41 Types of Marketing Your Brand Can Invest In

→ Download Now: Free Marketing Plan Template

Like many of the people who currently work in the industry, digital marketing was born in the 1990s. Since then, the industry has evolved at breakneck speed, sprouting many more types of marketing.

From search engine marketing to account-based marketing, every brand can use a combination of these tactics to attract its target audience and bring in more revenue.

Read on to learn about the top types of marketing around today.

Types of Marketing

1. Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing refers to brand promotion on offline channels that were around before the rise of the internet. Think billboards, flyers, and radio spots.

Because information wasn’t as easily accessible and readily available, the majority of traditional marketing relied on outbound tactics such as print, television ads, and billboards.

2. Outbound Marketing

Outbound marketing refers to intrusive promotion, such as cold calling, email blasts to purchased lists, and print ads.

This marketing method is called “outbound” because it involves pushing a message out to consumers to raise awareness on your products or services — regardless of consumer interest.

3. Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is focused on attracting customers rather than interrupting them. The majority of inbound marketing tactics fall under digital marketing, as consumers are empowered to do research online as they progress through their own buyer’s journey.

Inbound is built on three pillars: Attract, engage, and delight. Your initial goal is to create valuable content and experiences that resonate with your audience and attract them to your business.

The next is to engage them through conversational tools like email marketing and chat bots, and of course continued value. Finally, you delight them by continuing to act as an empathetic advisor and expert.

4. Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is the opposite of traditional marketing, leveraging technology that didn’t exist traditionally to reach audiences in new ways. This type of marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that live online.

Businesses leverage digital channels, such as search engines, social media, email, and websites to connect with current and prospective customers.

5. Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing, or SEM, includes all strategies used to ensure your business is visible on search engine results pages (SERPs). With SEM, you can get your business in the number one spot when a user searches a particular keyword.

The two types of SEM are search engine optimization (SEO) for organic search results and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising for sponsored search engine results.

To get started with SEO, you must familiarize yourself with search engine ranking factors and produce content for search engines to index.

Pay-per-click SEM involves bidding on keywords to get your ads placed, through platforms like Google Ads. There are also ads management tools to make creating and managing PPC campaigns a breeze.