Looking for something to post on your marketing refrigerator? Here’s a high-level checklist of the Top Ten Marketing Channels that you should have in your playbook for 2025:

• Content marketing is an approach where businesses create and distribute valuable and consistent content to attract and retain their target audience.

• Relationship marketing builds and grows strong relationships with customers. This is a long-haul project and dovetails nicely with word-of-mouth advertising.

• Email marketing includes newsletters, updates on the company, or sales promotions and discounts for subscribers. In the 2024 Rural Consumer study, 45% of respondents prefer email notifications over other messaging options.

• Social Media (Organic) is any activity on a multitude of social platforms with no paid promotion. This type of marketing has proven effective with little investment other than the time spent for creative, which can be done efficiently using free social media tools.

• Word-of-mouth marketing generates organic discussions about your company, brand, or event. The key to success is to create discussions which are typically a result of an exceptional customer experience.

• Search Engine Optimization is the practice of increasing website traffic through organic search results. Gathering measurable SEO results can be tricky and can come at a high cost.

• Paid social media marketing comes at a cost and has been met with mixed results over the years. The potential ban of TikTok would eliminate a social option and could improve paid advertising on other traditional social platforms.

• Buzz Marketing generates consumer excitement about a particular product, service, or brand. The play with Buzz Marketing is to take a spark moment of excitement and leverage it across a wide audience.

• Event marketing, which could be an online or on-premise event, can effectively promote your brand, product, or service. Creation of events that can be documented and then repurposed on other messaging platforms can deliver a better Return On Investment.

• Print and electronic marketing includes advertising through direct mail, newspapers, and broadcast media outlets. These mediums are the most expensive and hardest to track results, but have continued to perform well with the 55+ demographic. Again, referring to our 2024 Rural Study this demographic reports the highest ARPU of any other demographic group at $180 per month for a bundled internet and video service.