Types of effective marketing strategies for a new business
There is virtually no limit to the types of marketing strategies an entrepreneur has at his disposal. And through the years, with new concepts and designs being discovered daily, the biggest problem a business owner will face is choosing which one will best suit their new venture.
Basically, modern marketing can be divided into three general categories: traditional marketing, word of mouth marketing, and the newer online marketing.
- Traditional Marketing – Also known as offline marketing, traditional marketing used to be the one area that dominated the focus of marketers and business owners. This type of marketing strategy is further divided into two groups, print and, together, radio and television. This may seem like a dinosaur to some, but it is still very effective and consistently produces good results. For new businesses, you can make use of printed materials such as brochures, posters, and direct marketing through postal mail using catalogs, for example. You can even use interactive and personal marketing by handing out products and samples. For those with a larger budget, TV and radio ads are highly recommended to reach a larger audience and get your message across effectively.
- Word of Mouth Marketing – This is by far the most effective and powerful. You can instantly convert a consumer into a customer. This is because this type of marketing is the by-product of the other two marketing strategies and the resulting satisfaction from what was provided in exchange for your patronage. Because word of mouth marketing is placed on the shoulders of satisfied customers who then share this satisfaction with people who trust them, this trust is then transferred to the business. This gives the company an amount of credibility to the new customer that no amount of media-based advertising could achieve.
- Online Marketing – This is the newest and may prove to be the most powerful as it has opened up a Pandora’s Box of different types of marketing strategies that have completely changed the face of marketing. Here you can find numerous methods to explore a new business. Some of the best ideas would include affiliate marketing, article marketing, social media, blogging. Affiliate marketing can take a similar form to traditional print marketing by placing banner ads on websites, but it can reach many more people. Article marketing and blogging allow for two strategies at the same time. Both can be used to directly promote a product or service, or can be used to help drive traffic to a website for the same purpose. Social media is the online version of word of mouth marketing and has the ability to “personally touch” large numbers of people instantly, basically with the touch of a button.
Regardless of the types of marketing strategies a new business decides to use, it would seem that the Internet should figure prominently in that decision.
