10 Proven Marketing Tactics to Master
So, all that said, here is our curated marketing tactics list: ten marketing tactic examples—and the strategic goals they align with—that we’ve seen produce meaningful results.
1. Advertorials
What it is: Sponsored content that easily blends into editorial publications—think ads in disguise.
What it can do for your brand: Build brand awareness, convey authority, establish thought leadership, reach new customers.
When it’s not a good fit: If you have a small budget, or lack content production resources.
Pro tip: Work with your PR partners or agency to identify solid opportunities with publications that serve your target audience.
Examples: Forbes Council posts, Buzzfeed articles, Tasty.co recipes
Sponsored articles on websites like Forbes.com can raise brand awareness and establish executive thought leadership.
2. Micro-Influencer Marketing
What it is: Partnering with influential individuals with an engaged following to promote your brand or product
What it can do for your brand: Build brand awareness, acquire new customers, increase brand authority by associating with a trusted figure
When it’s not a good fit: If you have a small budget, or need definitive ROI metrics
Pro tip: Use hashtags to find an influencer who has high engagement (likes or comments) from your target audience—that’s a good indicator they’ve earned trust and respect, which they can pass onto your brand through a partnership
Examples.Instagram posts and giveaways, TikTok ad challenges.
Marketing Tactic Success: Back Market launched a campaign with paid influencers and drove a 33% increase in conversions.
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3. Interactive Content
What it is: Tools or widgets your audience can engage with—think calculators or quizzes
What it can do for your brand: Drive website traffic and engagement, lead generation
When it’s not a good fit: If you don’t have resources or budget for development
Pro tip: Don’t reinvent the wheel—consider what existing content you can repurpose as interactive (such as turning a blog post into a quiz or assessment)
Examples: Budget calculators, style/fit quizzes, clickable infographics, technology assessments
Interactive content like this clickable infographic from CEWE can engage, entertain, and educate prospects.
4. Customer Loyalty Programs
What it is: Collect customer data and track behavior, rewarding purchases or interactions with perks, discounts, and giveaways
What it can do for your brand: Improve customer retention, increase customer satisfaction, enrich customer data and understanding, drive sales
When it’s not a good fit: If your customers don’t make recurring purchases
Pro tip: Invest in a digital-first loyalty program to ensure you can collect and use data to personalize customer engagement
Examples: Tiered loyalty programs, point-based programs, personalized rewards programs
5. Original Research
What it is: Conduct and publish original research to support your brand’s value proposition and deliver helpful content to your target audience
What it can do for your brand: Establish brand authority, generate PR/media mentions, drive website traffic, generate leads, support SEO initiatives through building backlinks
When it’s not a good fit: Lack of resources—original research takes time
Pro tip: Design research projects that can be repeated each year, and repackage your research into several formats for sharing across channels (think infographics on social, statistics on landing pages, quotes in sales decks)
Examples: Observational research, survey-based reports
Publishing original research like this observational study from Orbit Media Studios underscores your brand’s authority and value proposition.
6. Referral Campaigns
What it is: Systematically asking your satisfied customers for referrals to family, friends, or colleagues who may be interested in your product or service
What it can do for your brand: Generate leads, acquire new customers
When it’s not a good fit: If your NPS or CSAT scores are low, focus on improving the brand experience for your existing customers before asking for referrals
Pro tip: Layer referral campaigns onto your customer loyalty program to deliver a seamless experience
Examples: Referral codes that offer discounts, referral codes that include contest entries, points-based referral bonuses
Marketing Tactic Success: Comcast used on-campus student ambassadors to promote its student discount and drove a 91% increase in subscriptions.
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7. Affiliate Marketing
What it is: Compensating a partner with a commission or fee for sales, leads, or traffic they deliver to your business
What it can do for your brand: Generate leads, increase sales, drive website traffic
When it’s not a good fit: If you’re trying to lower customer acquisition costs (affiliate commissions and fees can get expensive) or want to collect and own your customer data (affiliates usually don’t share data)
Pro tip: Partner with affiliates that already engage with your target audience (much like influencer marketing) and provide them with content and regular product updates to help drive sales or traffic
Examples: Tech affiliate programs, retail affiliate programs
Partnering with affiliate marketers expands your pipeline for leads and sales.
8. User-Generated Content
What it is: Encouraging and leveraging content created by your customers—such as photos, videos, reviews, and more—across your website, social media, and other marketing channels
What it can do for your brand: Establish social trust, drive brand awareness, reduce content creation costs
When it’s not a good fit: If your audience isn’t active on social media, or your product or service isn’t visually compelling
Pro tip: Promote a dedicated hashtag for customers to use when sharing content featuring your product on social media, and share relevant images/videos on specific product pages
Example: Branded Instagram hashtags, sharing holiday-specific UGC, charitable donations for UGC
9. Email Newsletters
What it is: Sending helpful, relevant insights or entertainment directly to your audience’s inbox
What it can do for your brand: Drive sales, generate leads, improve customer engagement and retention
When it’s not a good fit: If you can’t create—or curate—content that your audience will actually care about (because email newsletters are about engaging your audience, not selling your product)
Pro tip: Segment your audience to share only relevant information (such as product updates to current customers, and broader industry insights to leads)
Examples: Marketing email newsletters, design email newsletters, welcome emails
Welcome emails and newsletters are a great way to provide customers with insightful and promotional content.
10. Gated, Personalized Offers
What it is: Offering an exclusive discount to customers based on their life stage (think students and seniors), occupation (like healthcare workers), or affiliation (such as the military or professional organization membership)
What it can do for your brand: Acquire new customers, improve customer satisfaction and retention, and strengthen customer relationships
When it’s not a good fit: If you can’t use a digital verification platform to instantly and securely confirm a customer’s eligibility, you risk creating a poor user experience and inviting discount abuse, which can lower your ROI.
Pro tip: Use an identity verification platform like SheerID to deliver a positive, digital-first experience and collect valuable customer data
Examples: Student discounts, military discounts, teacher discounts, healthcare worker discounts
