Marketing is the process businesses use to promote their products, services, or brand. It can have diverse objectives, from growing an audience to driving sales.
There are countless types of marketing. And the list only seems to grow longer as technology develops.
To help you understand your options, here are 20 of the most common types of marketing. We’ll share the benefits of each along with best practices and an example for using them.
B2B Marketing
Business-to-business (B2B) marketing refers to marketing strategies that target other businesses. It’s focused on generating leads and having them talk directly to a salesperson.
B2B purchases typically involve multiple people in the decision-making process. And the ultimate purchase price is often bigger when you’re dealing with other businesses vs. individual consumers.
These two factors mean the sales cycle can take longer. B2B customers spend more time in the awareness and interest/evaluation steps of the marketing funnel .
B2B marketing campaigns usually focus on attracting high-quality leads. They do this by getting their message in front of the right people and showcasing the benefits of their product or service.
A B2B retailer may engage with their audience on business-focused platforms (like LinkedIn) or trade shows.
It might also use content marketing online (like case studies) to increase brand awareness and show products or services in action.
For example, Mailchimp has used a video-based content marketing campaign hosted on YouTube to reach out to their audience. A series of videos titled “Success Stories” showcases how B2B customers used Mailchimp to grow their businesses.
These videos target potential customers and demonstrate the value of the product. They also address potential customer questions, like whether it’s more difficult to use than their current system. Or whether the ROI is great enough to justify the cost.
With B2B marketing, sales reps help nurture potential new customers as they approach a purchase decision.
B2C Marketing
Using emotive language can help influence buying decisions . Take the messaging on Nike’s ecommerce store as an example.
The headline and intro copy both aim to incite an emotional response in the shopper. The goal of B2C marketing is to streamline the buyer’s journey. This means the key to success in B2C marketing is creating a positive association with the products or services you offer.
Tactics like influencer marketing , an engaging social media presence, and prominent customer reviews can boost B2C marketing efforts. They act as trust signals to your target audience.
The B2C sales cycle is also shorter than B2B. You can address this by creating content that proactively addresses customer questions or objections. This allows potential customers to make an informed decision as they consider their purchase.
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing attracts customers through tailored content or experiences. It’s also known as “pull” marketing because it’s designed to pull your audience in.
Inbound marketing relies on audience targeting . It identifies people who meet your ideal customer profile and tries to reach them with a tailored message across a variety of channels.
The Semrush blog is an example of inbound marketing. It’s filled with articles covering topics that marketers want to learn about.
This inbound strategy “pulls” searchers to our website. After getting value from the article, they’re more likely to have a positive perception of Semrush and potentially buy our product.
You first have to reach your audience and attract them to your business. You can then engage them with consistent messaging and spark delight through valuable resources or content.
Outbound Marketing
In this scenario, you’re reaching out to build brand awareness or generate leads. This marketing style is interruptive; you’re targeting an audience who isn’t necessarily looking for a product or solution.
Your goal is to generate interest among potential buyers, so you’re casting a wide net to gain new customers.
Super Bowl ads are an example of outbound marketing. Every ad reaches a huge, demographically diverse audience. This offers great brand visibility , but comes at the cost of relevance.
Squarespace’s Super Bowl ad from 2023 exemplifies outbound marketing. The ad is simple and memorable. It explains what Squarespace does in basic terms, creating interest for viewers who relate to the needs the product meets.
The core objective in an outbound campaign is to maximize reach with a broad-based, high-volume approach. It gets your product or service in front of more people than targeted inbound marketing.
From there, it’s a numbers game. The more people you reach, the more likely it is your message will resonate and lead to sales.
Common channels in outbound campaigns include print marketing, cold calling, direct mail, and other forms of traditional marketing.
Provide a clear next step for your audience to follow so you can activate their intent
Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is the use of online channels to reach and convert customers. Common channels include:
Also known as online marketing, it’s one of the most popular forms for good reason. It offers access to a vast audience, with over 5 billion internet users across the world.
You can use paid and organic channels in tandem, mixing granular customer targeting with broad brand-building activities.
For instance, you could promote free tickets to an event you’re hosting on your Instagram page. You might also create paid Google Ads for the giveaway to get it in front of new audiences that match your buyer persona. This will raise awareness and encourage engagement with existing followers.
Take advantage of the broad range of potential approaches, mixing paid, organic, inbound, and outbound strategies
Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing (SEM) involves using strategies to increase your site’s visibility in search results pages (SERPs) . It’s often referred to as pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, but can include other paid tactics as well.
It’s a versatile form of marketing because both B2C and B2B customers use search engines throughout their buying journey. That means you can target customers throughout the marketing funnel —from the initial awareness stage all the way to the moment they buy.
There are many PPC platforms, including search engines, social media sites, and more. The most popular is Google Ads.
These ads appear throughout SERPs, including at the top of the first page. The screenshot below shows two types of PPC ads on a Google SERP.
The first result is a shopping feed featuring brands like GANT, G-Star RAW, and Levi’s. The second is a Levi’s ad.
Each PPC platform operates differently, but the Semrush PPC Advertising Toolkit can help you get started.
The tools in the toolkit can help you learn which keywords you should target. They’ll also give you insights into where your competitors are running ads and what the messaging they’re using.
The Semrush Keyword Magic tool will help you find the right keywords to help you build a profitable campaign.
Start by entering a basic keyword. The tool will then generate a list of related words to consider using in your campaigns.
This includes an overview of their strategy and an understanding of how much they’re spending on PPC. You’ll also be able to see how much traffic their efforts are generating.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is the practice of creating and distributing content to grow, engage, and maintain your audience. A successful content marketing strategy increases your online visibility and authority.
This variety makes it a versatile type of marketing. You can use it to target customers at any stage of the buying funnel.
It can drive brand awareness by helping you rank for informational keywords early in the buying journey. It can also generate leads by addressing customer objections towards the bottom of the funnel.
Spotify’s annual “Wrapped” campaign is a great example of content marketing . It engages current users, serving them personalized content.
It also encourages those users to share their “Wrapped” result, boosting the campaign’s reach and attracting new customers.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is the strategic use of social media platforms to connect and engage with your target audience. It’s also one of the most common types of digital marketing. Almost every brand, both B2B and B2C, has a presence on one or more social platforms.
There are both paid and organic strategies, with most social media sites having a PPC advertising platform built in.
Social media is a big opportunity for both brand-building and sales-focused marketing because it presents huge potential reach.
There are almost 5 billion social media users in the world, and that number is growing.
Any social media platform can be part of a marketing campaign. But the largest are generally the most popular. These include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Innocent, the smoothie brand, shows how inventive social media marketing can be. Their Twitter feed is full of jokes, memes, and light-hearted product announcements.
This strategy gets them plenty of attention. It’s anything but sales-focused, and part of their broader brand awareness campaign to grow their audience.
Pro tip: Semrush Social can help you grow your visibility on social media platforms. Use it to create and share winning content across your profiles and analyze and evaluate your own and competitors’ social strategies.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is when businesses team up with people who have a large following online, usually on social media platforms.
It’s currently a $21+ billion industry, with influencers found across different kinds of marketing. And it’s still growing, as social media continues to attract new users and becomes more integrated with our daily life.
Regardless of the model used, the aim is typically to grow brand awareness or drive sales.
Email Marketing
There are about 4.3 billion email users as of 2023, and that number grows every day.
Email marketing lets you communicate with these users. The direct nature of emails and the customizability of campaigns makes it a versatile form.
You can use it in brand awareness campaigns, to pass information on to users, or to drive sales.
The below Black Friday email from Bose shows puts a spotlight on a single product with a prominent customer review and clear details about the savings available.
Read more about email marketing in our guide on How to Get Started with Email Marketing .
Video Marketing
Video marketing refers to the use of video assets as a marketing tool. Videos that promote or inform people about your offerings can help you reach, engage with, and convert your audience.
People are more likely to interact with videos than with text or image alone. That translates to a greater chance of keeping leads engaged with your brand and of leading them through your sales funnel.
When asked about content format types, 45% of respondents said video content performed best. 51% of people are more likely to share video with their friends than any other type of content.
You can share videos across a variety of digital channels, including video hosting sites, social media, and your own website.
Google uses its YouTube channel as a brand-building tool. They share annual “Year in Search” videos, summarizing the year’s search trends in an engaging way.
Social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram are also driving a new, shorter-form type of video marketing. They’re easy to make and share immediately.
Even non-video based platforms (like blogs) get a boost from video marketing. According to our latest research, articles with video generate 70% more organic traffic than those without.
Viral Marketing
Viral marketing is a technique that revolves around encouraging people to share content. It typically refers to digital content and social media platforms.
Viral marketing is one of the most recent marketing tactics. It has grown in popularity with the rise of social media.
The potential return on investment (ROI) of a successful viral marketing campaign can be massive. But it’s not a reliable form of marketing. There’s no guaranteed method of creating viral content. Most viral success seems to happen by accident.
Oreo’s “Dunk in the Dark” tweet is a great viral marketing example. They posted it during the 2013 Super Bowl, when a power outage dropped the lights at the Mercedes Superdome.
The tweet got lots of attention and is still referenced today. But there was no planning involved. Quick thinking from Oreo’s social media team created the viral moment.
Stay up to date with trends in your sector to find viral opportunities to pounce on
Product Marketing
It can be as simple as focusing marketing campaigns on the benefits or features of the product. You can also offer free trials or tiered pricing models and let the product market itself.
Successful product marketing relies on close product and marketing departments. This allows the two departments to share and improve on each others’ knowledge.
For example, marketers can feed insights on the target audience’s preferences into product development. And product managers can tell marketers when new features are ready to be announced.
It’s a popular approach with SaaS businesses. These companies operate in competitive markets where slight differences in product positioning can create a large competitive edge. Product marketing helps them differentiate themselves from competitors and attract customers.
Semrush, for example, offers a free platform with various price tiers. It also offers a free trial of its paid plans to help users get a feel for the product before committing.
Make use of free trials or a freemium pricing model to let your product do the talking
Brand Marketing
Brand marketing revolves around building brand awareness and affinity with the target audience. It aims to raise brand reputation , which can result in more customers with higher loyalty.
It’s often rolled out as part of a multi-channel strategy. Each channel delivers a consistent brand message to the audience.
Say a fitness brand wants to build up their brand recognition. They might include images and videos of athletes using their products on social media. They might also partner with well-known influencers to get reviews of their products and publish blog posts on their site related to fitness topics.
These efforts all work together to get the brand in front of a bigger audience and establish itself as an authority in the field.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) can be difficult to track in brand marketing. As a result, most brand marketing campaigns run alongside product-focused campaigns. This approach fuels short-term revenue and long-term brand growth at the same time.
The Michelin Guide is a famous example of brand marketing. The project has almost nothing to do with Michelin’s products. But it raised their profile and helps them maintain brand relevance.
The guide is a well-known standard for distinguishing top-tier restaurants. And it has the bonus effect of associating Michelin’s name with quality and luxury.
Read more about brand marketing in our guide on How to Build a Brand Identity .
Offline Marketing
Offline marketing is any form of marketing that takes place without the internet. It’s the opposite of digital marketing, and is often referred to as traditional marketing.
Offline marketing contains sub-types like print, direct, and word-of-mouth marketing. Popular offline channels include TV, billboards, and radio ads.
Offline marketing is primarily outbound. Offline channels lack the targeting capabilities of their digital counterparts. But they still offer significant potential reach.
For example, Statista found in a 2020 survey that more people recall seeing ads on TV than any other marketing channel.
There are no analytics platforms that can accurately track the impact of offline ads. So it’s difficult to determine what offline marketing efforts have worked.
The strategy was as simple as printing new product labels with a variety of popular first names on them. But it was highly effective at generating press coverage and credited with increasing Coke sales for the first time in 11 years.
Consider how you can link your offline strategies with online channels to create a fluid customer journey
Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Word-of-mouth marketing is a type of marketing that aims to encourage discussion about products or services.
A 2022 study by Nielsen backed up the potential value of word-of-mouth marketing strategies, finding that 89% of people trust personal recommendations more than any other channel.
Word-of-mouth marketing can take many forms. Loyalty programs, viral marketing, and product referral campaigns are all marketing activities designed to stimulate conversation.
For example, Meal-kit service Hello Fresh encourages word-of-mouth marketing by offering discounts for referrals. Existing customers can send “freebies” to friends so they can try the service at no charge. Or they can share a referral code that gives both parties a big discount.
Direct Marketing
Direct marketing involves communicating directly to a target audience Channels can include postal mail, email , and direct messages on social media platforms.
The direct nature of this type of marketing allows you to use highly personalized content . You can tailor messages to suit individual audience segments for increased impact.
This email from Ticketmaster is a good example of how you can use direct marketing to increase marketing relevance. It’s personalized to suit each recipient’s music taste.
But there’s a lot of input required to deploy a direct marketing campaign. You have to collect contact information, segment your audience, and create tailored messaging for each segment.
Tools like Semrush’s One2Target help you see and analyze your target audience demographics, socioeconomics, and interests.
Start by entering your company name and major competitors into the tool. For this example, we’re comparing Amazon with competing retailers eBay and Walmart.
Click “ Analyze .” You’ll get a report with options to see data on demographics, socioeconomics, behavior, and audience overlap.
In the “ Demographics ” tab, we can see that the main segment of this audience is men ages 25-34.
You can continue through each report to refine your segments and create clear target demographics within your audience.
Print Marketing
Print marketing is an offline strategy that involves the use of printed materials as a marketing channel. It encapsulates brochures, magazine ads, flyers, billboard ads, and more.
It’s the oldest form of marketing, but it’s still used by brands today. Times Square is full of both print and digital billboards, for example.
As with most types of offline marketing, it’s difficult to measure the impact of print marketing. Instead, it’s often used in campaigns designed for specific purposes like boosting brand awareness or targeting local audiences.
Trial different print mediums, like brochures, flyers, and billboards, to see which has the biggest impact
Event Marketing
Event marketing refers to using events to attract attention to a brand, product, or service. These events are typically held in person, but online events have become more common in recent years.
The key aims of event marketing are to create a memorable experience associated with your brand. It can also facilitate direct communication with your target audience.
Brands can host their own events, attend trade shows as exhibitors or speakers, or sponsor events for exposure.
Semrush’s recent Global Marketing Day was an online event. It attracted 87,000+ attendees and featured sessions from 150 experts.
Choose a Mix of Marketing Types to Create Your Perfect Campaign
All methods and types of marketing strategy have unique strengths and weaknesses. No single channel is without downsides. The best choice for your business depends on what you’re trying to achieve.
Whether your marketing goal is to build brand awareness or increase sales, there’s a combination of marketing categories that will work for you.
After you do a market analysis , you can make an educated decision on what marketing types make sense for your business. From there, you can generate creative, deploy your campaign, and start measuring results.