40 effective types of marketing to boost your business
Thanks to new technologies and the progress of creative thought, the field of marketing is rapidly evolving—and the types of marketing businesses can use only multiplies with each passing year. From deciding to create a website of your own to building a social media following, you can promote your product or service in countless ways.
01. Digital marketing
Digital marketing doesn’t refer to any one internet marketing strategy—rather, it’s a broad term encompassing strategic marketing that uses digital technology. Though digital marketing is only as old as smartphones and the internet, today, nearly every business and marketing professional uses at least one digital mass marketing tactic to target customers in new and interesting ways.
- Content marketing
- Social media marketing
- Search engine marketing
- Mobile marketing
- Email marketing
- Online advertising
02. Outbound marketing
Outbound marketing is a type of marketing that involves chasing after customers rather than organically attracting them. This method was especially common before digital marketing became a common practice, as it involves primarily using cold calls, print ads and TV commercials to attract customers.
Outbound marketing often faces criticism because it pushes your message to the general public, including people who may not be interested in your product or service. That said, outbound marketing can be used strategically if you carefully consider your company’s goals, target audience and KPIs.
03. Inbound marketing
Inbound marketing is an umbrella term that encompasses nearly all marketing types. So, what makes a particular marketing strategy inbound? That’s determined less by the specific method and more by the overarching technique.
One of the most common inbound marketing methods is content marketing, which you’ll read more about below.
04. Content marketing
You’ve probably noticed the increasing amount of company blogs as you browse the web. In fact, many Google search results actually come from business-run blogs.
But why do so many companies create a blog (with a blog maker) for their business? For that matter, what does blogging even have to do with marketing?
Whatever content you choose, the goal is to provide valuable information to your target audience that drives engagement, provides knowledge and support, and ultimately stimulates interest in your product or service.
05. Social media marketing
Some experts argue that social media marketing is a branch of content marketing, while others maintain it’s a world of its own. Whichever category you place it in, social media marketing is one of the most crucial types of marketing. In fact, 50% of consumers are more interested in a brand when they see Instagram ads for it
06. Search engine marketing
Search engine marketing, also known as SEM, includes all marketing that uses Google and other search engines as the primary tool for displaying promotional material. The goal of SEM your business pages appearing on search engine results pages (SERPs). When a page from your website—let’s say, a landing page or blog post—shows up in search engine results in response to a user’s search query, the user is exposed to your business. Ideally, they’ll click the result and navigate to your site.
Search engine marketing can be divided into two main types: search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click advertising (PPC). The main difference between the two is that SEO is organic (not paid), while PPC involves purchasing ads.
To start doing SEO, you’ll need to learn about the different ingredients that make websites rank in search engines. This includes technical aspects, like the structure and page speed of your website, as well as the implementation of keywords. Content marketing and SEO are deeply intertwined, since the more keyword-rich your blog and website content, the better your chances of ranking on the SERP.
The other type of search engine marketing, PPC, can be done in parallel with your SEO efforts. PPC ads are the sponsored content you see at the top of search results pages. If you’re interested in paying for sponsored results on Google, try Google Ads. This is one of the most popular, reliable choices for PPC marketers.
07. Organic marketing
You’ve already seen this term mentioned in our discussion of search engine optimization. This, together with content and social media marketing, comprises a powerful type of marketing known as organic marketing.
Organic marketing is any non-paid marketing that aims to naturally (organically) attract people to your business. It involves implementing the best practices to get search engines and social media platforms to display your posts in a prominent position. This contrasts from promoting your business “artificially” via paid links or boosted posts.
This method is the cornerstone of inbound marketing since it’s based on the principle that creating engaging social media content and strong, SEO-driven website copy will bring exposure to your business and magnetically drive customers toward your brand.
In general, audiences consider organic marketing less intrusive than advertising, since it focuses on nurturing prospective customers and drawing them to your business over time.
08. Advertising
That brings us to the next type of promotional strategy: advertising. Advertising is a branch of marketing that uses ad campaigns to present your brand, product, service or idea to the world.
There are many ways to advertise, including online methods, such as PPC ads and social media ads, as well as more traditional methods like TV, radio, billboard ads and QR codes.
As with social media marketing, choosing the right advertising platforms means accounting for your target audience’s demographics and interests, as well as how to present your messaging. Instagram ads, for example, tend to reach younger users but will be largely unseen by older audiences who are less engaged with the platform.
Facebook Ads by Wix allows you to run AI driven campaigns directly from your website dashboard to reach the most likely to convert audiences. 
09. Video marketing
As you’ve seen, marketing content assumes a wide range of formats—from blog articles to social media posts to podcasts. Video is another popular content marketing format.
Incorporating fun and engaging video into your marketing assets can be a great way to creatively display your brand—and it gives you ample time and space to convey your message.
You can use video marketing not only to promote your product, but also to provide potential customers with actionable tips and insights about your industry. Think of it as a watchable blog post that helps people trust and engage with your business.
There are several places for displaying video content, including YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, as well as your website. Try out this video maker to get started.
10. Influencer marketing
The global influencer marketing market size has more than doubled since 2019. In 2021, the market was valued at a record $13.8 billion U.S. dollars.
Influencer marketing involves using Instagram and other social platforms to partner with influencers—people who already have dedicated, engaged followers. These people are considered experts in their field, and their followers will take their recommendations to heart. That means that when an influencer backs your product, it gains instant credibility in their followers’ eyes. The result? More exposure for your brand and new customers.
Typically, influencers require compensation in exchange for promoting your brand, since many rely on sponsored content for income. In this case, you’ll sponsor one of their social media posts.
A very popular influencer (with 100,000+ followers) will be in higher demand and is likely to charge more than a micro-influencer (with 10,000 to 100,000 followers) or nano-influencer (with 100 to 10,000 followers). Often, nano-influencers accept free products and swag rather than payment, especially if they’re just starting. Do your research to find out which partnerships will align with your market and budget.
11. Affiliate marketing
In addition to paying influencers for sponsored posts, you can pay them for sharing affiliate content. This is a practice known as affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing involves two players: the merchant and the affiliate. The affiliate promotes the merchant’s product to their audience and earns a percentage of the sale in exchange.
So, how does this work? As the merchant, you’ll connect with affiliates, either reaching out to them directly or using an affiliate network. Once they agree to partner with you, you’ll provide them with a unique link to your online store.
Then, the affiliate will promote your link, perhaps including it in a blog post, Instagram Story or YouTube video. When a customer clicks on the link to make a purchase, the affiliate will earn a commission from the sale.
Affiliate marketing can bring your business wider exposure. By partnering with affiliates who already have a large audience on their social media platforms or blog, you can reach new customers.
12. Outreach marketing
What do affiliate marketing and influencer marketing have in common? They both involve partnering with people outside your business to promote your product or service.
This is the guiding principle of outreach marketing. An effective outreach strategy involves using email outreach to build relationships with people who can influence consumer opinions about your brand. These include social media influencers, bloggers, journalists and even other businesses.
The goal of connecting with these people is getting your brand mentioned on a well-known site or social media channel. This will strengthen your brand’s authority in your niche, while building brand awareness and helping you gain exposure. It’s also a great way to network with influential people who may benefit your business down the line.
Many companies also use outreach marketing to build backlinks, or links from external websites to their own site. Having a high number of backlinks from credible, authoritative sources helps SEO and can ultimately bring more traffic to your website. That said, don’t start link building without first doing careful research, as search engines can penalize you for malpractice.
13. Email marketing
81% of small business marketers rely on email as their primary acquisition channel, while 80% use it for customer retention.
Email marketing involves sending emails to prospects and customers with the goal of making sales or driving them further down the marketing funnel. Because it reaches customers directly, it tends to generate high returns. For every $1 spent on email marketing, the average ROI is $36.
Depending on your goals, you can send all sorts of emails to your audience, including informational newsletters, new product releases, sales announcements and abandoned shopping cart reminders. It's a great way to put personalized marketing to work. Just keep in mind that everyone you email must have subscribed to receive your messages for you to remain legally compliant.
To start getting subscribers, add lead capture forms to your website with fields for visitors’ names and email addresses. Make sure your forms are eye-catching and include compelling copy that encourages people to join your mailing list.
14. Guerilla marketing
As we mentioned earlier, most promotional techniques we discuss in this article constitute different forms of digital marketing. Guerilla marketing, however, is a rare type of modern marketing that involves taking your tactics offline.
Guerilla marketing uses novel, unconventional methods to boost sales, build hype around your go to market strategy, and generate awareness around your brand. While sometimes aided by technology such as social media or mobile devices, it generally involves a small group of people using bold methods to promote a brand in a high-traffic physical location. This means anything from branding a public space with street art to creating immersive pop-up experiences in physical locations.
Guerilla marketing can be achieved on a low-budget, but it does require high energy and prompt, tightly-organized execution. If you’re up for the challenge, this fun and original method can generate buzz around your brand. Take a look at these guerilla marketing examples for ideas.
15. Word of mouth marketing
Ever heard the phrase that happy customers are your biggest advocates? This is the main idea behind word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM), which gets satisfied customers to spread the word about your product or service.
This is important for two reasons: First, successful WOMM strategy means your brand has obtained loyal, committed customers. And since these people will recommend your product to their friends, it also means more potential buyers. After all, people place more weight on the recommendations of a trusted friend than those of a biased seller.
There’s no tried-and-true approach to guaranteeing an effective WOMM strategy, but the most essential ingredient is consumer happiness. Offer top-notch customer service and do your best to genuinely address your customers’ needs, from the way you design your products to the values you practice as a brand. Enchant your customers and the recommendations will follow.
16. Referral marketing
A referral marketing strategy takes advantage of word of mouth. This practice involves building a referral program, which incentivizes customers to recommend your products to others. Typically, these programs offer both the customer and their friend discounts when the customer convinces that friend to buy.
For instance, the Airbnb Referral Program allows members to earn promotional coupon credits (“travel credits”) toward future homes/experiences bookings by referring friends to become new Airbnb users.
17. Acquisition marketing
Acquisition marketing, as its name implies, is marketing with the sole purpose of acquiring new clients. This contrasts from retention marketing and brand marketing, which you’ll read more about below.
Examples of acquisition marketing include SEO, top-of-the-funnel blog content, landing pages, and social media or Google ads. Anything that aims directly to obtain new customers or capture leads is considered acquisition marketing.
The goal of acquisition marketers is to create assets that compel their target audience to click. Offering freemium products and free trials, optimizing your website’s conversion rate, and including strategic CTAs in your content are all powerful techniques for acquiring new customers.
18. Retention marketing
A strong marketing strategy requires implementing both retention and acquisition tactics within the sales funnel. However, retention marketing practices have distinct goals and KPIs.
While acquisition marketing focuses on acquiring new customers, retention marketing aims to bring back previous customers and hold on to existing ones. Studies have shown that this is a powerful practice with a high ROI. Acquiring new customers is between 5 and 25 times more expensive than retaining existing ones, and on top of that, increasing retention rates by just 5% can increase profits by up to 95%.
An effective retention marketing strategy requires you to over deliver on your promises to customers. Find ways to make your business exceed their expectations from the start, such as by thanking them with a handwritten note. Go above and beyond when engaging with them, whether by sending out customer feedback surveys or taking extra steps to address their pain points.
19. Brand marketing
Unlike acquisition and retention marketing, brand marketing isn’t focused on making sales. Instead, its primary goal is to shape how the public perceives your brand.
In other words, brand marketing promotes your identity, not your products. This involves creating a logo and coming up with a cohesive brand language, colors and website design. It also requires putting together a compelling brand story, as well as a mission statement that highlights your values as a business.
For these efforts to be effective, your brand needs to deeply resonate with your target audiences’ interests, values and needs. Start by researching your audience, and then shape a brand that speaks to them directly.
20. Behavioral marketing
Behavioral marketing uses consumer behavior to decide how to target an audience with relevant material. This involves finely segmenting audiences based on their behavior online.
To get behavioral data, you can analyze the user flow on your site. This offers important insights about a particular user’s interests and readiness to purchase. Based on this information, marketers can create specific promotional campaigns tailored for different audiences.
As you might expect, marketing automation plays a vital role here, with certain behaviors triggering specific campaigns. A particular action on your website, for instance, might show that user a relevant Facebook ad or send them an automated email recommending related products.
21. Nostalgia marketing
Nostalgia marketing evokes the power of nostalgia to create warm, happy feelings around your brand. This involves infusing your promotional materials with familiar concepts that evoke fond memories, and it’s a great way to build trust in a new company.
Think about the retro appeal of an 8-bit era video game or a glass Coca-Cola bottle with its timeless red logo. These appeal to our love for nostalgia and our yearning for a pure and simple past.
To tap into this strategy, try launching a nostalgia-driven social media campaign that incorporates old school references and invokes childhood memories among your target audience. Just make sure your messaging stays consistent with your brand’s story, values and product.
22. Neuromarketing
Another important type of marketing is neuromarketing. This field of marketing applies neuropsychology to market research. Neuromarketers analyze brain imaging and scanning to measure physiological and neural responses to marketing stimuli. They can tell, for instance, if a customer is genuinely happy with a particular product, even if they don’t verbally express it.
Not only is this a fascinating way to learn more about human behavior; it also helps guide organizations in creating marketing materials that truly work. All types of marketing consider psychology, but neuromarketing is founded in real, hard science. Guided by neural research, marketing professionals can develop a more informed approach to crafting marketing assets, designing products and developing a brand.
23. Emotional marketing
Emotional marketing encompasses any marketing effort that primarily uses emotion to get people to purchase or otherwise engage with a brand.
To be effective, emotional marketing needs to concentrate on a single feeling, whether it’s happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, disgust or something in between. Consider Dove’s Real Beauty campaign, which evokes optimism, acceptance and self-love to promote its products.
Studies show that feeling plays a bigger role than thinking in consumer behavior. Why? Because most people prefer to follow their heart when making a decision. So, in your marketing campaigns, don’t just focus on the advantages of your product; focus instead on how you want people to feel when using it.
24. Public relations
Also known as PR, public relations is a subset of marketing that involves managing the way the media represents your business. The process involves using press releases—official statements about a newsworthy item or event—to encourage the media to publish content about your business.
For instance, you may urge the press to publish stories on your business’s launch, the latest funding round, a recent award, a groundbreaking new product, or a large charitable contribution. The goal is to shape the public’s perception of your brand and highlight your company as an industry leader. This, in turn, helps stimulate demand for your product or service.
While it can be combined with other marketing efforts, PR is a full-time job. Many businesses have a dedicated PR team to help the company get good press.
25. Mobile marketing
A core part of any digital strategy, mobile marketing has rapidly gained traction since the advent of the smartphone. This technique refers to any marketing or advertising activity that uses mobile devices as its main promotional platform.
If you own a smartphone, there’s a good chance you’re already familiar with this strategy. Push notifications, ASO marketing, SMS messages (SMS marketing), in-app marketing and QR codes are all commonly-used methods for promoting a product or brand.
Mobile marketing takes advantage of the fact that people carry their mobile devices everywhere. It also makes use of people’s tendency to casually browse the web through their mobile phones and uses this data to target potential customers with well-timed messages. For example, a phone’s location services enable businesses to target users based on their physical location.
26. Relationship marketing
Relationship marketing is a type of marketing that seeks to build long-term customer relationships rather than focus on short-term sales or transactions. The goal of relationship marketing is to foster a loyal, dependable customer base who advocates for your brand.
This marketing practice prioritizes customer retention over acquisition. It involves providing high-quality customer service and responding to the questions and needs of your customers, whether that’s by engaging with them on social media or using live chat on your website.
Importantly, building strong relationships with customers doesn’t just mean providing them good service until they make a purchase. You must continue to delight customers long after they make their first purchase, such as by offering a loyalty program with special perks, complementary product recommendations or product care tips and guides. Thoughtful acts like these can cultivate a community around your brand and build a lifelong relationship with your fans.
27. Voice marketing
Voice marketing is a relatively new type of marketing that applies SEO practices to voice search. This allows businesses to capture searches from people who are speaking, rather than typing. While voice search has been around for several years, it’s become increasingly common with the popularity of smart speakers like Amazon Alexa or Google Home, as well as smartphone assistants like Siri.
There are numerous ways voice search differs from typed phrases; for instance, people searching with voice may use longer phrases or even full sentences. If someone browses on their computer and has a hankering for a burger, they may simply type “burger restaurant” into Google. On the other hand, if they’re busy driving, they might ask Siri, “Where can I get a burger?”
Google accommodates for this semantic variation by continuously improving the natural language processing (NLP) capabilities of its search engine. To stay on top of this ever-evolving world of SEO, familiarize yourself with voice marketing and adapt your site to voice search. One way to do so is to write blog post titles in the form of a question.
28. Partnership marketing
Partnership marketing is when two or more businesses combine their promotional efforts for mutual benefit. By collaborating, you’ll expand your reach to another business’s audience, while they expand their reach to yours. This can generate brand awareness, get new customers, and help grow relationships with companies that share your values. To exemplify, Wix’s partner's program is built for agencies to support their clients and get rewarded for each site they build on Wix.
To try this approach, start researching businesses with similar target audiences. Ideally, they should offer products that compliment your own to encourage customers to purchase both. And of course, you’ll want to make sure they don’t directly or indirectly compete with your business.
Partnership marketing options include hosting a joint webinar, conducting a research study together, or collaborating on a special product release. For instance, if you run a small business selling charcuterie boards, consider partnering with a local winery and marketing your products together.
29. User-generated marketing
While partnership marketing harnesses the power of other businesses, user-generated marketing taps into your audience. Any strategy that allows consumers to participate in a marketing campaign is considered user-generated marketing.
The most common user-generated marketing strategy is getting users to use your product and share the experience via social media. On Instagram, this typically involves using a branded hashtag to organize all posts in one place or tagging the brand in a TikTok, Story or Reel.
The primary advantage of sharing user-generated content is to drive engagement and spread brand awareness. On top of that, content that shows real users enjoying your products helps persuade other consumers to try them out, too.
30. Seasonal marketing
Seasonal marketing, also known as holiday marketing, is the promotion of products and services at certain times throughout the year. This might involve having one marketing campaign for Valentine’s Day, a different one for Christmas, and yet another for Pride month.
While every business can benefit from this type of marketing, it’s especially crucial for seasonal businesses. A florist or jewelry business, for instance, will want to invest heavily in marketing for Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.
31. Stealth marketing
You’re probably already familiar with product placement, which involves subtly promoting a product by featuring it in a movie, TV show, or another form of media. This type of marketing is known as stealth marketing, also referred to as undercover marketing.
As a whole, this marketing strategy involves promoting a product to consumers without them knowing they’re being marketed to. Aside from product placement, stealth marketing can happen in online forums where marketers talk about a product to generate buzz.
The goal of stealth marketing isn’t to immediately generate sales, but rather to steadily build interest in a product or brand. This technique also makes audiences more responsive to direct advertising, as it primes them with a positive brand impression.
32. B2C
Business to consumer (B2C) marketing targets an individual consumer’s buying power. Most businesses focus on B2C marketing—especially those selling consumer-packaged goods (CPG). That’s because B2C marketing provides a broad audience and short sales cycles which allow for quick purchasing decisions. Consumers often make the purchase for themselves, meaning they do not need approval from many stakeholders.
However, consumer needs constantly shift, meaning this fast-paced market can change overnight. B2C businesses, then, must make an effort to stay up-to-date with marketing trends and consumer behavior insights.
Common B2C marketing tactics include influencer marketing, social media contests and customer loyalty programs
33. B2B
B2B marketing stands for business-to-business marketing. In this marketing type, one business sells services to another business. While B2B marketing still targets a singular person, it’s usually based on their role, company, or industry.
B2B sales cycles are long, as businesses require more research and stakeholder approval before buying goods or services than consumers do. B2B marketing commonly starts with marketers getting marketing qualified leads (MQLs) into their sales funnel and using sales development to make calls and conduct product demos.
Most B2B marketing is done digitally or through industry-specific conferences. Many B2B marketers use LinkedIn’s job title database to target a professional audience. Check out these other lead generation strategies for ideas.
34. Telemarketing
Telemarketing promotes a product or service over the telephone. Companies can call prospective or current customers and inform them of special deals or new product offerings. For example, a financial service company can use telemarketing to promote a new credit card.
Telemarketing provides a more interactive and personal sales service, creates immediate rapport with customers, and allows the chance to clearly answer technical questions.
While your company may use a call center, businesses more frequently use automated or "robocalls," for this tactic. Due to the intrusive, solicitous nature, many customers do not like telemarketing. If you choose to proceed with it, ensure that you only call those who have opted in to avoid brand damage. The same goes for direct mail marketing.
35. Cause marketing
Cause marketing shows your business's corporate social responsibility to a non-profit or other world-bettering initiatives. Through cause marketing, you will build a better relationship with your community and those who support your values. This can translate to long-term business growth through increased brand loyalty and a defined competitive advantage.
A popular initiative in this space is sustainable marketing, where companies exhibit their eco-friendly practices. To begin, pledge a fixed amount of sales to a cause or partner with a local organization to support an initiative.
36. Event marketing
Businesses can use event marketing to build lasting relationships and create memorable experiences for their target audiences. Events can range from thought leadership-based conferences or online events to product-forward workshops. Find out how to promote an event in 9 actionable steps.
Tip: Utilize a professional event website and Wix Events to collect RSVPs, plan seating and more. 
37. Global marketing
As online businesses attract increasingly global audiences, many turn to localization marketing, optimizing messages and products to fit cultural and geographic specificities.
To gain respect for your company and avoid tokenization, an excellent way to approach localization is to partner with members of the community or culture that you want to reach.
38. Conversational marketing
Conversational marketing allows brands to more easily converse with their customers.
Today, consumers expect to find the answers they need instantaneously.
Here’s more on why a business needs live chat on its website. 
39. Product marketing
Product marketing is not just beautiful pictures of your product—it drives the demand and usage of it. Product marketing ensures product-market fit and helps better understand customer problems. It uses market research, sales, and customer success data to inform messaging.
This marketing has clear key performance indicators (KPIs) that help measure the effectiveness of efforts across a company's entire product line. For example, software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies commonly set goals around the number of trial and demo signups, lead-to-consumer rate and revenue.
40. Account-based marketing
Account-based marketing (ABM), also known as key account marketing, has marketing and sales creating personalized messages, campaigns, and buying experiences to target a specific account or company. Businesses often use ABM as an acquisition marketing method to generate new leads.
There is typically a minimum number of accounts you must provide for ABM to succeed. Many advertising solutions let you upload a mass sheet with the targeted companies so that you only pay for ads served to them.
41. Local marketing
Local marketing is most popular among brick-and-mortar business owners, but it has its place in just about any business model. Tailoring a business's branding and advertising to target consumers in a specific area is a great way of showing them that you are attuned to their identity, wants and needs. If your business is native to the area, local marketing will show consumers that you care about contributing to the local economy which can help build trust.
