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When you sit down to create a marketing plan, it can be a little overwhelming. With so many marketing strategies, it can be not easy to pick the right tactics for your business.

On top of that, not all marketing tactics are created equal.

Some strategies require more investment, extra time, resources, or effort to support them.

Some strategies offer a greater reward and produce more valuable, long-term results than other efforts.

Some marketing strategies even come with a risk. For example, if you engage in black hat or negative SEO marketing strategies, a search engine may catch you, penalize your site, and decrease your rankings. While some black hat strategies seem quick wins, they won’t help you grow your business. You’ll probably lower search performance, lose quality traffic, and reduce brand visibility.

So, when deciding which marketing strategy to use, always consider whether the risk and reward are worth the investment.

Risky vs. Rewarding Types of Marketing Strategies

To help you decide where to put your energy and how to measure risks, rewards, and investments, we’ve put together a guide to show you how to pick the best marketing tactics for your business.

Traditional Marketing

Let’s start by looking at traditional marketing tactics. These are basic marketing strategies that have been around for decades. While many modern marketers focus solely on digital strategy, they should still consider some valuable tactics.

Consider your target customers when choosing if these marketing strategies are right for your business. If your audience isn’t tech-savvy, this approach may help you connect with them where they will be more likely to see your messages.

Some of these marketing strategies do involve risk, particularly in terms of investment. Some may not be as effective as others, or they may be too expensive for the reward. For traditional marketing tactics that involve risks, you may want to test the strategy before investing a lot of resources.

Event Marketing

Events are another category of offline marketing strategies you may want to consider if your target audience spends little time online.

If your target customers live in your area, hosting local events could offer high rewards. If your target audience often attends national industry events, you may want to participate in those conferences to get exposure.

The only real risk in this category also relates to investment versus reward. Event marketing often requires a medium to a large investment. You risk losing your investment if you attend or sponsor an event that does not produce results. So do plenty of research before getting involved with an event to ensure your target audience is ready to connect with you.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a big part of a digital marketing strategy plan. Creating and distributing content is an effective way to generate and nurture leads.

If your target audience uses search and social media to find answers to their questions and research products and services, you must incorporate the content into your marketing strategy.

The risk in this category is relatively low. The riskiest element of content marketing is spending a lot of resources producing content that audiences don’t respond to. You don’t want to put time and money into creating content that sounds like a great idea but doesn’t resonate with the audience. So, as you choose these marketing strategies, always keep your target audience in mind. Create content that fills a need and satisfies search intent for each stage of the purchase funnel.

Social Media Marketing

A social media marketing strategy effectively distributes your content and builds authentic connections with your target audience.

If your ideal customers regularly use social media platforms, target those sites and build a presence there. You don’t need to be evasive about social media; you need to be where your target audience is.

The risk in using social media marketing is relatively low. The primary way that brands experience social media problems is by posting insensitive or offensive messages. Social media blunders can trigger negativity for your brand. However, as long as you have a thoughtful quality assurance process for your posts and comments, you should be able to mitigate these risks.

Paid Digital Ads

So far, we’ve looked at online marketing strategy examples; most don’t require you for placement. But you can’t rule out paid can’tal ads as a part of your marketing strategy.

Paid digital ads are a great way to increase exposure for your brand, offerings, and content. There are many different platforms and content mediums to choose from. So, as you decide where to spend your ad money on marketing strategies, focus on the platforms where your audience spends the most time.

Digital ads don’t come with a risk for brands. However, you do want to ensure you don’t give your audience brand fatigue by placing ads in too many places. You may also want to consider whether the investment is worth the reward. For example, for online coupon sites, you may need to invest a high dollar amount to attract new customers. Always measure the potential return on investment (ROI) before launching ads and discounts.

SEO: Link Building

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a marketing strategy that includes many tactics, so we’ve separated tthem’vethree categories. The first is link building.

Building links back to your website is one of the most effective SEO strategies, and there are many tactics for creating a deep link profile.

Some types of link building can be risky, and marketers often struggle with choosing between black hat and white hat SEO tactics. While it may be tempting to use black hat tactics to gain links back to a website quickly, it’s better to find its links and earn them the right way.

SEO: On-Site SEO

The next category of SEO marketing strategies is on-site SEO. This part of your strategy includes SEO content and on-page optimization.

A basic rule to guide your efforts is to ensure your investment offers rewards instead of risks: Write for readers, not search engines.

While stuffing keywords into your content may seem to get better results, it is risky. It could hurt your efforts instead of helping them. As you approach your on-site SEO, stick with tactics that improve the quality of your content while still giving the appropriate signals to search engines.

SEO: Technical SEO

Technical SEO is one of the more complex SEO topics. Because of their complexity, many brands may want to avoid or overlook these marketing strategies.

However, these tactics can substantially help your website improve its rankings and attract more customers and readers. Therefore, technical SEO should be a part of every marketing strategy plan.

If you want to avoid risk in this category, remember that if something sounds spammy or sketchy, it usually is. Avoid black hat tactics that try to trick search engines or readers, and stick with strategies that aim to help organically explain, improve, and optimize your pages and website for the reader’s benefit.

Pick the Best Marketing Strategies

Now that you’re familiar with any marketing strategy and understand each tactic’s investments, risks, and rewards, it’s time to start.

Create a marketing strategy that uses the tactics that offer the greatest reward for the lowest investment and the least risk for your particular business and goals. Develop a sustainable plan to build your brand, grow your website traffic, attract new customers, and provide lasting results for years.

To help develop your strategy, check out Competico’s Digital Competico strategy service. We include all the resources you need to avoid costly SEO mistakes while creating a sustainable keyword plan and content marketing strategy.