During the last 15 years I’ve worked at a few companies, and looking back, most of them relied on tried-and-tested types of marketing methods like paid ads, email marketing, and SEO.
These tactics still work well, but over the years a lot of new options and channels appeared. There have also been some major changes that influence how you can reach clients — think Google Core Updates, the introduction of AI, or privacy laws like GDPR, to name just a few.
So, I thought I’d bring together all the options that work today and are set to perform well in the coming years.
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The Two Top Types of Marketing
While there are different ways you can categorize the types of marketing that exist, I believe that at the highest level, you can reduce them to two main groups: B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer). Let’s look at both.
B2B Marketing
Business-to-business marketing is about marketing products and services to other companies. But here is the thing: your customer isn’t the organization but the people within it. That means you need to figure out exactly who you’re targeting because decisions usually involve more than one person.
For example, the marketing manager and finance manager will have different priorities and challenges.
When it comes to B2B marketing strategies, focus on being efficient and logical — your audience cares about facts and results. Keep your messaging clear and to the point.
Also, remember that sales cycles in the B2B sector are usually longer and more complex. The decision-making process involves multiple stages and stakeholders. Make sure to adjust your marketing strategy to where your potential buyer is in the decision-making process.
B2C Marketing
Business-to-consumer marketing focuses on promoting services and products directly to individual customers rather than companies. The goal here is to appeal to people’s personal needs and solve their problems, and — in the long run — build emotional connections between them and the brand.
Since B2C is more emotion-based than its B2B counterpart, many of the marketing tactics used circle around encouraging impulse purchases. For example, social media-based campaigns can inform tentative buyers about flash sales, like “25% site-wide only today.”
Unsurprisingly, what also works for today’s consumers (particularly those who spend a lot of time online) is instant gratification. It could either mean same-day delivery or getting a free item or discount for their next purchase.
The reason why such tactics work is because the risks (and costs) of buying a product or service in B2C are lower than when someone’s buying for their organization. And so, sales cycles are also usually much shorter here than in B2B.
Types of Traditional Marketing That Are Still Relevant
When you hear “traditional marketing,” you probably picture TV ads, billboards, or newspaper placements. If so, you’re absolutely right — and it’s unbelievable to think that some of those have been around for well over a century.
But if you feel like these offline tactics are no longer worth investing in (after all, everyone’s online these days, right?), then you might be surprised by what I’m about to tell you.
1. TV and Radio Ads
Despite viewer fragmentation between TV and video streaming platforms, the former remains an important channel for B2C brands.
In the United States, the TV ad market is expected to reach $146.40 billion by the end of 2025. Estimates expect only a 1.16% drop in year-over-year ad spend until 2029. So, in my opinion, traditional TV ads aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
What convinces me particularly strongly, though, is that traditional media aren’t actually fighting against digital channels. As Marketing Dive reports, they’re even driving website traffic by catching people’s attention and motivating them to go to the company’s offering online.
2. Billboards
It’s hard to find a place without billboards (nature spots don’t count). And I have never seen as many as I did in Tokyo. While they might ruin the view, they’re undeniably effective.
According to the Out of Home Advertising Association of America, 88% of consumers notice billboards and 78% engage with the brand in some way. The tricky part is measuring the effectiveness. Adding a QR code might help you track how many people engaged with your ad.
3. Flyers and Brochures
Even now, companies that sell physical products still rely on flyers as part of their marketing strategy. When I started my marketing career at Philips Healthcare, one of the tasks I was responsible for was creating flyers and brochures to promote medical equipment like CT scanners and MRIs.
We mainly used the flyers at events and during site visits at hospitals, and I have to say they worked surprisingly well. Or maybe I shouldn’t be surprised at all since as many as 85% of consumers are more likely to remember a business after getting a flyer.
Forms of Digital Marketing You Should Try
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In contrast to traditional marketing, digital marketing uses a wide variety of previously unavailable technologies to reach audiences in new ways.
It’s the fastest-growing type of marketing, encompassing all marketing efforts that live online.
Businesses investing in digital marketing, such as ProfileTree, use numerous digital channels, such as search engines, social media, email, websites, and more, to connect with their current and prospective customers.
Here’s a more detailed breakdown of the types of marketing tactics and channels at your disposal.
4. Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is focused on attracting customers to your business rather than reaching out to them as they engage in work or pastime activities. I’ll discuss the latter tactic (outbound marketing) further in this post.
While some inbound marketing tactics live offline, the majority fall under the umbrella of digital marketing, as consumers are empowered to do research online to progress through their buyer’s journeys.
Inbound is built on three pillars: attract, engage, and delight.
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The initial goal is to create valuable content and experiences that resonate with your audience and attract them to your business. For example, if your business is in the women’s fashion niche, you could create a free style guide that your clients could download and use during the upcoming summer season.
The next step is to engage them through conversational tools like email marketing, chatbots, and, of course, continuously adding real value.
This would be where you could, for instance, inform your leads via email about a limited-time offer. Finally, you should delight them by continuing to share advice and great deals in the future.
What I’d like to add here is that you shouldn’t evaluate your inbound marketing effectiveness just by looking at the revenue it generated during the last quarter or so. Since this type of marketing is very broad, the various tactics you use impact your brand image.
A lead from an inbound campaign can become a client today or next week — but they could also keep reading your newsletters, and place their first purchase in eight months or so. This could make attributing sales to exact campaigns a bit tricky.
5. Content Marketing
As one of the best ways to attract your target audiences, content marketing is a critical component of an effective digital inbound marketing strategy.
That is probably why nearly nine in ten marketing professionals who have already invested in content marketing plan to maintain or increase their investment in podcast and audio content in 2025.
This form of marketing involves creating, publishing, and distributing content to your target audience through free and gated channels, such as social media platforms, blogs, videos, ebooks, podcasts, and webinars.
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The goal of content marketing is to help your audience along their buyer’s journey while adding value and providing a supportive, delightful experience.
To do so, first, identify common questions and concerns your buyers are likely to have before they are ready to purchase.
Then, create an editorial calendar to track when you will create and share content related to those topics. A content management system (CMS) like Content Hub can also help you stay organized and keep your content and publication schedule on track.
A hot tip from me: Instead of choosing your article topic based solely on a keyword (and its volume), focus on a specific problem your customers face.
The Internet is flooded with mediocre Top of the Funnel content, so trust me, you’re better off investing effort into producing high-quality articles targeting the Bottom of the Funnel. Not only will there be less competition, but the chances of converting prospects will also be higher.
6. Product Marketing
Product marketing isn’t just taking product pictures or running launch campaigns. It’s about driving demand for a product and its adoption through consistent positioning, messaging, and market research.
Product marketers sit at the intersection of product, sales, marketing, and customer success teams.
These product-focused marketers work with various organizational functions, supporting sales enablement and aligned marketing strategies.
It’s a critical role for any company, so it’s no surprise that, as of now, nearly 10,200 Product Manager roles are advertised on LinkedIn in the US alone.
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Miquel Palet, the founder and CEO of Get-Invoice.com, told me that product marketing is one of their most successful marketing strategies.
Palet suggests creating a free product that targets users from your target audience, and is highly shareable (i.e., users want to share it with their friends). This is exactly what they did at Get-Invoice.com.
“Taking advantage of Spotify’s wrapped campaign, we created a similar free tool for showing email activity during the year. When we started posting the tool on different platforms, it quickly started gaining traction, which also put lots of eyeballs on our main product,” said Palet.
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7. Influencer Marketing
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By partnering with influencers in your space, influencer marketing enables your brand to tap into an existing community of highly engaged social media followers.
Influencers are considered experts in their niches and have built loyalty and trust with an audience you want to reach.
These programs are a substantial part of a modern marketing strategy.
Today, 87% of marketers plan to either maintain or increase their influencer marketing budget, which I think is a good move since as many as 69% of consumers trust recommendations from influencers over brands.
To get started with influencer marketing, I recommend building your influencer marketing strategy and defining what type of influencer you’d like to work with.
Then, you’ll want to create criteria for your influencer to ensure they align with your strategy and budget.
Factors to consider include their niche, the size of their audience, and their current metrics. From there, you can find influencers and reach out to them by:
- Manually reaching out on social media.
- Using an influencer marketing platform.
- Hiring an agency to do the research and outreach for you.
It’s best to work with micro-influencers because they are both more affordable and credible — they simply feel “more like us.” I have my personal favorites.
For instance, whenever I look for skincare products, I check recommendations from Piotr Janicki, who is studying to be a dermatologist. Every product he has recommended has been a hit for me.
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8. User-Generated Marketing
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User-generated marketing is when businesses invite their audiences to participate in creating marketing materials. I think it was only a matter of time before brands, seeing the impressive ROI from micro-influencers, began turning to real-life customers to promote their products and services.
There are many creative ways to encourage users to generate this type of content. What will work largely depends on your industry and user demographics.
You could, for instance, run a social media hashtag challenge asking your followers to develop a jingle. Or you could invite users to share pictures or videos of themselves using your product and launch a raffle giveaway to incentivize people further to participate.
Why do brands use this approach? Over 85% of marketers say that building and nurturing an online user community like this has a positive impact on their company’s core operations.
Plus, it’s cost-effective, builds stronger connections with your audience, and increases brand awareness.
9. Search Engine Marketing
Even though social media platforms have become key for discovering products and services, brands must still ensure a strong presence on search engines like Google and Bing.
That’s where search engine marketing, or SEM, comes in. It includes all strategies to ensure your business is visible on search engine results pages. With SEM, your goal is to get your business to the top spot when a user searches for a particular keyword.
According to HubSpot’s 2024 State of Consumer Trends report, online search is the top way buyers discover new products (either through running traditional search or by using AI-powered search assistants).
59% of consumers also say that they prefer gathering information online themselves over speaking to a human.
There are two types of SEM:
- Search engine optimization (SEO) for organic search results
- Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising for sponsored search engine results.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
To get started with SEO, familiarize yourself with search engine ranking factors and common keywords relevant to your industry and products. Then, get proactive about producing content for search engines to index that use these terms.
Before you start publishing content, however, I recommend checking each keyword’s search intent and making sure that it relates to what your company offers.
In short, this step is about understanding what exactly a person is hoping to find or achieve after tapping a specific query into a search. They usually expect one of four outcomes:
- Learning more on a subject.
- Finding a specific company’s website.
- Researching options before buying.
- Finding a specific product or service once they’re ready to purchase.
Make sure that the content you publish aligns with your prospects’ expectations — if you pitch your product too early, you could scare them off. Or, conversely, miss an opportunity to mention your company’s offer for a transactional keyword.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Meanwhile, PPC also involves the use of keywords, but you bid on them to get your ads placed in search, through platforms like Google Ads. I recommend investing in ad management tools that help you create and manage your PPC campaigns.
When investing in PPC, I also suggest asking yourself whom exactly you’re targeting. Or, more specifically, whether your service or product can be used worldwide or is limited by geographic constrictions.
If you belong to the latter group, then you might find this tip from Esteban Largaespada, digital ads director at Online Optimism, incredibly useful:
“In my experience, hyper-localized Google Ads can be extremely effective in increasing conversion rates while lowering costs per conversion.” Largaespada says this based on 10+ years of PPC work for multiple clients.
“In one case, I was able to improve the conversion rate from 5% to 15% over the course of 12 months while simultaneously lowering cost per conversion from $173.24 to $55.71.”
What Largaespada did was start off by running ads for New Orleans locals, which was where the client’s company was headquartered and most known. Next, he told me that he expanded the advertisements’ reach to a select few major U.S. cities (Las Vegas, Chicago, and Orlando) and medium-sized markets like Dallas.
“This is where the company frequently worked and had good margins,” he explained.
This tactic did, however, require constant monitoring. Largaespada told me he quickly withdrew from running ads as soon as he noticed that the cost per conversion “wasn’t optimal.”
He also underlined the connection between PPC and SEO when making decisions for the brand’s paid ads: “I used intensive search term analysis and exclusions, as well as insights and established location pages from our SEO campaign, to further improve results,” Largaespada concluded.
10. Personalized Marketing
Personalized marketing aims to create a customized marketing experience for every user across your brand. Here is a great example of an email I received from Amazon a couple of days after I finished reading a book from one of my all-time favorite writers.
Notice how — in order to deliver tailored recommendations for future readings — Amazon first took note of the “Read” status of the book on my Kindle device, and then used it to trigger a set of “what to read next” suggestions.
This type of marketing has been around for well over a decade, with none else but Amazon being one of the first companies to go so deeply into users’ individual preferences.
What has changed in the last few years here, perhaps unsurprisingly, is who’s responsible for executing personalized campaigns (you’ve guessed it — it’s AI). 73% of marketers surveyed by Twilio Segment say that artificial intelligence will reimagine their approach to personalization strategies.
While AI will make it a lot quicker and easier to provide tailored recommendations, I do have a piece of advice. Remember that personalization and customer privacy must go hand in hand.
If your company wants to explore this form of marketing strategy, then ensure compliance with all security and privacy laws — in any technology you use to access user data.
11. Affiliate Marketing
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When a business rewards another brand — an affiliate or affiliate partner — with a commission for each purchase a customer makes through the affiliate’s promotion tactics, that’s affiliate marketing.
I’ve noticed that this approach is very trendy among influencers, but it can also be used by brands to promote other companies’ products or services that align with their own.
If you already have marketing assets performing well, such as a website that consistently generates leads or an engaged social media network, affiliate marketing is a great way to use those assets further.
Choose a product or brand that closely aligns with what you sell (but does not compete with you) and promote it to your audience.
Affiliate marketing is also a cost-effective way to spread awareness of your brand and an excellent revenue-generating alternative to influencer marketing.
And the best part is when launching an affiliate program, every business can design its own rules to meet its unique needs.
Patrick McDerrmott, the CMO of Max Cash Title Loans, told me that affiliate marketing has been a game-changer for them in generating qualified leads.
The key to success has been providing their affiliates with high-quality, optimized content and other resources tailored to their target audience. The aim was to empower them to effectively promote their brand while maintaining authenticity.
“We provide our affiliates with pre-written email templates, SEO-friendly landing pages, and customizable banners. We only partner with affiliates specializing in personal finance since we offer title loans. Our terms of engagement are flexible, and we always pay affiliate commissions on time,” said McDerrmott.
On average, the brand records a 29% increase in lead submissions year-over-year thanks to their robust affiliate program. Their top-performing affiliate achieved a staggering 16% conversion rate last year, which significantly boosted their ROI.
On top of offering promotional resources, “you should also track performance metrics closely and offer advice on how they can adjust campaign creatives to improve engagement. Most importantly, offer competitive payouts to establish a win-win partnership to fuel growth,” added McDerrmott.
12. Social Media Marketing
With platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X, brands can promote their businesses and engage with their audiences on a more personal level.
Social media is the number one product discovery channel. The majority of consumers turn to social media to find products, and one in four social media users has made a purchase through these platforms in the past three months.
However, with social media, two factors are crucial to success: relevance and consistency.
First, relevance: No one logs on to social media looking for something to purchase. As such, it’s essential to balance promotion with entertainment.
Compelling images and captions that encourage your audience to like, share, and comment will bring your brand that much closer to gaining a customer.
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Now, onto consistency: a consistent posting cadence will keep your followers returning. How can they get invested in your brand if they rarely see it on their timeline?
To make publishing content across platforms accessible, several social media tools automate the process.
Recently, I saw a post from Neil Patel who shared what happens when a company stops using social media. Just within half a year their organic social media traffic went down by 94% (on average) and their revenue was reduced by 6%.
While creating engaging social media content is time-consuming, it looks like it surely is worth the effort. Nowadays, I spend more time scrolling LinkedIn than reading blog articles from brands that I like.
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13. Video Marketing
According to a recent study, 87% of marketers say incorporating video into their marketing strategy has had a positive ROI. Whether on your website, YouTube channel, email newsletters, and/or social media, video can boost brand awareness, generate conversions, and close deals.
Mira Nathalea, CMO at SoftwareHow, told me that video marketing has revolutionized user engagement and download growth.
“In six months, by focusing on short, practical tutorial videos, we boosted engagement by 45% and downloads by 30%. For instance, a two-minute video demonstrating the ability of our Grab2Text app to extract text from images received 10,000 views in its first week … Users appreciated seeing exactly how the app could solve a problem, which helped to quickly build trust,” said Nathalea.
Some video marketing apps even allow you to analyze, nurture, and score leads based on their activity.
Nathalea shares the following advice: “Create videos that are specific, short (under 2-3 minutes), and visually appealing. Concentrate on use cases your audience can relate to. Optimize for keywords such as “how to [action] with [your app]” to increase discoverability, and experiment with different platforms. YouTube Shorts worked especially well for us.”
14. Voice Marketing
Voice marketing refers both to optimizing your website for voice search by incorporating the right keywords and to initiatives that use smart speakers like Amazon Alexa and Google Home. These devices can now help you connect with your audience and answer questions about their topics of interest.
Consider opportunities to get inventive by developing a Google Home action or an Alexa skill. For instance, Uber created an Alexa skill that allowed users to request a ride with a simple voice request.
Similarly, TED developed a feature that allowed Alexa users to search for and play TED talks based on topic, tone, or speaker.
These tools may be relatively new, but they’re increasingly popular among marketers.
Peter O’Callaghan, head of marketing at ScrapingBee, told me that voice marketing has been a game changer for them in terms of podcast sponsorship and voice search optimization. They collaborated with a SaaS-focused podcast to create an episode in which the host discussed common scraping challenges and, naturally, introduced ScrapingBee as a solution.
“That single episode resulted in a 18% increase in signups within two weeks and a 3x return on sponsorship costs. Optimizing for voice search produced additional results. By focusing on long-tail, conversational keywords like “how to scrape websites efficiently,” we experienced a 22% rise in organic traffic over three months,” said O’Callaghan.
Pro tip: The most important thing is to understand how users speak, not type, when searching and incorporate this into your SEO strategy. Voice is about connection and relevance, so keep it conversational.
15. Email Marketing
Email marketing connects brands to leads, prospects, and customers via email. Email campaigns can increase brand awareness, generate traffic to other channels, promote products or services, or nurture leads toward a purchase.
I think email can be a potent tool — but it’s essential to use it responsibly and within legal restrictions. Regulations like the GDPR and the CAN-SPAM Act require brands to comply with responsible commercial email practices, which boil down to three principles:
- Only email people expecting to hear from you (i.e., people who have opted in).
- Make it easy for subscribers to opt-out.
- When you make contact, be transparent about who you are and why you’re emailing.
With these guardrails in mind, the first thing you’ll need to do is strategize how to build your email list or the database of contacts to whom you can send emails.
Standard methods include lead capture forms on your website or lead generation partnerships. I am a huge fan of the latter.
Then, you’ll need email marketing software and a CRM to send, track, and monitor the effectiveness of your emails.
To push your email strategy to the next level and maximize productivity, you may also want to look into email automation software that sends emails based on triggering criteria.
Take it further: To learn more about the ins and outs of email marketing, take the free email marketing course from HubSpot Academy.
16. Account-Based Marketing
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a hyper-focused marketing strategy where teams treat an individual prospect or customer as their market.
These marketing teams create content, host events, and launch campaigns dedicated to the specific people associated with that single account rather than targeting an entire industry or territory.
This strategy allows brands to design personalized campaigns for their ideal clients and dedicate their time and resources to prospects exhibiting high-intent behaviors.
Gartner reports that ABM delivers big results, like a 28% boost in account engagement and a 25% jump in turning marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) into sales-accepted leads (SALs).
Here’s how I recommend to get started:
- Start by identifying key accounts.
- Create messaging based on issues that matter to them most.
- Learn how to put that messaging into action with HubSpot’s introductory ABM lesson
- To streamline your efforts, you can also determine whether ABM software might be a good fit for your team.
Alex Ugarte, operations manager at LondonOfficeSpace.com, told me they had a lot of success
using ABM to target high-value corporate clients who are on the lookout for office space in Central London.
“Our strategy for this particular market segment focuses on highly personalized outreach materials, including detailed market reports that are tailored to each prospect’s industry, goals, and pain points,” said Ugarte.
He mentioned that one campaign they ran last year targeted a large tech firm that needed a scalable space due to their headcount continually expanding.
By using publicly available insights on their hiring trends and business growth, they proactively reached out with a curated list of properties that met their projected expansion needs. This highly targeted approach ended up securing a high-value, multi-year lease and a new big-name customer.
Here’s a tip from Alex: “Collaborate across teams when enacting an ABM strategy, involving sales, marketing, and data analytics to build a comprehensive profile of target accounts. The deeper your understanding, the better your outreach will resonate.”
Types of Marketing That Work Across Traditional and Digital Channels
17. Outbound Marketing
Outbound marketing refers to unsolicited, outgoing promotions such as cold calling, email blasts to purchased lists, and print ads.
This marketing method is called “outbound” because it involves pushing a message out to consumers to raise awareness of your products or services — regardless of whether consumers have demonstrated interest in them.
In many industries, outbound marketing has grown less effective. I don’t think it’s surprising, as consumers today are inundated with so many marketing interruptions that they often need to pay more attention to these messages.
With regulations like GDPR in place, companies must be especially careful about sending emails to people who haven’t given their permission.
Pro tip: If you decide to do outbound anyway, I recommend making sure your content provides value and is tailored to your target audience. Additionally, avoid making it sound like a direct offer, as this could upset prospects and lead to accusations of legal violations. This happened to me a few months ago — not a nice experience.
18. Customer Marketing
In contrast to acquisition marketing, where the focus is on acquiring new customers, customer marketing is focused on retaining existing customers.
The goal is to turn your customers into long-term brand advocates by delighting them with your product or service and providing excellent customer service.
Here’s an example: Niche Beauty Labs is one of my favorite skincare brands; I use quite a few of their products. They did wonders to my skin, so when my friend was looking for an azelaic acid serum I recommended it to her, and she bought it immediately. This is customer marketing at play.
The reason why many companies invest in customer marketing is because the cost of customer acquisition is much higher than the cost to retain or upsell existing customers. But to reap these benefits, customer marketing teams must constantly work to improve the customer experience.
That means doing everything you can to ensure your customers are left with a great impression after you’ve provided them with your product or service.
John Wilson, owner and CEO at Wilson Plumbing and Heating, told me that it’s key to focus on building strong relationships with existing customers. They created a referral program that rewarded customers for recommending their services to friends and family.
This tactic led to a 30% increase in new customers over six months.
“By sending thank-you notes and offering discounts on future services, we kept our customers engaged and happy. Their positive word-of-mouth helped our reputation grow, and many new clients mentioned hearing about us from satisfied customers. Overall, investing in our current clients paid off significantly, showing that happy customers can be your best marketers,” said Wilson.
19. Conversational Marketing
Conversational marketing refers to any form of 1:1 conversation with your audience.
This is arguably one of the most natural ways to connect with customers, as it can be an effective way to remove friction from the buying process. It’s essential to meet customers how, when, and where they want. As a result, these dialogues can happen across multiple channels.
Catherine Schwartz, CMO at EssayService, said that conversation marketing has been critical to their ability to build trust and convert more clients: “We increased conversion rates by 36% in the first year after implementing live chat.”
Schwartz told me that many students who visited their website were unfamiliar with the process or skeptical of the service’s quality. Their team implemented live chat with proactive triggers, such as greeting users who spend more than 30 seconds on their FAQ or pricing pages.
“In one instance, a student browsing late at night received immediate assistance on how deadlines worked, which resulted in a same-night order,” she added.
Schwartz recommends using chat for speed and customization. “Bots might handle common queries, but complex cases should be escalated to humans as soon as possible. Timing is important — our data showed that 70% of conversions occurred within 10 minutes of engaging a visitor.”
Bear in mind that conversational marketing is more than just live chat, though — it extends to phone calls, texts, Facebook Messenger, email, Slack, and many other media.
When you’re getting started, you’ll first identify the channels on which your audience is most active. This may sound relatively straightforward, but things can get tricky when managing multiple channels while avoiding slow response times, internal miscommunication, or productivity loss.
That’s why it can be helpful to use conversational marketing tools, such as a unified inbox, to streamline your efforts.
20. Brand Marketing
Brand marketing encompasses everything you do to shape your brand’s public perception and forge an emotional connection with your target audience. This includes storytelling, creativity, humor, and inspiration.
The goal is to be thought-provoking and generate productive conversations so your brand is remembered and associated with positive sentiment.
Also, I can’t underline this strongly enough — don’t underestimate the power of a compelling story. Research from Harvard psychologist Jerome Bruner has shown that facts are 22 times more likely to be remembered if shared as part of a story.
To begin brand marketing, I recommend getting to know your buyer persona first and understanding what resonates with them. You must also consider your position in the market and what differentiates you from your competitors.
This can help shape your values and what you stand for, giving you crucial fodder for your storytelling campaigns.
Head of Marketing at neptune.ai, Ani Ghazaryan, stands by the effectiveness of brand marketing. She said it’s been one of the most impactful strategies they’ve used to grow their presence and build trust in the machine-learning community. For them, brand marketing is all about showing their audience that they truly understand their needs and are here to help them succeed.
“One success story was when we launched a series of in-depth guides and case studies highlighting how top ML teams use neptune.ai. These weren’t just about features; they told real stories about solving real problems,” Ghazaryan told me.
The response was incredible, not just in traffic but in the relationships the brand built with users who saw them as a trusted partner.
“One of the most important tips is to always focus on authenticity. Brand marketing isn’t about shouting your name; it’s about earning trust. Share valuable content, highlight customer successes, and make your brand synonymous with solutions. That’s how you stand out,” added Ghazaryan.
21. Guerrilla Marketing
Guerrilla marketing spreads brand awareness by placing bold, clever brand activations in high-traffic physical locations.
Examples of guerilla marketing include altering outdoor urban environments, promoting during a live event (without permission from sponsors or organizers), public stunts, and treasure hunts.
This can be a cost-effective way to garner widespread attention.
Here is a great example from Deni Ivanov, marketing manager at MagicProCleaning UK. In early 2023, they noticed a recurring problem — office workers in central London complaining about the lack of clean spaces in shared work environments.
“Instead of running traditional ads, we took a hands-on approach by setting up ‘Emergency Clean-Up Stations’ in co-working spaces and coffee shops. We placed branded cleaning kits — containing disinfectant wipes, screen cleaners, and microfiber cloths — at high-traffic areas with a QR code offering a free office deep-clean contest,” said Ivanov.
This small gesture sparked over 300 contest entries and a 67% increase in website traffic. “The best part? Many who didn’t win still booked our services, leading to a 30% spike in conversions,” she added.
Pro tip: If you’re taking this approach, do exercise caution. I believe that the more unconventional a guerilla tactic, the more time your company should spend on making sure it won’t backfire.
It could be anything as simple as your target audience simply not “getting” the goal of your campaign, or something worse, like coming across as insensitive. It might even be disrupted by weather conditions, law enforcement, or other factors beyond your brand’s control.
If you’re looking for inspiration, look at this list of effective guerilla marketing examples, from Bounty’s human-sized popsicles and coffee cups littering the streets of New York to Deadpool’s Tinder profile.
22. Partner Marketing
Partner marketing, also known as co-marketing, is a marketing collaboration in which two or more brands partner up on a marketing campaign and share the results.
I think it’s a great lead generation tool that allows brands to tap into an audience they may still need to reach.
In 2024, 89% of businesses surveyed by Foundry said they had a form of a partner marketing program, with 68% confirming that it “provides great value” for the business.
For partnerships to work, brands must have complementary products or services and similar user personas. Most importantly, they must also align on their shared goals and embrace a mindset of cooperation and teamwork.
Mary Lopez, marketing manager at Trusted Wedding Gown Preservation, shared how this can work for a B2C business.
“Our strategy focused on collaborating with bridal shops, wedding planners, and dry cleaners. The key was creating a win-win situation: we offered our partners a commission for each referral while they gained an additional service to offer their clients.”
The partnership program Lopez referred to included joining forced with 50 bridal shops across New Jersey. As part of the collaboration, these stores received branded display materials and sample preservation kits.
The results? Lopez says it exceeded their expectations. “We saw a 65% increase in sales within six months, and our partner network has since expanded to 200+ locations nationwide. Our most successful partnership, with a premium bridal boutique chain, generated 120 preservation orders in just three months.”
Lopez says it’s important to have a way to track down sales to each individual partner. What worked in their case was providing each store with a unique referral code.
Types of Event Marketing to Experiment With
23. Trade Show Marketing
You‘ve got an event coming up to launch a new product. Now, how do you get your target audience to show up? That’s where event marketing comes into play.
An event — a workshop, seminar, trade show, conference, or pop-up shop — helps brands connect directly with their target audience and build lasting relationships.
But making the most of these (often expensive) investments requires brands to plan a comprehensive promotion strategy, develop creative assets that drive anticipation, and determine the best channels to spread awareness.
I attended many trade shows while working at Philips Healthcare, and we usually spent months preparing for each. They were really expensive, so we wanted to make sure we got everything we needed to generate as many leads as possible.
Filippo Tonello, head of marketing at WeUni, shared a great example of how you can use trade shows in your company’s favor:
“One of our most successful trade show campaigns involved participating in an education fair in Milan. Instead of the traditional booth setup, we created an interactive ‘Career Path Simulator’ that allowed students to visualize their potential academic journey based on their interests.”
He shared that — with a €5,000 investment — the brand:
- Generated 450+ qualified leads in just two days.
- Converted 28 students into enrolled customers.
- Achieved €120,000 in revenue within three months post-event.
What does Tonello attribute this success to? He says that the key for WeUni was focusing on growing engagement rather than direct sales from the trade show. “We used tablets for the simulation and collected contact details naturally through the process, allowing for meaningful follow-up conversations.”
24. Field Marketing
Field marketing, also known as field selling, involves going out into a community to promote your products or services directly to your target audience. While there is some overlap between event marketing and field marketing, the latter doesn’t require a formal setting and/or as much logistic preparation.
While event marketing can work well for both B2B and B2C, it’s my experience that field-based activities are effective for business-to-consumer products only.
Some examples of field marketing include leafleting or giving out free product samples at stores or in high-traffic areas. In the last few months, I’ve seen a few field marketing campaigns in my city from none else but B2C giants like Pepsi and Nivea — if they’re investing in giving out free samples and products, then they must be on to something!
The case of field marketing is a bit like traditional media like TV or radio. While it’s one of the oldest marketing strategies out there, many brands still run these in-person marketing efforts to complement their digital campaigns.
After all, even though we spend a lot of time in front of screens, we still go out for groceries, commute to work, or spend time outdoors with friends. The clients are literally out on the streets.
Pro tip: If you’re interested in field marketing like free product sample giveaways, then what I’d suggest is asking your team to pre-qualify your prospects. If possible to determine through demographics like age and gender, tell your team what type of customer you’re after so that they know who from the outdoor crowd might fit your ICP.
The Best Type of Marketing
I’ve been a marketer for over a decade, and from my experience, there’s no right or wrong way to do marketing — as long as it connects with your desired audience and provides a return on investment.
If I were to give you a single piece of advice on how to find out what works best for your business, then it would be juggling between options. Most companies use a combination of the strategies outlined above to generate leads and acquire customers, so you must just find your ideal setup.
Some tactics might turn out to be a goldmine for years to come, while others might only drive short-term results. And that’s okay — just remember not to put all your eggs in one basket.
Ultimately, you’ll want to choose what makes the most sense for your business based on your unique product, audience, and resources.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in May 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.