MARKETING - Types of Marketing

Marketing is a strategy used by companies to communicate with the consumer and make him knowledgeable about the various features of their products and services. It is an essential part of attracting the target buyers to a particular product, and companies use various innovative or tried-and-tested techniques to stay ahead of their competitors and make their place in the market.

Here are some of the most popular and effective types of marketing:

• Affinity Marketing -  Also known as Partnership Marketing, this technique links complementary brands, thereby creating strategic partnerships that benefit both companies. While one adds value to existing customers by generating more income, the other builds new customer relationships.

• Alliance Marketing - Here two or more entities come together to pool in their resources to promote and sell a product or service, which will not only benefit their stakeholders, but also have a greater impact on the market.

• Ambush Marketing - This strategy is used by advertisers to capitalize on and associated themselves with a specific event without the payment of any sponsorship fee, thereby bringing down the value of sponsorship. It has sub-categories like direct or predatory ambushing or indirect ambushing by association, to name a few.

• Call to Action (CTA) Marketing - CTA is a part of inbound marketing used on websites in the form of a banner, text or graphic, where it is meant to prompt a person to click it and move into the conversion funnel, that is, from searching to navigating an online store to converting to a sale.

• Close Range Marketing (CRM) - Also known as Proximity Marketing, CRM uses bluetooth technology or Wifi to promote their products and services to their customers at close proximity.

• Cloud Marketing - This refers to the type of marketing that takes place on the internet, where all the marketing resources and assets are transferred online so that the respective parties can develop, modify, utilise and share them.

• Community Marketing - This technique caters to the needs and requirements of the existing customers, as opposed to using resources to gather new consumers. This promotes loyalty and product satisfaction and also gives rise to word of mouth marketing among the community.

• Content Marketing - In this case, content is created and published on various platforms to give information about a certain product or service to potential customers and to influence them, without making a direct sales pitch.

• Cross-media Marketing - As the name suggests, multiple channels like emails, letters, web pages etc are used to give information about products and services to customers in the form of cross promotion.

• Database Marketing - This utilizes and information from database of customers or potential consumers to create customised communication strategies through any media in order to promote products and services.

• Digital Marketing - This strategy uses various digital devices like smartphones, computers, tablets or digital billboards to inform customers and business partners about its products. Internet Marketing is a key element in Digital Marketing.

• Direct Marketing - This is a wide term which refers to the technique where organisations communicate directly with the consumer through mail, email, texts, fliers and various promotional materials.

• Diversity Marketing - The aim of this strategy is to take into account the different diversities in a culture in terms of beliefs, expectations, tastes and needs and then create a customised marketing plan to target those consumers effectively.

• Evangelism Marketing - It is similar to word-of-mouth marketing, where a company develops customers who become voluntary advocates of a product and who promote its features and benefits on behalf of the company.

• Freebie Marketing - Here a particular item is sold at low rates, or is given away free, to boost the sales of another complimentary item or service.

• Free Sample Marketing - Unlike Freebie Marketing, this is not dependent on complimentary marketing, but rather consists of giving away a free sample of the product to influence the consumer to make the purchase.

• Guerrilla Marketing - Unconventional and inexpensive techniques with imagination, big crowds and a surprise element are used for marketing something, a popular example being flash mobs.







By keeping in mind the distinctive features of the product, the demographics of the target consumer and their spending power, and the current strategies of existing companies, an effective marketing strategy may be successfully created.
The types of marketing keep evolving with new developments in technology and changes in the socio-economic structure of a market. I try to keep up, and update the list as things develop. Please let me know if I’ve forgotten anything from the list by leaving a comment.