture, and score leads based on their activity.

9. Voice Marketing

Voice marketing is leveraging smart speakers like Amazon Alexa and Google Home to add value to your audience and answer questions about their topics of interest.

Beyond optimizing your website for voice search by incorporating the right keywords, you can also get inventive by developing a Google Home action or Alexa skill.

For instance, Uber created an Alexa skill that allowed users to request a ride with a simple voice request. TED developed a feature that allowed Alexa users to play TED Talk based on topic, tone or speaker.

10. Email Marketing

Email marketing connects brands to leads, prospects and customers via email. Email campaigns can be used to increase brand awareness, generate traffic to other channels, promote products or services, or nurture leads toward a purchase.

Email regulations like the GDPR and the CAN-SPAM Act require brands to comply with responsible commercial email practices, which boil down to three principles:

Only email people who are expecting to hear from you. I.e. they've opted in.

Make it easy for subscribers to opt out.

Be transparent about who you are when you do make contact.

With that in mind, the first thing you'll need to do is strategize how you'll build your email list — the database of contacts you can send emails to. The most common method is through lead capture forms on your website.

Then, you'll need email marketing software and a CRM to send, track, and monitor the effectiveness of your emails. To push your email strategy further and maximize productivity, you may also want to look into email automation software that sends emails based on triggering criteria.

To learn the ins and outs of email marketing, take the free email marketing course from HubSpot Academy.

11. Conversational Marketing

Conversational marketing is the ability to have 1:1 conversations with your audience across multiple channels – meeting customers how, when, and where they want. It is more than just live chat, it extends to phone calls, texts, Facebook Messenger, email, Slack, and other channels.

When you're getting started, you'll first identify which channels your audience is on. The challenge, though, is being able to manage multiple channels without slow response times, internal miscommunication, or productivity loss. That's why it's important to use conversational marketing tools, such as a unified inbox, to streamline your efforts.

12. Buzz Marketing

Buzz marketing is a viral marketing strategy that leverages refreshingly creative content, interactive events, and community influencers to generate word-of-mouth marketing and anticipation for the product or service a brand is about to launch.

Buzz marketing works best when you reach out to influencers early and have a plan in place to generate buzz surrounding your brand. To track your efforts, invest in social listening software to keep a pulse on how your audience is responding.

13. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is designed to tap into an existing community of engaged followers on social media. Influencers are considered experts in their niches and have built loyalty and trust from an audience you might be trying to reach.

To get started with influencer marketing, you must first build your influencer marketing strategy and define what type of influencer you're targeting. Then, you'll want to create a criteria for your influencer to ensure they align with your strategy and budget. Factors to consider include their niche, the size of their audience, and their current metrics.

From there, you can find influencers and reach out to them by:

Manually reaching out on social media.

Using an influencer marketing platform.

Hiring an agency to do the research and outreach for you.

14. Acquisition Marketing

With any marketing strategy, your goal is to attract and retain customers. However, each type of marketing focuses on a specific stage of the buyer's journey. Acquisition marketing focuses on the attract and convert phases to turn strangers into sales-qualified leads.

What differentiates it from other marketing types is that it extends beyond the marketing team, often involving collaboration with customer service and success teams. Why? Because satisfied customers are the biggest promoters.

Acquisition marketing can involve a number of tactics to turn a website into a lead generation engine, including offering freemium products, launching education hubs, tightening the copywriting on the site, conversion rate optimization, and lead optimization.

It may even include a lead optimization and nurturing strategy to facilitate the hand-off between marketing and sales.

15. Contextual Marketing

Contextual marketing is targeting online users with different ads on websites and social media networks based on their online browsing behavior. The number one way to make contextual marketing efforts powerful is through personalization.

A CRM combined with powerful marketing tools, such as smart CTAs can make a website seem more like a "choose your own adventure" story, allowing the user to find the right information and take the right actions more effectively.

Contextual marketing takes strategy and planning, so start off on the right foot by accessing HubSpot's free contextual marketing course.

16. Personalized Marketing

Personalized marketing aims to create a tailored marketing experience for every user who comes across your brand.

This can be as simple as adding a user's name in the subject line of an email to sending product recommendations based on past purchases.

While it might seem a tad bit creepy, most consumers are OK with it if it makes for a better shopping experience. A 2019 Smarter HQ study reported that 79% of consumers felt brands knew too much about them. Yet, 90% of them were still willing to share information about their behavior and preferences for a cheaper, easier and more enjoyable purchasing journey.

17. Brand Marketing

Brand marketing is shaping your brand's public perception and forging an emotional connection with your target audience through storytelling, creativity, humor, and inspiration.

The goal here is to be thought-provoking and generate discussion so that your brand is remembered and associated with positive sentiment.

To begin brand marketing, you need to deeply understand your buyer persona and what resonates with them. You must also consider your position in the market and what makes you unique from your competitors. This can help shape your values and what you stand for, giving you fodder for storytelling campaigns.

18. Stealth Marketing

Stealth marketing occurs when brands promote their products or service to consumers who don’t realize they’re being marketed to. For instance, when you’re watching a television show, and see a branded product integrated into the shot. 

Before influencers were subject to ad disclosure regulations, they often used stealth marketing to advertise sponsored products. 

For this marketing style to work, brands have to find opportunities that align with their brand identity and values.

19. Guerrilla Marketing

Guerrilla marketing is placing bold, clever brand activations in high-traffic physical locations to spread brand awareness.

Examples of guerilla marketing include altering outdoor urban environments, promoting during a live event without permission from sponsors or organizers, public stunts, and treasure hunts.

It can be a cost-effective way to garner widespread attention. However, it also has the potential to go left if its misunderstood by the audience or interrupted by weather conditions, law enforcement or other factors beyond the brand's control.

20. Native Marketing

Native marketing occurs when brands customize their ads to fit the feel, look and function of the platform on which they'll be published.

Often, brands collaborate with publishers to create and distribute the sponsored content to their audience. The goal is that by leveraging the brand's editorial expertise and creating non-disruptive ads, it will increase conversion rates or create some brand awareness.

For instance, a recipe blogger could have a guest post from McBride Sisters Collection titled "The Best Wine-Infused Desserts For the Holiday Season."

To benefit from native marketing, you'll need to either reach out to media publications yourself or go through a native advert network that helps find and facilitate ad placement.

21. Affiliate Marketing

When a business rewards another brand – called an affiliate or affiliate partner – with a commission for each purchase made by a customer through the affiliate's promotion tactics, that's affiliate marketing.

It's popular among influencers but can also be used by brands to promote products or services that align with their own.

If you already have marketing assets that are performing well, such as a website that generates leads or an engaged social media network, affiliate marketing is a great way to further leverage those assets. Choose a product or brand that closely aligns with what you sell – but does not compete with you – and promote it to your audience.

On the flip side, it's a cost-effective method of spreading brand awareness and a good alternative to influencer marketing. You can leverage affiliate marketing to generate more revenue. And the best part is that every business can design its own rules when launching an affiliate program.

22. Partner Marketing

Partner marketing, also known as co-marketing, is a marketing collaboration between brands where they partner up on a marketing campaign and share the results. It's a great lead generation tool that allows brads to tap into an audience they may not have reached yet.

For it to work, brands must align on their goals, have products or services that complementary and have similar user personas.

23. Product Marketing

Product marketing is much more than what it sounds like. It's not just taking product pictures and launching campaigns.