A few months ago I decided to write down every marketing channel I could think of and add new ones as I went.
Here’s the result.
You can whether read this article, or access the Google sheet by clicking on the link above.
I also added “marketing actions” at the end of the article which are things you can do to diversify your marketing.
We first start by outlining why exactly you want to use marketing.
What’s the Point of Marketing?
Marketing is all the activities in your company that deal with the way your customers buy, experience, find, or talk about your product.
It used to be defined as the activity dealing with the four Ps:
- Product: what you sell.
- Price
- Place: where you sell it.
- Promotion: what you do so people buy it.
While the ultimate purpose of marketing is to make more money, the direct purpose of what you do isn’t necessarily so.
I have found this great list of marketing goals:
- Drive sales
- Increase brand awareness
- Find new leads
- Increase web traffic
- Increase audience
- Promote content
- Increase brand engagement
In the end, they all drive sales up. But in the short term, they don’t.
Each of the following marketing channels will help you more or less with these goals.
A TV ad, for example, increases brand awareness.
Affiliate marketing drives sales.
Instagram ads increase web traffic.
Every Possible Marketing Channel You Can Use to Grow Your Business
1. Word Of Mouth
We start with word of mouth because it is simply THE best channel out there.
Whether it’s word of mouth online (people discussing your product on Reddit) or offline (asking a friend), word of mouth is free and often succeeds because no one paid the person who is recommending your product.
As a result, there is trust.
Word of mouth is achieved by blowing away your customers’ expectations with amazing service and quality.
2. Affiliate Marketing
It is simply giving a commission to somebody when they sell your product/service to someone.
You can develop your affiliate program in-house (annoying) or use one of these platforms that will make one for you and help you find affiliate marketers to sell your stuff.
3. Referral Program
A referral program is like an affiliate marketing program, but for your customers.
They get exclusive perks (or money) when they refer someone to use your product/service, which incentivizes them to promote your product.
Referral programs exist to boost word of mouth.
4. Viral Marketing
Viral marketing is one of the hardest marketing to do because virality cannot be engineered — it can only be “hoped”.
Viral marketing happens when your marketing gets widely shared “automatically” on social media.
When Elon Musk enters Twitter headquarters with a sink and caption “let that sink in”, that’s viral marketing.
Everyone saw that, shared, and remember it now.
5. Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing (SEM) entails predicting the search query that people will type in Google so that your website comes up first in the results.
6. Display Ads
This is simply ads on websites, social media, newsletters, etc.
To do so, you have to use an ad network (Google AdSense is one of the biggest) that will display your ad on different websites according to the audience you want to reach.
In the age of AdBlock, display ads don’t work nearly as well as in the past — and they’re fairly expensive.
7. SEO
SEO, or search engine optimization, entails writing content that directly answers people’s query on Google.
Overall, your website should also give people the best experience possible (fast, clear, well-designed, etc).
SEO takes time to build (up to one year to have your page ranking), but it’s one of the most cost-effective way to grow your business.
8. Content Marketing
Content marketing is one of the things you have to do for SEO.
The idea is to write articles that help people fix a problem that your product helps fix so they come read the article and buy your product.
Content marketing isn’t only about writing. It’s also about making videos or podcasts.
And content marketing isn’t only targeted at SEO.
Growing a social media following is all about content.
Content you can use is:
- User-generated content
- Statistics
- Unique insights
- Stories from customers
- Reviews
- Showing what customers do with your product
- Etc
9. Newsletter
Everyone nowadays writes a free (or not) newsletter because it enables them to contact their clients directly and not “lose them”.
Newsletter marketing is actually email marketing, and the idea is to give free content that entices the purchase of the product or services you sell.
You can also put ads in your newsletter and earn money this way.
Some companies like Morning Brew earn monstrous amounts of money this way.
