Paawan Kothari, Entrepreneur and Go-To-Market Leader, shares her insights on marketing in the fifth installment of a multi-part series: Demystifying Marketing.

Marketing is an ever-evolving business function. Organizations structure their marketing teams  in many different ways. Here is a primer on the most common marketing functions to help you  understand how to build your marketing skills or bring in the right skills to create an effective  marketing team. 

Digital Marketing: Over the previous 15 years, most marketing has shifted to digital platforms,  making it the cornerstone of Marketing. And during the last 15 months, even events have gone  digital. However, when we speak of digital marketing, we are generally speaking of these three  sub-marketing functions. 

1. Website Marketing: The website is the most important digital asset. It is the virtual  front door of an organization and the central component of all your digital campaigns. (P.S. read  my blog on Website Content  to learn how to approach the website content architecture). Website  marketing entails creating a dynamic web presence— including building landing pages and  microsites that tie into your various marketing programs—and boosting your rank on Search  Engines (SEO).  
2. Email Marketing: Despite experts predicting the death of emails, Email Marketing  remains the dominant leader in the digital marketing space. You can do a lot with email  marketing – email marketing tools can become the central piece of your CRM – so a deep  understanding of this capability is a must-have skill on your team.
3. Social Media Marketing: 

• Social Media Marketing (Own): This includes your marketing efforts using social  media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok,  Snapchat, Discord, Clubhouse, etc. It is not necessary to be on all channels; pick a  few (even one) most relevant to your audience and commit to posting regularly. 
• Social Media Advertising (Paid): Social Media Advertising is one part of Digital  Advertising (an area of expertise in itself). If you want to keep it simple, boost  your existing posts to a broader audience. If budget allows, work with an Ad  Agency to create Ads that will engage your target audience. While some Ad  fatigue is setting in with consumers, it is still quite effective, especially for an  Awareness campaign.  

Content Marketing: This spans across all marketing functions and includes many different  forms, such as presentations, articles, podcasts, webinars, white papers, videos, images, etc.  Content Marketing is moving in the direction of rapid cadence. Keep in mind the content you  give your audience needs to offer value and should be strategically delivered at the right time and  on the right channel. 

Brand Marketing: This team develops brand guidelines and is responsible for ensuring the  brand elements are integrated across the organization and into different content and external  communications. It also typically owns the relationship with the Marketing / P.R. Agency. Large  organizations have a dedicated Brand Marketing team. 

Influencer Marketing: This subset of Social Media Advertising deserves its own sub-heading  since it is becoming a big part of Marketing/Advertising strategy. An “Influencer” is not  necessarily a celebrity – it is anyone with a large following in the same space. They could be a  seasoned business leaders or a teenagers; they could have millions of followers or tens of  thousands; it can be a paid engagement or an advocacy PSA by request. 

Event Marketing (evolving to Experiential Marketing): This team puts together events that  bring various teams, customers and partners together and can be in many different forms –  conferences, seminars/webinars, round tables, company-wide All-Hands meetings, etc. No other  type of marketing has changed more drastically in the last 15 months than Event Marketing and I expect it will continue to evolve. 

Growth Marketing: I’ll be honest that while I keep seeing this term being used (primarily by  startups), I am unclear about its exact role. My take is when a company is ready for the hyper growth phase (after series A or series B funding), it needs to scale very quickly and get new  customers. Since it is now flush with cash, growth marketing is about running very aggressive  campaigns for customer acquisition. 

The following three marketing functions are more common in technology companies. 

Product Marketing: In tech companies, Product Marketing is the center of all marketing. They  define the product’s positioning and messaging, develop the launch plan, and ensure that  salespeople and customers understand its features. 

Customer Lifecycle Marketing: This team owns the development of customer journeys and  mainly focuses on driving marketing programs that increase retention, engagement, and revenue  by upselling. This function is more common to SAAS companies. 

Account-Based Marketing (ABM): If your target market or customer base is large companies,  you need to create a personalized marketing strategy designed to engage each customer with a  marketing campaign based on their specific needs. 

And finally, Integrated Marketing: As the word suggested, Integrated Marketing pulls together  various marketing functions under one team/role. This role is for a marketing generalist. 

Have you seen other Marketing functions I have not included? Let me know as I am always  curious to learn about specialized marketing skills. As I said at the outset, Marketing is an ever evolving business function.

***************

Author Bio:

Paawan Kothari is an entrepreneur, a seasoned marketer, and a budding political activist with over 20 years of experience working for large and small companies.  In 2010, Paawan quit her corporate job to start her venture, The Chai Cart®,  to bring together her passion for entrepreneurship with her desire to make a difference. After 8 years of building the business, brand, and acquiring marquee customers, Paawan sold the business in 2018.