Marketing is one of the most central and important elements to any business. If you’re not engaging with and drawing in customers, then your business is pretty much doomed to fail from the very start. The problem that a lot of business find themselves with is that, while they understand that marketing is extremely important, they don’t realize just how broad and varied it is as a practice. They assume that there is perhaps only one “correct” way to market their business and try to pursue that, even if it’s not actually going to do them any good. In fact, the opposite is true; there are as many different ways to market a business as there are businesses themselves. Each one is unique and has its own advantages and disadvantages depending on the kind of business that you’re running. With that in mind, here are a few of the most common and effective forms of marketing and how they might help your business.
Viral marketing
This is the most recent form of marketing to appear in the world of business, and it’s been reliably shown to be one of the most effective forms of connecting with customers on a grass-roots level. Viral marketing is, essentially, the creation of engaging, interesting content that customer will want to share with their friends and family on social media. It’s often not a direct advertisement for the brand itself but rather focusses primarily on its shareability. This kind of marketing is most effective when aimed towards slightly younger generations. Millennials have shown time and time again that they simply don’t respond to more traditional marketing techniques, so viral marketing is a fantastic way to reach younger demographics more effectively.
Information marketing
Information marketing is a fantastic option if you want to create a single piece of marketing that you can continue to benefit from for years down the line. Essentially, information marketing is the creation of information based products that are sold time and time again. If you have something that you love or are passionate about then, you can easily create a piece of information marketing in order to share that with other people. If you have some degree of expertise in something and want to share it with the world, that’s information marketing. Many businesses use this form of marketing because it has an extremely low startup cost and it also is a fantastic way to draw in customers who might not necessarily be able to afford your service. By providing them information, you’re able to bring your business into their sphere of existence so that, when they are able to afford your product or service, yours is the first name that comes into their head.
Direct mail marketing
Plenty of people will try to tell you that traditional marketing is dead but that simply isn’t true. As fantastic as digital marketing methods are they often miss entire demographics, such as senior citizens. This is why physical marketing is still so important. You’re able to the market to them in a way that they are familiar with and can understand. Just make sure that any leaflets or pamphlets that you give out are well designed and easy to understand. If they look cheap then they’re that much more likely to get thrown in the trash.
