Marketing is a very broad word that covers all promotional and PR activities that a brand may undertake. That is why there is a lot of confusion in the infographics and studies regarding the classification of the areas it contains. Some divide marketing into very small sectors, others enter the same activities into several basic spheres. Here, however, we will simply introduce the most popular concepts related to the areas of marketing and try to briefly explain what they mean.
Outbound Marketing and Inbound Marketing
The easiest way to divide the marketing areas into two groups: Outbound Marketing and Inbound Marketing. Outbound Marketing one in which the company takes the initiative to the client and wants to take their attention. Tools that can be used here are advertising on radio, press, television, billboards, campaigns in Google Ads, Facebook Ads and other social media, mailing, pop-ups on the site, active sales through merchants, etc. This type of activity has many advantages – allows you to reach a wide audience, is simple and quick to implement, and often you don’t have to wait long for its results. On the other hand, too pushy Outbound Marketing can be irritating to recipients and discourage the brand – that’s why it is sometimes even called disruptive marketing. But has his time passed? Rather not, when used sensitively, it can still bring the company quite a lot of profit.
Inbound Marketing, stands in opposition to it. It means activities that make the customer find the brand and visit it by himself. It is much less obtrusive, you can even compare it to slowly attracting potential customers. This can be done using profiles on social media, sharing blog articles, videos, guides, podcasts or website positioning so that it appears as high as possible in search results. A difficult to implement, but a very effective variety of Inbound Marketing is viral marketing, i.e. publishing content that Internet users will themselves massively disseminate, thus providing the brand with free advertising.
SEM
SEM (Search Engine Marketing), i.e. search engine marketing, are all those activities that we take to make the brand visible in the search results in Google, Bing, Yandex or other search engines. It includes both activities aimed at increasing organic traffic (SEO) and paid advertising (PPC). When we talk about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), we mean the positioning of the website for the most profitable key phrases. Increasing visibility in organic results includes technical optimization of the website, creating texts containing keywords, acquiring valuable external links and many other activities that are individually selected for a given website.
When it comes to PPC (pay per click), there are advertising campaigns launched in the Google Ads system. Thanks to them, we can make the website appear as a sponsored link in the search results or, for example, place our products above the list of results and in the Google Shopping tab. Of course, Google Ads also provides many other advertising formats, thanks to which you can advertise on YouTube or the Google advertising network.
Content Marketing
Content Marketing is currently one of the most frequently chosen areas of marketing. It involves attracting audiences by offering them valuable content for free that will bring them to your site and later possibly benefit from the offer. As part of content marketing, or content marketing, you can create a company blog, YouTube channel, infographics, guides, webinars, podcasts and any other form that potential customers may be interested in. Such content should not be strictly promotional, advertising of individual products or brands may be slightly highlighted in the background, but the main goal is to provide the recipient with valuable advice or inspiration. It is not about the sale itself, but about attracting the customer to the brand, building in him the feeling that he got something without incurring any costs. Thanks to content, it is also possible to arouse sympathy for the brand – show who creates it, what values it believes, and what it emphasizes.
Social Media Marketing
Marketing in social media is a very important element in building relationships with potential customers. It shortens the distance between them and the brand, allows for more free contact, gives recipients a space to express their own opinions and a sense of influence on shaping the future of the brand. It also allows you to show the company from a more human side, because you can place less serious content on social media than on a film page.
When we talk about social media marketing, we mean keeping official brand profiles, but also creating groups or events focused around this brand. An element of Social Media Marketing are also paid ads in various formats – promoting a website, profile, specific post or aimed at gaining new recipients. Of course, not all social media will be appropriate for every brand, but it is worth appearing in at least one or two channels outside your own website. The most popular social media today are YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, but it is not worth underestimating the potential of other platforms, such as LinkedIn, Twitter or Pinterest.
E-mail Marketing
E-mail Marketing is a type of direct marketing in which we send messages directly to recipients from our mailing list. They are designed to build relationships with recipients, and then skillfully maintain them. As part of E-mail Marketing, we can send information about discounts and promotions, new products, test the satisfaction with the services provided, etc. Newsletters in which we send the recipients interesting content are also popular forms of e-mail marketing: a collection of the most interesting content from the last weeks or even material not available from any other channels. However, it is very important to be moderate and not to turn E-mail Marketing into regular spam. If users find brand messages on a daily basis, there is a good chance that they will get annoyed and simply revoke consent to receive the emails.
Real Time Marketing
It is a very difficult type of marketing that requires immediate reactions to the current situation. It consists in sharing content, most often on social media, in some way referring to a famous, widely commented event. However, the condition for a successful action is to create an interesting and creative reference in a very short time – publication of the material a week after the incident will not amuse anyone, and may even irritate the recipient. After all, something new happens every day and news becomes a thing of the past faster than ever. An example of a successful RTM is an advertisement published when Great Britain left the European Union. The company then published a graphic with a question resembling a system message: “Are you sure you want to delete 1 GB?” A funny, ambiguous reference quickly circulated the Internet, giving the company a lot of sympathy for users.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer Marketing assumes promoting the brand through cooperation with celebrities and generally recognizable people on the Internet – for example, bloggers or a popular YouTube channel. Such people can become the face or partner of the brand, but constant cooperation is not necessary here. A common practice of companies is to send products to influencers in return for publishing their reviews on their channels. In this way, the brand gains access to the group of recipients associated around the celebrity and additional interest – after all, for many people recommending a product by an idol is much more motivating to use the offer than any advertising on the Internet or outside it.
Guerrilla Marketing
This type of marketing uses very unconventional methods to interest the recipient with a product or service. Its main goal is to evoke strong emotions in the recipient – shock, amusement or even terror. As a result, the ad is very memorable and widely commented, which gives it additional publicity. For this purpose, you can use urban space, for example by creating murals or city games, or an element of surprise – for example a flash mob or performance. An example is the promotion of the new season of the series Money Heist carried out by Netflix. A few weeks before the premiere, posters with photos of the main characters and a designated reward for their arrest, similar to the “wanted letters” in Westerns, began to appear on advertising posts in the cities. The posters were devoid of the Netflix logo and there was no mention of the series in them, so they interested passers-by and made them search the Internet for information what they meant.
Word of mouth marketing
Word of mouth marketing is based on the fact that a large part of recipients trust the opinions of their friends and friends more than advertising messages. Therefore, it is worth providing them with the so-called social proof, i.e. social proof of rightness – information from other users that a given product or service has proven successful and is recommended. This effect can be achieved, for example, by introducing a referral program for clients. In return for recommending the brand to their friends, they get a cash bonus, discount or any other remuneration.
A widely used, although debatable in terms of ethics, method is also posting comments or opinions about the company by the company, using false nicknames and giving the recipient the impression that the customers praise the brand. A variation of word-of-mouth marketing is the so-called buzz marketing based on making noise around an upcoming event or product to be released. In such cases, people employed by the company often maintain the interest of the recipients, encourage discussion, fuel curiosity and generally build an atmosphere of expectation, skillfully involving the real recipients of the brand in the dialogue. Thanks to this, the product premiere has a chance to become louder and more widely discussed in the media.
Marketing Automation
Marketing Automation is an area dealing with the acquisition and analysis of information about recipients. These are not so much personal data as information about users’ behavior on the Internet, their professional and private situation, interests or current needs. Such data is used to show the recipient personalized advertisements for products and services that they are likely to be interested in. Of course, they are not analyzed by a human, but with the use of advanced technologies in the field of machine learning and artificial intelligence.
The collection of user data is currently very controversial and some companies are at least partially withdrawing from the most ethically questionable activities (eg Google withdraws from third party cookies). However, many different entities collect data and use it for marketing purposes, and some recipients appreciate receiving personalized, not accidental, advertisements.
ATL
ATL (above the line) includes traditional advertising channels such as radio, press or television, as well as outdoor advertising, i.e. placed outside the place of residence of the potential customer. It is about all kinds of billboards, posters, citylights, etc. Many brands still carry out this type of marketing, but it is much more expensive than more modern methods of promotion. Why? First of all, you often have to pay dearly for a good place in the city space, airtime or newspaper advertising. Second, we have little influence on who sees our ads. We cannot define the target group as precisely as in online activities, therefore a very small percentage of recipients will actually be interested in the product. The return on investment may therefore be minimal or not even cover the costs in some cases. This does not mean that this type of advertising is bad. Showing oneself in a respected magazine or on a channel with high audience builds the prestige and recognition of the brand. Due to the price, however, it is reserved for companies with a large advertising budget.
