Denison Witmer – Marketing strategies & tactics to grow your business
Let’s talk about marketing for a minute. It sounds like a fairly simple topic, but it’s broader than you think. In fact, we’ve come up with 36 distinct marketing strategies and tactics that you can use to grow your business.Get the best assistance from affiliate marketing companies.
Finding and using different types of marketing strategies can make your brand stronger and your customers more likely to convert. If you try something new and unexpected, you’ll attract engaged followers and consumers who want to learn more.
Does this mean that you should use 36 different types of marketing strategies? Probably not. You don’t have the time or resources to tackle all 36, and you’d risk diluting your brand if you tried.
However, once you’re familiar with all of your options, you can start narrowing down the types of marketing strategies that might work best for your business. Let’s dig in.
Check out our video covering the results of 2021 Knowledge Creator Marketing Study. We report on some helpful marketing benchmarks and popular strategies:
Marketing Strategy Definition
We first need to define the concept of marketing strategy. What is a strategy and how should you use it?
A marketing strategy is a series of steps you take to engage your leads and customers — ultimately guiding them to a purchase decision. Different types of marketing strategies are designed to achieve different goals, which is why you might need more than one to keep your business growth on the right trajectory.
You can use your marketing strategy to target consumers at different stages in the sales funnel. Additionally, you can use the metrics you generate from these strategies to pin down your customers’ buying journeys, which will help you target them with more effective messaging.
With that out of the way, we’ll take a look at 36 marketing strategies that you might want to try.
1. Employee Marketing
Many businesses overlook employees as potential customers and brand ambassadors. Consider the fact that many companies use employee discounts as part of their benefits packages. Employees often buy from their employers — as long as they’re convinced that they’ll get the best deal.
Furthermore, you want to build a stable of engaged employees who don’t just show up for their paychecks, but who come to work ready to promote the business and help it achieve the goals you’ve outlined for it.
Employees can spread the word about your business to friends, family members, and neighbors. They might boast about it on social media, blog about it, and refer potential employees to your HR department.
Don’t overlook employees when you’re building a marketing strategy. You need your workforce to help promote your brand.
2. Business-to-Consumer (B2C)
B2C marketing refers to a marketing strategy that’s designed for a company that markets its products or services directly to consumers. They can operate online, in brick-and-mortar stores, or both.
A B2C marketing strategy is driven by consumer data. You need to know your customers inside and out, from where they live and how much money the earn to their preferred social media channels and their willingness to convert through email marketing (which we’ll discuss later).
3. Business-to-Business (B2B)
In contrast to B2C marketing, B2B marketing occurs when one business markets its products or services to another business or organization. For instance, if you create online courses for entrepreneurs, you’re operating in the B2B space.
B2B marketing requires a different approach because there are several more steps involved. You have to identify the decision-makers, figure out how to gain buy-in from C-level leadership, and nurture those relationships through regular contact and superlative service.
4. Cause Marketing
People love to give back. They like knowing that their purchases help further their favorite causes, so partnering with a nonprofit or not-for-profit organization serves as a viable marketing strategy. You’re using your business to help customers give back to their communities.
A cause marketing strategy requires a partnership that benefits both parties. For instance, maybe you create online courses on spiritual topics. You could partner with a church or other religious organization and donate a portion of your profits to that cause. Alternatively, you could invite customers to add a donation amount to their purchases.
If you want to excel at cause marketing, you need a clear link between your business and the cause. Don’t just pick one at random. Maybe you sell online courses and other digital products related to fitness. You could partner with a nonprofit organization that works to provide healthy drinking water to underserved communities or that fights childhood obesity.
5. Direct Selling
There’s something to be said for meeting with a potential customer face-to-face and discussing the role your products or services might play in his or her life. In-home demonstrations, for instance, serve as one example of direct selling. You meet a group of people in one person’s home and demonstrate your product.
Companies like Amway, Avon, and Mary Kay has built their entire businesses around direct selling. It’s a profitable strategy, but only for certain niche markets. You’re meeting with customers outside your business location, and you need a viable strategy for convincing those customers to buy.
You need excellent sales skills as well as a gregarious, extroverted personality. Otherwise, you might not generate sufficient excitement and energy during these events.
6. Co-Branding and Affinity Marketing
You already know that you share an audience with your competitors, but you also share audiences with businesses that complement your own. An entrepreneur who sells fitness-related online courses would likely share audience members with an entrepreneur who creates digital products about nutrition.
Co-branding or affinity marketing refers to a partnership between two organizations that have common interests and audiences. They aren’t direct competitors, so they don’t stand to lose leads to their partners, but they gain access to each others’ followers.
Affinity marketing can also involve co-developed products. You could partner with another Kajabi entrepreneur and create a course together. You might experience increased sales because you’re pooling your audiences.
7. Earned Media/PR
Let’s separate a few terms here for those of you who aren’t familiar with them.
Branded media is media that your company produces for the purposes of informing, entertaining, and engaging your audiences.
Paid media refers to any form of advertising that requires an exchange of funds.
Earned media, on the other hand, is free exposure, typically via public relations. It might include a mention in a newspaper, magazine, or blog. It could also include brand ambassadors who spread the word about your courses without any incentive to do so.
As you can probably infer, earned media has become one of the most valuable types of marketing strategies. You don’t have to pay for or create the media, which means that you don’t have to deplete any of your own resources.
Plus, people trust earned media more than any other form of marketing. It’s highly transparent and honest because there’s no exchange of funds, products, or services.
8. Point-of-Purchase Marketing (POP)
A point of purchase (or point of sale) marketing strategy involves upselling to the customer near the place where he or she makes a purchase. In a retail store, for example, you might have noticed that small items are arranged on or near the counters. They’re designed for impulse purchases.
Additionally, you might have experienced a cashier who has tried to upsell you on another product. He or she might notice that you’ve bought an MP3 player, for instance, and suggest that you buy earbuds or headphones to go with it. This is another example of POP marketing.
When it comes to e-commerce, you can also pursue a POP marketing strategy. When your customer checks out by purchasing a course, for instance, you could include a message about a related course and a link to add that course to the customer’s shopping cart.
It’s a simple way to drive larger transactions for each purchase. Just optimize every stage of the checkout process for upselling.
9. Internet Marketing
This is an umbrella term that covers multiple types of marketing, from social and email to blogging and landing pages. Any marketing that you conduct over the Internet can be considered an Internet marketing strategy.
However, you need a specific strategy if you want to grow your business. If you’re on social media, for instance, what types of posts do you make and at what frequency? If you blog, what topics do you cover and how do you respond to readers in the comments section?
An Internet marketing strategy should also cover metrics that you might collect from your efforts. Connecting Google Analytics to your Kajabi website, for instance, allows you to view metrics like bounce rates, traffic data, and more. You can also use Kajabi’s metrics to track your progress and make adjustments as necessary.
10. Paid Media Advertising
If you want to grow your business fast, paid media advertising might offer the most efficient solution. Obviously, you’ll need the liquid capital necessary to make the investment, but you can easily earn significant ROI on every dollar you spend.
Paid media advertising can take many forms:
- Paid social
- Paid search
- Display advertising
- Television and radio commercials
- Billboards
- Print ads
Before you jump into paid media advertising, set specific, measurable goals for each ad’s performance, then track your progress. If one advertising strategy doesn’t work, don’t keep sinking your money into it. Instead, try something new.
marketing strategies & tactics to grow your business
Let’s talk about marketing for a minute. It sounds like a fairly simple topic, but it’s broader than you think. In fact, we’ve come up with 36 distinct marketing strategies and tactics that you can use to grow your business.
Finding and using different types of marketing strategies can make your brand stronger and your customers more likely to convert. If you try something new and unexpected, you’ll attract engaged followers and consumers who want to learn more.
Does this mean that you should use 36 different types of marketing strategies? Probably not. You don’t have the time or resources to tackle all 36, and you’d risk diluting your brand if you tried.
However, once you’re familiar with all of your options, you can start narrowing down the types of marketing strategies that might work best for your business. Let’s dig in.
Check out our video covering the results of 2021 Knowledge Creator Marketing Study. We report on some helpful marketing benchmarks and popular strategies:
Marketing Strategy Definition
We first need to define the concept of marketing strategy. What is a strategy and how should you use it?
A marketing strategy is a series of steps you take to engage your leads and customers — ultimately guiding them to a purchase decision. Different types of marketing strategies are designed to achieve different goals, which is why you might need more than one to keep your business growth on the right trajectory.
You can use your marketing strategy to target consumers at different stages in the sales funnel. Additionally, you can use the metrics you generate from these strategies to pin down your customers’ buying journeys, which will help you target them with more effective messaging.
With that out of the way, we’ll take a look at 36 marketing strategies that you might want to try.
1. Employee Marketing
Many businesses overlook employees as potential customers and brand ambassadors. Consider the fact that many companies use employee discounts as part of their benefits packages. Employees often buy from their employers — as long as they’re convinced that they’ll get the best deal.
Furthermore, you want to build a stable of engaged employees who don’t just show up for their paychecks, but who come to work ready to promote the business and help it achieve the goals you’ve outlined for it.
Employees can spread the word about your business to friends, family members, and neighbors. They might boast about it on social media, blog about it, and refer potential employees to your HR department.
Don’t overlook employees when you’re building a marketing strategy. You need your workforce to help promote your brand.
2. Business-to-Consumer (B2C)
B2C marketing refers to a marketing strategy that’s designed for a company that markets its products or services directly to consumers. They can operate online, in brick-and-mortar stores, or both.
A B2C marketing strategy is driven by consumer data. You need to know your customers inside and out, from where they live and how much money the earn to their preferred social media channels and their willingness to convert through email marketing (which we’ll discuss later).
3. Business-to-Business (B2B)
In contrast to B2C marketing, B2B marketing occurs when one business markets its products or services to another business or organization. For instance, if you create online courses for entrepreneurs, you’re operating in the B2B space.
B2B marketing requires a different approach because there are several more steps involved. You have to identify the decision-makers, figure out how to gain buy-in from C-level leadership, and nurture those relationships through regular contact and superlative service.
4. Cause Marketing
People love to give back. They like knowing that their purchases help further their favorite causes, so partnering with a nonprofit or not-for-profit organization serves as a viable marketing strategy. You’re using your business to help customers give back to their communities.
A cause marketing strategy requires a partnership that benefits both parties. For instance, maybe you create online courses on spiritual topics. You could partner with a church or other religious organization and donate a portion of your profits to that cause. Alternatively, you could invite customers to add a donation amount to their purchases.
If you want to excel at cause marketing, you need a clear link between your business and the cause. Don’t just pick one at random. Maybe you sell online courses and other digital products related to fitness. You could partner with a nonprofit organization that works to provide healthy drinking water to underserved communities or that fights childhood obesity.
5. Direct Selling
There’s something to be said for meeting with a potential customer face-to-face and discussing the role your products or services might play in his or her life. In-home demonstrations, for instance, serve as one example of direct selling. You meet a group of people in one person’s home and demonstrate your product.
Companies like Amway, Avon, and Mary Kay has built their entire businesses around direct selling. It’s a profitable strategy, but only for certain niche markets. You’re meeting with customers outside your business location, and you need a viable strategy for convincing those customers to buy.
You need excellent sales skills as well as a gregarious, extroverted personality. Otherwise, you might not generate sufficient excitement and energy during these events.
6. Co-Branding and Affinity Marketing
You already know that you share an audience with your competitors, but you also share audiences with businesses that complement your own. An entrepreneur who sells fitness-related online courses would likely share audience members with an entrepreneur who creates digital products about nutrition.
Co-branding or affinity marketing refers to a partnership between two organizations that have common interests and audiences. They aren’t direct competitors, so they don’t stand to lose leads to their partners, but they gain access to each others’ followers.
Affinity marketing can also involve co-developed products. You could partner with another Kajabi entrepreneur and create a course together. You might experience increased sales because you’re pooling your audiences.
7. Earned Media/PR
Let’s separate a few terms here for those of you who aren’t familiar with them.
Branded media is media that your company produces for the purposes of informing, entertaining, and engaging your audiences.
Paid media refers to any form of advertising that requires an exchange of funds.
Earned media, on the other hand, is free exposure, typically via public relations. It might include a mention in a newspaper, magazine, or blog. It could also include brand ambassadors who spread the word about your courses without any incentive to do so.
As you can probably infer, earned media has become one of the most valuable types of marketing strategies. You don’t have to pay for or create the media, which means that you don’t have to deplete any of your own resources.
Plus, people trust earned media more than any other form of marketing. It’s highly transparent and honest because there’s no exchange of funds, products, or services.
8. Point-of-Purchase Marketing (POP)
A point of purchase (or point of sale) marketing strategy involves upselling to the customer near the place where he or she makes a purchase. In a retail store, for example, you might have noticed that small items are arranged on or near the counters. They’re designed for impulse purchases.
Additionally, you might have experienced a cashier who has tried to upsell you on another product. He or she might notice that you’ve bought an MP3 player, for instance, and suggest that you buy earbuds or headphones to go with it. This is another example of POP marketing.
When it comes to e-commerce, you can also pursue a POP marketing strategy. When your customer checks out by purchasing a course, for instance, you could include a message about a related course and a link to add that course to the customer’s shopping cart.
It’s a simple way to drive larger transactions for each purchase. Just optimize every stage of the checkout process for upselling.
9. Internet Marketing
This is an umbrella term that covers multiple types of marketing, from social and email to blogging and landing pages. Any marketing that you conduct over the Internet can be considered an Internet marketing strategy.
However, you need a specific strategy if you want to grow your business. If you’re on social media, for instance, what types of posts do you make and at what frequency? If you blog, what topics do you cover and how do you respond to readers in the comments section?
An Internet marketing strategy should also cover metrics that you might collect from your efforts. Connecting Google Analytics to your Kajabi website, for instance, allows you to view metrics like bounce rates, traffic data, and more. You can also use Kajabi’s metrics to track your progress and make adjustments as necessary.
10. Paid Media Advertising
If you want to grow your business fast, paid media advertising might offer the most efficient solution. Obviously, you’ll need the liquid capital necessary to make the investment, but you can easily earn significant ROI on every dollar you spend.
Paid media advertising can take many forms:
- Paid social
- Paid search
- Display advertising
- Television and radio commercials
- Billboards
- Print ads
Before you jump into paid media advertising, set specific, measurable goals for each ad’s performance, then track your progress. If one advertising strategy doesn’t work, don’t keep sinking your money into it. Instead, try something new.