Marketing strategies have existed throughout human history. At one point, it was just standing outside a market stall and crying out your wares. It continues to evolve, just as society does.
In 2020, there are perhaps more marketing strategies that you can employ than ever before. While that gives you some degree of freedom, it can also overwhelm you.
If you have a marketing background, you might have uncertainty about how best to allocate money that your business entity has given you. You want to serve their best interest, and that means getting back a great ROI.
Here are five modern marketing strategies of which you must be aware.
Product Placement Marketing Strategies
If you do have a marketing degree, then you probably already know about product placement. You can look into product placement:
- In TV shows
- In movies
Some marketing strategists call this embedded marketing. Think about the famous Reese’s Pieces scene in “ET: The Extra-Terrestrial.” That’s an excellent product placement example.
Whenever you’re watching a prominent movie or TV show, and you see a product featured front and center, that’s product placement, and it doesn’t happen by accident. A company paid to have that there, and it can return big dividends.
Just make sure, if you go this route, that you feature your product in a movie or on a show that you want to be associated with the company or brand you represent.
Internet Ads
There is also a lot of targeted advertising that takes place online these days. When someone gets on their laptop or desktop and starts surfing the web, ad bots monitor:
- Their IP addresses
- Their browsing habits
Let’s say that you go online, and you go to Major League Baseball’s website. You decide that you might want your favorite team’s jersey, so you go to Amazon to look at some of the options. You feel like the possibilities are too expensive, so you opt not to buy them.
The next time you open up your laptop and start browsing, it should not surprise you to notice banner ads on the screen’s side for your team’s baseball jerseys. That’s how targeted internet ads work, and companies make money off them. All you must do is use targeted advertising algorithms to get some sales for your brand.
Affiliate Marketing Strategies
Affiliate marketing is relatively new, but it can pay big dividends for your brand or company. This is where you ask another website to feature your ads. You can contact the webmaster and negotiate a commission for the privilege.
For this to work, you need useful services and products. You also need to contact sites where it makes sense for them to advertise your products. For instance, if you manufacture camping gear, then you can contact webmasters with camping or outdoor adventure sites.
You’ll need to look for websites that get tons of traffic. It does no good to advertise on sites that no one visits.
If you know that a particular site gets tens of thousands of visits every day, it’s more valuable to advertise there. Keep in mind, though, that if the website is more popular, the webmaster will want a bigger commission.
Email Marketing Strategies
Email marketing is also something that works quite well. You need to compile an email list of individuals who you think will buy from you.
One possible way to accomplish that is to get people to sign up for your email marketing list when visiting your website. You can convince them to do that by offering them a free eBook or a chance to win a prize.
At that point, you’ll go ahead and add them to your list, but you shouldn’t send out constant emails. That will irritate your potential customers. Perhaps once a week should be fine, or twice, but no more than that.
Social Media
Social media marketing is also something in which you need to engage in 2020. It’s often free to use social media platforms, so when you talk about your services and products via your accounts, it costs you nothing. That’s great news for a company that’s starting and has a very small ad budget.
Remember, though, that if all you ever talk about on your social media channels is your services and products, people will not enjoy following you. You need to engage with them in a more organic way.
Yes, you’re trying to sell to them, but you have to try to establish common ground apart from the traditional merchant-client relationship.