Types of marketing

Popular types of marketing include those that have already proven their effectiveness and can be used in various fields. Usually they are combined to achieve the best results, and not used separately from each other.

By type of consumer

Companies produce and sell goods, provide services for different audiences. Depending on the type of consumer of goods and services , the following types of marketing are distinguished:

B2B marketing (business–to–business) is a cooperation in which both customers and clients are legal entities. A company sells goods or provides services to another company.

B2C marketing (business–to–customer) — cooperation between a company and a consumer. The buyer purchases goods or services from the company to meet their needs.

B2G marketing (business–to–government) is a cooperation in which a company supplies goods or provides services for the state. Among the popular products in this niche are repair and construction services, real estate transactions.

Depending on the market coverage

Types of marketing, depending on the market coverage, differ in the degree of market capture:

1. Mass marketing. It focuses on the widest range of consumers and does not take into account the differences between them. In this case, products that everyone needs can be promoted, for example, food, clothing, shoes, household goods, and so on. The goal of entering the mass market is to get ahead of competitors by setting low prices due to lower costs for mass production and promotion.
2. Concentrated (targeted) marketing. This type focuses on specific market segments in order to meet its needs as much as possible. Target marketing is usually used in small businesses because it allows you to effectively capture and meet the needs of small segments of the target audience. On the other hand, this approach may deter the company from growing.
3. Differentiated marketing. Its task is to capture an impressive part of the market with a single product in various forms to satisfy many segments at the same time. For example, the company is a dairy, and the products are milk, cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, fermented baked milk, sour cream and so on.

Social Media Marketing

SMM (Social Media Marketing) is the use of social platforms as channels to promote the brand, increase the target audience, attract traffic to the site and increase sales. Social networks are the foundation of SMM.

Why are social networks so important for business?

Social media marketing is the easiest way to reach a large audience. Currently, half of the world’s population, 3.8 billion people, use social networks. Moreover, this number is constantly growing — since 2019, the number of users has increased by 9.2%.

Social platforms are extremely necessary to increase brand awareness. According to Hootsuite, 52% of online companies are found by users on social networks. That’s where most people learn about new brands.

In 2019, Internet users spent about 2 hours and 24 minutes on social networks every day. In 2020, this time has already increased by 1.4%. Therefore, social platforms open up great opportunities to attract the target audience and build long-term relationships.

According to Oberlo, 54% of users search for products on social networks before buying. Instagram Facebook, VKontakte and other platforms are increasingly starting the buyer’s journey. In this regard, the influence of social networks on sales is growing every year.

Advantages of social networks

• Increasing brand awareness
• Traffic growth
• Fast and easy content promotion
• Regular interaction with the target audience
• Research of the industry, market and competitors

In addition to access to a multi-million audience and close interaction with customers, SMM has a number of other advantages. Here are the main ones.

Increasing brand awareness

According to statistics, 71% of customers who have received a positive experience of interacting with a brand on a social network recommend the company to their family and friends. Therefore, in order to reach as many potential buyers as possible, it is important to create accounts on different social platforms. Use the communication channels where your target audience is.

Traffic growth

Although many social networks allow brands to sell their products without going to a website or landing page, they are still considered a great way to increase traffic. For example, 11% of all mobile site traffic is generated by social platforms.

Fast and easy content promotion

If you use content marketing to promote your business, social media will help you attract your target audience. People always share useful and interesting information with their friends on social networks. Often users are not limited to one platform, which contributes to the growth of your target audience.

Social media marketing is a great way to inform customers about special offers. Social networks help to inform the target audience about promotions and sweepstakes quickly and cheaply, although most users prefer to receive promotional messages by email.

Regular interaction with the target audience

Since half of the world’s population uses social media for almost three hours a day, SMM is the best way to interact with the audience. After all, the brand is already located where your customers spend their time.

Moreover, social media marketing is an effective marketing channel for getting feedback. You can analyze reviews, likes, reposts, comments and other metrics. If your customers have had a bad shopping experience, they are more likely to let you know via social media than by email or phone. This allows you to react in time and retain a specific client, and also attract others.

Research of the industry, market and competitors

Social networks make it possible to track customer satisfaction, trends and activities of your competitors. Analysis of the latest industry news provides ideas for additional content. For example, you can get a new topic to discuss with your subscribers.

And tracking the activities of competitors is useful in order to improve your product and improve your SMM strategy.

Social Media Marketing Goals

With SMM, you can achieve different goals — it all depends on your marketing strategy. Here are the most popular ones:

• increasing the level of engagement;
• sales and lead generation;
• customer retention;
• increasing traffic on the site;
• expanding the target audience;
• collecting reviews;
• managing negative reviews;
• tracking trends and competitors;
• increasing brand awareness;
• consumer demand research.

Clearly define your goals in order to develop an effective strategy for SMM and create relevant content for the target audience.

Digital marketing

Digital marketing is a marketing direction that involves the promotion of services and goods using digital technologies used at all stages of interaction with consumers. It differs from Internet marketing in that it uses not only the World Wide Web, but also offline tools (smart gadgets, POS terminals, etc.).

Digital marketing services are particularly in demand in the B2B and B2C segments. The use of advanced digital capabilities allows you to reach the maximum of target consumers and establish effective interaction with them, which ensures the high effectiveness of this approach.

Basic digital Marketing tools

Digital marketing tools include all methods, means and activities that allow you to notify many people, attract the attention of potential customers to a company, brand, service or product. Most often, several tools are used simultaneously, which allows you to reach the maximum of the target audience and achieve high promotion efficiency. The list of tools used depends on the goals of the marketing campaign, the stage of its implementation, the characteristics of the target audience, the product being promoted, etc. The main tools of digital marketing are the following.

• Contextual advertising. It consists in placing advertisements (text, graphic and/or in the form of links) on thematic sites.
• SEO promotion. Its purpose is to raise the advertiser’s site in the search results for thematic queries, for which search engine optimization is performed, etc.
• Banner advertising. Graphic banners with a product/service offer are placed on third-party thematic resources.
• Advertising windows. This is a method of online advertising, implying the display of pop-up advertising windows on thematic sites.
• Television advertising. It is noticeably more expensive compared to online advertising, but it allows you to reach the maximum audience of different ages.
• Radio advertising. This is also quite expensive, but an effective way to convey your offer to a wide audience.
• Native advertising. It consists in publishing “natural” materials (reviews, expert opinions, etc.) on third-party resources that encourage the purchase of goods /services.
• SMS mailing lists. Advertising messages with the advertiser’s offer are sent to subscribers of mobile operators.
• QR codes offline. This method is often practiced to motivate you to install applications, use other digital products or services.
• Viral advertising. It provides for the creation of content (most often multimedia) with provocative content, which is why users themselves will distribute it on the network (share it on their blogs, with friends on social networks, etc.).

In digital marketing, other tools based on digital technologies can also be used: from an advertising offer when installing programs to mailing by e-mail or melodies that are used to keep subscribers on the line. Traditional means such as newspapers or flyers, if they contain a QR code in the ad (i.e. they provide for the use of digital technologies), are also digital marketing..

The main channels of digital marketing

• The Internet. This channel provides for the use of any devices that have access to the global network: laptops, tablets, PCs, smartphones, etc. As part of digital marketing on the Internet, they place ads (search, contextual, banner, teaser, etc.), create diverse content for passive or viral promotion (videos, text articles, etc.), promote goods and services on social networks, publish expert opinions, perform search engine optimization of the site.
• Digital television. Gradually, it displaces analog TV from the market and is increasingly integrated with the global network. The most common format of digital marketing on a digital television channel is the creation of short videos broadcast during commercial breaks. In some cases, running lines and other features are also practiced.
• Local networks. These include various local “associations” of computers. These can be corporate networks within the same office, local networks in individual houses, urban areas, etc. Through this channel, advertising of goods and services aimed at an audience with a clear geographical reference is usually distributed.
• Mobile gadgets. These are cell phones, smartphones. The most common way to promote through mobile devices is to send SMS messages with an advertising offer. It can be performed both on the customer base (i.e. on the numbers of people who have already used the services or bought goods from this company) and on independent phone collections. Through the channel of mobile gadgets, you can use other tools, such as WOW calls, branded offers, advertising in third-party programs.
• “Smart” gadgets. These include diverse smart devices: watches, scales, fitness bracelets, etc., with WI-FI Internet connection. For promotion, you can use application branding and other tools.
• Interactive displays. They can be installed in store fitting rooms, cafes and restaurants, on POS terminals, chargers, etc. Interactive displays also include digital banners installed for advertising purposes. Mainly videos are distributed through this channel. Pop-up advertising windows are also actively used.
• Digital-art. This channel implies the use of any works of art that can be broadcast or created through modern digital technologies. It can be graphics, electronic music, games, etc. The main way to promote using Digital-art is the branding of works.
• Social network. They are used to launch viral advertising, “independent” opinions and publications, discussions, creation and maintenance of thematic groups. Contextual or banner ads can also be broadcast on social networks.

Brand marketing

Brand marketing is a set of methods aimed at creating a brand name, developing design, establishing creative communications and conducting marketing events that will distinguish the product from competitors and promote its promotion.

Brand marketing interacts with different advertising industries. It is aimed at creating a competitive product that will attract the attention of the audience and will be able to take a leading position in the market.

Why Brand Marketing is Important

This type of marketing is entirely aimed at developing brand awareness and its products, increasing trust in it, increasing market reach, and creating a reputation. Marketers are looking for unique ways to promote products in order to distinguish a company from competitors and demonstrate its special value to customers. As a result, the importance of the brand and its advantages in the market increases significantly.

Brand marketing is aimed at building long-term relationships with the target audience. It helps to increase the value of the brand in the eyes of potential consumers to create an ever-growing base of loyal customers. Thus, an effective brand marketing strategy helps the company stand out from the crowd, take the business to a new level, attract new customers and increase sales.

• Brand marketing goals
• Increasing awareness
• Increase loyalty
• Nurturing Brand Advocates
• Increasing brand value
• Increasing engagement
• Creating a brand is a difficult but important step to achieve success in business. Brand marketing helps to solve many tasks, which include building a certain image in the market and increasing income. Let’s look at the most common goals that companies usually pursue when developing a brand strategy.
• Increased awareness. This is a priority task, since the ability of customers to identify a company among many other brands depends on it.
• Increase loyalty. It is important that customers do not just recognize your brand and choose it, but that they come back again and again. You can turn customers into loyal customers only if you demonstrate the value and uniqueness of the company’s products.
• Nurturing brand advocates. This is an important component for successful promotion. The more customers recommend your product or service to their friends, the higher the company’s revenue and credibility will be.
• Increasing brand value. Reputable companies whose name is known in the market are more successful because people prefer to choose brands they trust.
• Increased engagement. It is profitable to work with active users, therefore, the more customers interact with your brand (visit the website, view products, make orders), the higher the chances of creating a recognizable brand.
• Creating a corporate identity and image. People should recognize your brand by visual elements, such as fonts, logo, corporate colors, packaging, and so on.

As you can see, these goals are crucial for the successful promotion of a business in the market.

Brand marketing strategies

• Brand awareness
• Individual branding
• Branding “Without a brand”
• Brand extension
• Own trademark
• Crowdsourcing
• Associative branding

Brand marketing strategy is the main approach that you choose to promote your brand, increase its awareness and popularity. If it is clearly designed, you will be able to achieve the desired results. There are many brand marketing strategies that are based on the target audience, budget, marketing campaigns. Let’s look at the most common ones.

Brand awareness. People identify a company by name, logo, slogan and color. Bright examples are Apple, Coca Cola, Starbucks. They use the weight of their brand to increase sales and attract customers.

Individual branding. This strategy is used by large companies when they develop additional products and separately promote them under their own name. For example, Mars, Inc. produces Snickers, Twix, Bounty, M&Ms and other products.

Associative branding. In each of its campaigns, Nike, through opinion leaders, promotes not the quality of products, but a lifestyle. This approach has no direct connection with the product, it is addressed to emotions and feelings. This helps to build a stable associative series in the consumer’s mind. Below you can see the famous football player Cristiano Ronaldo and the slogan of one of Nike’s campaigns “My time is now.”

Branding “Without a brand”. A strategy involving the promotion of a product without a name, expensive packaging, logo and other elements of corporate identity, for which customers pay. Minimalism in this case does not just attract attention with simplicity, but demonstrates the availability of products. This approach is actively used by Brandless. Look, there is no logo or brand name on her products.

Brand expansion. This strategy is used when a well-known company decides to release new products or services under the same name. At the same time, the goods are decorated in the corporate style developed earlier. For example, Caterpillar, a world-famous manufacturer of special equipment, once began to produce phones with a recognizable logo.

Own trademark. This strategy is widely used among supermarkets. For example, Walmart produces products at a more reasonable price in order to beat competitors. ATB and METRO supermarkets also arrive, offering customers products of their own brands.

Crowdsourcing. Connecting the public to brand creation. This approach helps to get as close as possible to the preferences of customers and stimulate their interest in the product.

Below you can see one of the crowdsourcing projects on the BOOMSTARTER platform. Its authors have raised funds to promote the store “without packaging”, where customers can purchase goods in their containers. Thus, Zero Waste Shop drew public attention to environmental problems, attracted like-minded people and increased environmental responsibility.

How to build an effective brand marketing strategy

1. Develop a company vision
2. Identify the target audience
3. Stick to your brand’s style
4. Arouse emotions

The brand’s marketing strategy is an important part of the overall marketing plan. This helps to establish strong relationships with customers and helps convince the audience to choose your brand’s products.

If you want to create a well-managed business and develop an effective brand marketing strategy, below we have prepared the main points that should be taken into account.

However, before you start, answer a few questions that will help you make the right and balanced decision:

1. What is the main mission of your product?
2. How do you differ from your competitors?
3. Who are your clients?
4. What does your audience think about the proposed product?
5. What associations do you want your customers to form in relation to the brand?

Now that the answers to these questions have been found, you can start developing a brand strategy.

Here are the main recommendations that will help make your brand strategy more effective.

1. Develop a vision for the company. Determine the direction of the company’s movement. Develop a strategy that will convey your brand’s vision to customers through different marketing channels.
2. Identify the target audience. The success of brand marketing depends on the right audience. Identify potential customers not only by demographic data. Dig deeper, pay attention to the details and study the psychographics of the audience.
3. Stick to your brand’s style. Your main task is to create a recognizable name and logo, develop a way and style of communication with customers. A unified brand style is the key to high recognition.
4. Awaken emotions. Establish an emotional connection with customers.
5. Provide quality services, take care of customer satisfaction, create marketing campaigns that will arouse emotions. This is vital for achieving success and establishing loyalty

Conclusion

Types of marketing are numerous and diverse, but without knowledge of the characteristics of the target audience, it will not be possible to achieve an effect with any of them. A competent marketer will be able to make a psychological portrait of the client, choose the optimal direction based on it and effectively implement the tools in practice.