Marketing is one of those buzzwords that gets thrown around a lot, but it rarely comes with any real context. That is a shame because understanding marketing is truly key to making sure your business is a success. That is why we at Render Perfect Productions, your source for video marketing expertise, wanted to look at five great examples of marketing today.
We need to kick this off with some terminology. If you ask a random person to tell you an example of marketing, they’ll most likely mention a type of marketing, a marketing channel, or a specific marketing campaign. So what do all these mean?
- Marketing campaign is a series of organized, strategized efforts used to achieve a marketing goal. It’s a one-off activity that starts and ends. It can be rinsed and repeated, though. Think Coca Cola truck campaigns.
- Marketing channel is a set of tools and platforms used to communicate with your audience. Think email or social media.
- Marketing type is anything that can be categorized—marketing channels, tactics, or techniques. For example, digital marketing joins all online marketing channels together. Then we also have B2B marketing that covers all channels and activities that can gain a business as a customer.
Now that we’ve covered the above, we’re going to dive into examples of marketing channels and marketing types, with one exception at the end. Let’s do it.
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is when you pull your audience in with relevant and useful content. It’s best explained in the following image that compares inbound marketing to outbound marketing.
If you Googled five great examples of marketing, clicked on this article, and are reading the article now, then this set of actions is an example of inbound marketing. (It solves your problem at the right time.)
Content Marketing
Content marketing is creating and distributing content to attract and keep customers. The content can be as blog posts, podcasts, videos, infographics, ebooks, etc.
Yes, inbound marketing can be understood as a part of content marketing (if you’re wondering about that now). This is the main reason content marketing is our most important marketing channel. It’s simple and effective.
It’s hard to find any downsides here other than it takes a lot of time and effort.
Word of Mouth Marketing
Word-of-mouth marketing is influencing and encouraging natural discussions about a product, service, or company. If done right, it can become one of your most powerful marketing channels. It certainly is for us.
Why? Research from Nielsen shows that 83% of people trust recommendations from their friends and family. It’s simply the most trustworthy marketing channel you can’t beat, no matter how great your marketing communication is.
The downside is the lack of control you have over this channel. There are tried and tested tactics to reward word-of-mouth, but it’s still one of the most difficult marketing channels to influence.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is the act of promoting another company’s product or service for a commission on generated sales. Commissions are typically a percentage of the sale price but can occasionally be a fixed amount.
As a company, you can create what’s called an affiliate program. You come up with a payout structure for your affiliate partners; then, implement a system for partnership sign-ups and the tracking of referrals and sales. It should motivate people to recommend your products to their friends, acquaintances, and audience.
Developing an affiliate program is a great way to get exposure for your products early on. But make sure you think it through. Adjusting commissions or discontinuing the program can easily backfire later.
Conducting a Competitive Analysis
It’s only fair to mention an example of a marketing activity unrelated to promotion. Competitive analysis is identifying and researching your competitors to get the information you need to gain a competitive advantage. It should be an essential part of market research.
Here’s what conducting a competitive analysis may look like:
- Find your competitors
- Get background information
- Analyze competitors’ products and services
- Familiarize with their targeting and positioning
- Discover competitors’ distribution channels
- Dive into communication strategies
- Do some ghost shopping
- Conduct a SWOT analysis
There’s much to do and information to get. Even the first step in finding your competitors isn’t that straightforward. For example, your competitors for a certain marketing channel may not be your business competitors.
About Render Perfect Productions:
Render Perfect has been built from the ground up to service growing businesses and help them realize their full visual storytelling and digital marketing potential. We’ve created a service offering and skill-set that spans video production, post-production, motion graphic design, 3D animation, web development, and video marketing strategy. Our insight and experience allow us to help clients make better planning decisions and get more out of their video production effort.
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