By Kevin Wirth

You know how important marketing is to your business, right? When I started my first business, I didn’t have a clue about what marketing was much less how to do it. Marketing is all about how to promote what you have to offer the world – your products and/or services.

But have you ever stopped to think about how many different types of marketing tactics exist on this planet? I started identifying some of them a couple of years ago, and I am constantly amazed that I keep finding at least another one every week on average. I eventually began creatiing a list of these tactics, and it continues to grow today.

Some marketing tactics are similar, some are even the same – just described with a different word. Some are just different shades of the same concept.

But one thing is for sure, the list is HUGE.

This poses a problem for many business owners because they feel overwhelmed by the whole idea. What’s the best way to market your stuff? Many business owners never take the time to think about which tactics a) fit best with their business and b) which ones they would really like to work with. Because there are so many possibilities, the first obstacle is often knowing where to start.

Well, I hope this helps.

Take a look at this Big List of tactics, and then narrow it down to the handful you think you need to master.

Seriously – I want you to take some action here, OK? Please print out this list and then put a check mark next to the tactics that you think would work well with your business and which ones you think you’d like to try (don’t worry, if you find you find out later that you don’t like one, there’s bound to be another one you WILL like!).

Then, keep this list handy, because you may want to refer to it as you think about this.

Once you’ve done this, the next step is for you to learn more about each of the tactics you finally choose – one at a time. And that’s where I come into the picture (I hope).

One of my missions is to help you discover a) what marketing tactics are right for you, by using a thoughtful, focused approach and b) knowing where to go to find the best resources for each tactic. Those resources include gurus, ebooks, audio and video products, ezines and newsletters, forums, software, and so on. And then you’ll want to rank all those resources by beginner, intermediate, and advanced. That’s where I can help you.

Remember, the point of this exercise isn’t whether I’ve identified all the marketing tactics in the universe (I already know I haven’t) or even whether some of them might not fit your concept of what a marketing tactic is.

The point of this is to help you think about things like ‘What do I really know about this or that marketing tactic?’, ‘What would be the advantage of using this tactic?’, ‘What tactics do I think I’d like to investigate more’, ‘which tactics do I think I should or could master’, and ‘which tactics might work best for my business?’

Here then is the list of about 175 tactics that I’ve come up with. Have fun!

404 Errors

800 Phone Number

900 Phone Number

Ad Sense by Google

Ad Words by Google

Ad Tracking

Affiliate Marketing

Animation

Articles

Auctions

Audio Marketing

Autoresponders

Avatars

Award Recognition

B2B

Backend Marketing

Banner Ads

Bartering

Be the First

Birthday Reminders

Blogging

Bonus Offers

Bookmarks

Branding

Business Cards

Case Studies

Consulting

Color schemes

Conference Calls

Confusion

Contests

Copywriting

Coregistration

Courses

Credibility

Cross Promotion

Customer Loyalty

Demographics

Direct Response

Discussion Groups

Domain Names

Download Page

Ebay

Ebooks

Eclass

Email

Email Alternatives

Emotional Marketing

Endorsements

Error pages

Exclusives

Ezines

Favicons

Feedback forms

FFA

Followup Marketing

Forums & Newsgroups

Freebies

Freelancing

Fundraising

Funnel Marketing

Geo Specific Commerce

Gratitude

Guarantees

Guerrilla Marketing

Guru Pileup

Headlines

Holidays

Humor

Hypnotic Suggestions

Image

Info Products

Interviews

Joint Ventures

Keywords

Leads

Link Cloaking

Link Strategies

Lisbuilding

Logos

Mailing lists

Marketing plan

Mastermind Groups

Membership sites

Mini Courses

Mini Ebooks

Mini Sites

Multimedia

Multiple Streams of income

Network Marketing

News feeds

Newsletters

Newspaper advertising

Niche Marketing

Pay per whatever

Peer to Peer relationships

Permission based marketing

Phone consulting

Pop_overs

Pop_unders

Pop_ups

Postcards

Postscript (PS)

Preselling

Price Reduction

Pricing

Private Label

Private Sites

Psychographics

Public Relations

Public Speaking

Publicity

Publishing

Questions

Radio_internet

Referral Marketing

Reports

Reprint or Resell rights

Residual Income

Reviews

Reward Programs

RSS

Safelists

Sales funnel

Sales letters

Scarcity

Screensavers

Search engine optimization

Seminars

Shopping carts

Sig files

Signs

Spelling and Punctuation

Sticky pages

Surveys

Sweepstakes

Syndication

Talk Shows

Target Market

Teleconferencing

Teleseminars

Testimonials

Testing and Tracking

Thank You pages

Tips

Toolbars

Traffic

Training

Translation

Troubleshooting

Tutorials

TV_internet

Unsubscribe message

Upselling

USP

Videos

Viral Marketing

Voicemail

VOIP

Web Hosting

Web Pages

Web Site Design

Welcome or confirmation message

Word of Mouth

Yellow Pages

If you have other marketing tactics you think should be on this list, I hope you’ll write and tell me about it! Just drop me a line at kevin@kevs-korner.com.

Kevin Wirth is the owner of KEVS-KORNER ezine, a FREE online newsletter offering articles, tips, resources, and a growing community where you can work with others to create and market products online. To join or investigate, go to www.kevs-korner.com, where you'll receive a valuable free gift just for visiting and more for subscribing to KEVS-KORNER.

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