Inbound 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.
Still, outbound marketing remains a common digital marketing practice today. For instance, email blasts, or mass email campaigns sent to a vast subscriber list continue to be a popular promotional tactic.
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.
As an inbound marketer, your job is to help consumers make informed decisions. Instead of running after customers, you’ll offer helpful resources and tips that ultimately reveal why your product solves their problems. You can provide valuable blog content, make yourself available via email and live chat, and continue to offer support even after making a sale.
Inbound marketing employs a very different strategy from its outbound counterpart, as discussed above. Over the past few years, it’s become the more popular of the two among modern-day marketers, since its nuanced approach leaves consumers happy and builds lifetime loyalty.
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 small business marketing?
Blogging is crucial for content marketing—one of the most effective marketing strategies out there. Arguably the most important inbound marketing type, content marketing is an essential part of any business’s toolkit.
As a whole, content marketing involves creating and distributing content often through mutli-channel marketing approaches. This not only includes writing blog posts, but also posting on social media, writing in-depth e-books, sharing data-rich infographics, creating video content and even starting a podcast.
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.
This valuable marketing strategy involves promoting your brand via social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn or YouTube.
Many companies use a combination of these different platforms as part of their social media marketing strategy. Your choice of platforms largely depends on where your target audience is most active and how you want to represent your business. For example, restaurant social media marketing is particularly effective on Instagram because the platform is based on visuals. Posting pictures and videos of tasty-looking food is an extremely effective way for restaurants to market their products.
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.
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.
Still, outbound marketing remains a common digital marketing practice today. For instance, email blasts, or mass email campaigns sent to a vast subscriber list continue to be a popular promotional tactic.
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.
As an inbound marketer, your job is to help consumers make informed decisions. Instead of running after customers, you’ll offer helpful resources and tips that ultimately reveal why your product solves their problems. You can provide valuable blog content, make yourself available via email and live chat, and continue to offer support even after making a sale.
Inbound marketing employs a very different strategy from its outbound counterpart, as discussed above. Over the past few years, it’s become the more popular of the two among modern-day marketers, since its nuanced approach leaves consumers happy and builds lifetime loyalty.
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 small business marketing?
Blogging is crucial for content marketing—one of the most effective marketing strategies out there. Arguably the most important inbound marketing type, content marketing is an essential part of any business’s toolkit.
As a whole, content marketing involves creating and distributing content often through mutli-channel marketing approaches. This not only includes writing blog posts, but also posting on social media, writing in-depth e-books, sharing data-rich infographics, creating video content and even starting a podcast.
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.
This valuable marketing strategy involves promoting your brand via social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn or YouTube.
Many companies use a combination of these different platforms as part of their social media marketing strategy. Your choice of platforms largely depends on where your target audience is most active and how you want to represent your business. For example, restaurant social media marketing is particularly effective on Instagram because the platform is based on visuals. Posting pictures and videos of tasty-looking food is an extremely effective way for restaurants to market their products.
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.
