Check out these 59 types (and Counting) of Marketing, Do You Know Them All?

It's crazy! The number of terms associated with marketing. Every now and then, we discover a new term. So, at 2 AM, my mind just wandered to put those down in one place. To keep this content shorter (although this is a big piece), I decided to add a definition with examples wherever I could. While not everything in the list is good, together they add value to imagine the large canvas of marketing.

This list may not be complete, but I added them to the best of my research. Another interesting thing to know is new terms will join the leagues as the technology progresses. For simplicity, I've classified them based on my judgement, I may be wrong, don't hesitate to point them out. ?

Classification Based on Strategy:

• Viral Marketing: Viral marketing is essentially a strategy to spread something (idea, message, song, etc.) organically among the target audience, preferably through word-of-mouth.
• Buzz Marketing: Buzz marketing is a technique that is focused on maximizing the word-of-mouth potential of a particular campaign or product, whether that is through conversations among consumers' family and friends or larger scale discussions on social media platforms.
• Moment Marketing: Moment Marketing is the ability to take advantage of an event to deliver relevant and related, seemingly spontaneous, and often fleeting interactions with customers in real time.
• Guerrilla Marketing: Guerrilla marketing is a marketing strategy in which a company uses surprise and/or unconventional interactions in order to promote a product or service. It is a type of publicity. 
• Ambush Marketing: Ambush marketing is a marketing strategy in which a company or product seeks to ride on the publicity value of a major event without having contributed to the financing of the event through sponsorship. It is typically targeted at major sporting events - like the Olympic Games or the world cups in various games - and is a strategy adopted by rivals of the official sponsors.
• Meme Marketing: Meme marketing is a practice of using users to promote a brand or product by creating appealing, engaging, and fast-spreading news or content using mediums like word of mouth and social media networks to fulfil marketing goals. 
• Controversial Marketing: Controversial marketing, also known as shock advertising, is a tactic whereby a brand intentionally offends or surprises the audience by violating the norms of norms of social and personal values and morals. The aim is to generate debate and discussion, and subsequent buzz around your brand. 
• Undercover Marketing: Undercover marketing or stealth marketing, in simplest terms, is a marketing strategy where marketers introduce a product to the target audience in such a way that it doesn’t look like advertising. Marketers try to convey the message in “hidden words” without looking obvious. Generally, companies hire marketing agents who act like ordinary people and advertise a product in an unobvious way. Undercover marketing is basically a silent marketing type where brands have lesser intentions to create hype.
• Surrogate Marketing: Surrogate marketing is a promotional strategy used for promoting banned products like alcohol or cigarettes in the market. The banned products are advertised in an indirect manner or masked under another product. You show surrogate products to the audience to actually promote banned products.
• Partner Marketing: Partner marketing is a specialization within the overall discipline of marketing, focused on communicating value to, with, through, and for partners. Partners are companies outside of your organization. They might be distributors, resellers, agents, alliance partners, or many other types of third-party companies.
• Account-Based Marketing: Account-based marketing is a focused approach to B2B marketing in which marketing and sales teams work together to target best-fit accounts and turn them into customers. 
• Content Marketing: Content marketing is a form of marketing focused on creating, publishing, and distributing content for a targeted audience online.

Classification Based Business Model:

• B2B Marketing: business-to-business marketing refers to the marketing of products or services to other businesses and organizations. Examples: software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscriptions, security solutions, tools, accessories, office supplies, Industrial Machines
• B2C Marketing: business-to-customer marketing refers to the marketing of products or services to individual people. Examples: FMCG products, Home Electronic, Books

Classification Based on Media Cost:

• Inbound Marketing or Organic Marketing: Organic marketing refers to the act of getting your customers to come to you naturally over time, rather than ‘artificially’ via paid links or boosted posts. Examples: Brand Building, Content Production (blog posts, case studies, guest posts, unpaid tweets and Facebook updates), SEO, Referral.

P.S. Involves cost on Content Production. 

• Outbound Marketing or Interruption marketing or Inorganic Marketing: This is opposite of organic marketing. Inorganic Marketing refers to the act of getting your customers to come to you through a sponsored or paid medium. It is also referred to as ‘Paid Marketing’. Examples: Advertising(Traditional/Digital), Sponsorship, Product-Placements 

Classification Based on Media Communication Channel:

• Traditional Marketing: Traditional marketing refers to any type of marketing that isn't online. It is largely driven by advertising. It is also known as ‘Mainline Marketing’. Examples: Broadcast or TV Ads, Newspaper or magazine Ads, Signages, billboards
• Web Marketing or Digital Marketing or Online Marketing: Online marketing is the practice of leveraging web-based channels to spread a message about a company's brand, products, or services to its potential customers. Examples: Email Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Online Advertising
• Above the Line (ATL) Marketing: ATL strategies focus at directing the communication towards the mass market. All promotional messages are untargeted, meaning they do not focus on a specific target group. Examples: Television, Print media and Radio
• Below the Line (BTL) Marketing: BTL activities are more focused and they are directed towards specific groups of customers. They are highly targeted, with advertisements being created keeping in mind the demographic and psychographic characteristics of particular customer segments. The communication is highly personalized and the objective is to gain conversions. Example: Direct marketing, Sponsorship: Events, competition, Public Relations
• Through the Line (TTL) Marketing: TTL advertising involves an integrated approach where both ATL and BTL strategies are combined. The objective here is to get a holistic view of the market and communicate with customers in every way possible. Example:360-degree marketing & Digital marketing
• Direct Marketing: Direct marketing is a type of promotion that entails communicating information on a product, service, or company directly to the customers. All promotional information is relayed without intermediaries and any third parties. Examples: SMS, Emails, Direct Mails
• Telemarketing: Telemarketing is a subset of direct marketing for promotion of product or services to potential customers over the telephone or through a subsequent face to face or web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call. Examples: Tele-Calling
• Referral Marketing: Referral marketing is a marketing tactic that makes use of recommendations and word of mouth to grow a business's customer base through the networks of its existing customers. Examples: Word-of-mouth, Community
• Social Media Marketing: Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Examples: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter
• Influencer Marketing: Influencer marketing is a form of marketing involving endorsements and product placement from influencers, people and organizations who have a purported expert level of knowledge or social influence in their field. Examples: Social Media influencers
• Search Engine Marketing: Search engine marketing is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages. Example: SEO, Search Ads
• Email Marketing: Email marketing is the act of sending a commercial message, typically to a group of people, using email aware of new products, discounts, and other services. Example: Drip Campaign, Email - Promotions
• Affiliate Marketing: a commission-based model where the affiliate builds its business around promoting a partner’s product and directs all its efforts to convince its followers and users to buy the same. In return, the affiliate gets a commission for every sale referred. Example: Amazon Affiliate.
• Mobile Marketing: Mobile marketing is a multi-channel online marketing technique focused at reaching a specific audience on their smartphones, feature phones, tablets, or any other related devices through websites. Examples: E-mail, SMS and MMS, social media, or mobile applications.
• Remarketing: Remarketing is a way to connect with people who previously interacted with your business, either physically or digitally. Example: Retargeting Advertising in digital
• Word of Mouth Marketing: Word-of-mouth marketing differs from naturally occurring word of mouth, in that it is actively influenced or encouraged by organizations. Example: Social Media
• Event Marketing: Event marketing is the experiential marketing of a brand, service, or product through memorable experiences or promotional events. It typically involves direct interaction with a brand's representatives. Examples: Event Roadshow, Networking Event, User Conference 
• Experiential Marketing: Experiential marketing is a uniquely fast and effective way to build brand awareness through face-to-face connections with consumers. It engages all five senses, sparking emotions that form lasting memories which have been shown to drive brand loyalty. Examples: Brand Experience Store/Stall
• Field Marketing: Field marketing is a traditional discipline in direct marketing, and it involves people distributing, auditing, selling or sampling promotions on the "field". Examples: Field Samples and Demos

Classification Based on Objective:

• Cause Marketing: Cause marketing is a form of corporate social responsibility wherein the business launches a marketing campaign that serves a twofold objective of generating returns and increasing social welfare.
• Green Marketing: Green marketing is the process of promoting products or services based on their environmental benefits. These products or services may be environmentally friendly in themselves or produced in an environmentally friendly way.
• Relationship Marketing: Relationship marketing is a form of marketing developed from direct response marketing campaigns that emphasizes customer retention and satisfaction rather than sales transactions

Classification Based on Industry Segment :

• Service Marketing: Service marketing refers to the application of a different set of tactics or strategies to anticipate the consumer’s need for an intangible product. And thus, meet their requirements accordingly, to create maximum value for them from their purchase. Examples: Freelancers
• Agriculture Marketing: Agricultural marketing covers the services involved in moving an agricultural product from the farm to the consumer. These services involve the planning, organizing, directing and handling of agricultural produce in such a way as to satisfy farmers, intermediaries and consumers.
• Product Marketing: Product marketing is the process of bringing a product to market. This includes deciding the product's positioning and messaging, launching the product, and ensuring salespeople and customers understand it. 
• Sports Marketing: Sports marketing is a subdivision of marketing which focuses both on the promotion of sports events and teams as well as the promotion of other products and services through sporting events and sports teams. 
• Lifestyle Marketing: Lifestyle marketing is a marketing technique that positions the product or service to possess ideals, aspirations, and aesthetics that the target audience identifies with.
• Apparel Marketing or Fashion Marketing: Fashion marketing is the process of managing the flow of merchandise from the initial selection of designs to be produced to the presentation of products to retail customers, with the goal of maximizing a company’s sales and profitability. 
• Rural Marketing: Rural marketing is a process of developing, pricing, promoting, and distributing rural specific goods and services leading to desired exchange with rural customers to satisfy their needs and wants, and also to achieve organizational objectives.

Miscellaneous:

• Brand Marketing: A brand marketing strategy is the general approach you choose to promote your brand and make it visible and well-known. 
• Campus Marketing: Campus marketing refers to the promotion of products, brands and ideas to the higher student population. Essentially marketing by students for the students.
• Global Marketing: Global Marketing is the process of conceptualizing and then conveying a final product or service worldwide with the hopes of reaching the international marketing community.
• Multicultural Marketing: Multicultural marketing is the practice of marketing to one or more audiences of a specific ethnicity—typically an ethnicity outside of a country's majority culture, which is sometimes called the "general market.
• Neuromarketing: Neuromarketing is a commercial marketing communication field that applies neuropsychology to market research, studying consumers' sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective response to marketing stimuli.
• Informative Marketing: Informational marketing means understanding that a target audience may have to be educated about a product or service if they are to buy it.
• Persuasive Marketing: Persuasion marketing applies what we know about human psychology to develop techniques to market products or services.
• Interactive Marketing: Interactive marketing, sometimes called trigger-based or event-driven marketing, is a marketing strategy that uses two-way communication channels to allow consumers to connect with a company directly.

Phew! With this, you've come to end of this article.

Hope you enjoyed the read. Let me know, How many of them you read for the first time?

You may also like to read : How does economics help in Content Marketing?