7 Types of Marketing Tools

Ever wondered how various products spread around the world reach you? Ever thought of how a product promotion convinces you to buy it? All these questions can be answered as we understand the whereabouts of marketing.

 

Intended to sell a product and promote its features to the target audience, the marketing industry is all about promoting a product to the best of its capability so that more and more consumers are convinced to buy it. 

 

By using the concept of ‘marketing mix’ wherein a number of marketing strategies and media are used to reach out to the audiences, the marketing industry plays a huge role in the success of a business as it is the backbone of the seller-consumer relationship. 

 

By playing with the 4 Ps of marketing - product, price, place, and promotion, marketing officials make the best use of the available resources to promote a product in the most efficient and effective way. However, this goes beyond just selling the product to the masses. It is definitely more than that. 

 

The discipline of marketing extends to the art of studying audience behavior, understanding users’ gratification levels and needs, and determining what product will work the best in the prevalent scenario. That said, marketing works behind the curtains to put up a great show for a company’s gross revenue and selling ability throughout a financial year. 

 

Introduction to Marketing Tools

 

As marketing professionals conduct extensive research and observe customer behavior patterns to identify what works well and what does not, they arrive at a set of marketing tools using analytics that helps them to promote a product and ultimately, generate revenue for their company. 

 

This includes first researching the well-established media and modern marketing tools among the audiences, targeting the audiences, and then matching their marketing tools with the help of marketing strategies, building equivalent resources to run marketing campaigns, and finally launching their ideas into full-fledged realities and getting started with marketing attempts. 

 

Yet, it is worth noting that all these marketing efforts are not without obstructions and most of all, competition. As marketing professionals, employees have to beware and remain alert throughout the year about similar product launches and how well their competitors are performing in the market. 

 

This calls for a tally and comparison survey. For instance, marketers of Coca-Cola might have to carry out surveys for assessing how well Pepsico is performing in the global market. This includes the professionals staying alert and ready to bring similar changes or additions to their products in response to the preferences developed by the customers. 

 

That said, marketing tools are a way to promote a product and sustain its brand image in the minds of the audiences. With the help of marketing tools, a product reaches its audience in the most effective way and is able to convince them to purchase. 

 

Also Read | Types of Marketing Models

 

 

Types of Marketing Tools 

 

Here are some types of marketing tools that have proved to benefit business organizations across various sectors in promoting their USPs and maintaining customer loyalty for decades. 

---

Types of Marketing Tools

---

 

1. Display Advertising

 

One of the best marketing tools that companies use in an attempt to promote their products is display advertising. Advertising is alone a very descriptive and attractive medium to catch the attention of the consumers and sell them a commodity. 

 

Through posters, television advertisements, radio ad reels, and hoardings displayed outdoors, display advertising strategy acts as an effective medium to market a product. 

 

Any type of advertising that combines text, image, and other graphics is the perfect way to conduct display advertising for any product. For instance, big business houses like Coca-Cola and Cadbury employ display advertising to promote their products like beverages and chocolates. 

 

Among the benefits of display advertising, it is not only appealing to the potential buyers and target audiences but also catches the attention of those who are not part of the potential buyers’ age group. 

 

This is the invisible power of display advertising that attracts a customer solely on the basis of visibility. Any ordinary graphic can become successful in engaging the audience as opposed to complex images that might disconnect with the audience’s attention. 

 

Thus, display advertisements should be simple, easy to understand, and catchy. 

 

“An ad campaign can have different goals, and some display ads educate about the product while others are designed to entertain and engage through simple games or puzzles. “

 

2. Social Media

 

Another effective marketing tool that companies can employ to promote their products and increase their sales is social media marketing tools. Social media networking sites are immensely popular and sought-after in the millennium era where almost everyone has a social media account. 

 

It is like a parallel world where no one wants to be left behind. As a means to connect and communicate with each other, social media has rather taken a different turn wherein it has grown as an influential stage for the masses. 

 

In this regard, social media can be seen as a marketing tool that allows businesses to promote their products and become visible in the eyes of their customers. 

 

As almost everyone spends hours scrolling down their social media accounts, such platforms like Facebook and Instagram help companies to sponsor or organically engage audiences with their own accounts and push them to know more about their new products or any schemes going on. 

 

Fashion brands like ALDO and Steve Madden often run their advertisements and engage audiences with their stories whenever their sale goes live. Social media marketing is a very effective way to catch the attention of consumers and bind them to your product range. 

 

3. Surveys

 

A very important and helpful tool in marketing is survey. Surveys, simply assumed to be questions asked to the target audiences, can provide insights into the drawbacks and the benefits of a business product that can be worked upon and improved. 

 

Eventually, surveys have become less popular among businesses to market their product. However, surveys are only effective and helpful in gaining one-to-one insights regarding the feedback of the customers and knowing what they actually want. 

 

4. Customer Loyalty

 

The third effective marketing tool of all is establishing customer loyalty. This tool can further be divided using various marketing strategies like email marketing  and direct contact with those who are loyal to your brand. 

 

This can be done by using the personal details of the customers that are submitted at the time of shopping. These personal details can help businesses to personally reach out to their loyal customers, inform them about their brands, and establish a relationship between them. 

 

Recently, many e-commerce websites have started to use Whatsapp, a social media platform, as a means to keep their customers hooked to their sales and shopping discounts throughout the year. 

 

This is a very helpful tool to retain a business’s customers and manage their preferences by being in touch with them personally. Customer loyalty is as important as promoting a product as it determines the relationship between a brand and its customers. 

 

Not only customer loyalty can be seen as a marketing tool, but it can also be regarded as a measure of customer satisfaction and how well a brand is able to stand up to the expectations and earlier standards received by its consumers. 

 

5. Content Marketing

 

Yet another marketing tool that companies can employ are content marketing tools to engage audiences via a range of content strategies - blogs, podcasts, and articles related to the importance of the product that you intend to sell. 

 

Not only is content marketing research extensive, but it also provides insights to the customers on the product and helps them make the right choice. 

 

When a customer comes to realize that your company is well invested in helping you make the right choice, they might as well become your customer. 

 

Through the use of transparent media like blogs and articles, companies choose to reveal their manufacturing process and ingredient list in order to gain the trust of their potential consumers. 

 

Another benefit of content marketing is that before buying a product, customers often tend to check reviews and blogs related to the same. By seeing that your business has actively engaged in disseminating information on its product, the customer will come to believe that you have the right skills. 

 

This will lead to more and more consumers becoming loyal to your brand in the long run. 

 

6. Website and Analytics

 

Building a website and understanding website analytics can be a very helpful marketing tool to help businesses measure their success on the digital front. With the emergence of the internet, websites have come to be known as the reflection of a business and its development over the years or decades. 

 

That said, websites help gain traction as businesses create their digital presence and build a strong web portal to attract their customers. While many might only view the website once and exit the webpage, other customers or audiences are surely interested in knowing more about the business. 

 

Thus, with the help of many social media analytics tools like click-through rate, bounce rate, and visits, businesses can gain insights into their performance levels and the benefits that their website is reaping. 

 

Ever since the emergence of the internet, websites have gained popularity and are easy to access in the comfort of the audiences’ living rooms. Perhaps website analytics is a helpful measure in building web skills and digital presence. 

 

This can be done using many analytics platforms like Google Analytics that help a website owner to gain helpful insights regarding the overall performance of their web portal. 

 

7. Search Engine Optimization

 

Having emerged only in the recent decade, the concept of search engine optimization or SEO marketing has evolved in just a handful of years. This has led to a new type of marketing wherein search results on internet browsers like Google are optimized and edited to feature within the first set of results. 

 

Thus, whenever an individual searches for a keyword, all optimized results containing that keyword will be featured on top. The power of SEO has not only made marketing on digital platforms easier, but it has simply widened the scope of marketing. 

 

Such skills are very helpful in indirectly promoting a product on crucial platforms like the internet browsers that we use in our day-to-day lives. 

 

 

Summing Up

 

To sum up, marketing tools are very helpful in building the practice of marketing as a discipline. With the help of such tools, marketing professionals can efficiently generate revenue and create a long-lasting brand image of the business in the minds of the audiences. 

 

All in all, it is only with the help of marketing that businesses can sell their ideas and products to the masses.