By Kate Zuritsky | 05/29/2025
Recently, while considering a new SUV, I spoke with a friend about the pros and cons of her Genesis GV70. Not long after, I began noticing targeted ads for the same vehicle on Instagram® and Facebook®. Later that day, I encountered sponsored articles comparing the GV70’s reliability and features to other luxury models like Lexus.
These kinds of experiences highlight how sophisticated and responsive modern digital marketing has become – and the marketing specializations now available reflect that trend. Companies carefully track consumer behavior – from online searches and website visits to social media interactions on LinkedIn® or other platforms – to deliver personalized, data-driven content aimed at capturing attention and driving purchases.
What Is a Marketing Strategy?
Marketing isn’t just selling or promoting a product or service. It’s storytelling in a way that captures an audience’s attention and ends in a transaction.
A marketing strategy refers to an organization’s business plan to convince customers to buy its product or service. The strategy includes key aspects like the brand’s value propositions, target customer demographics, and digital marketing messaging.
While the lines between advertising, public relations, and digital marketing are blurry, they’re all part of driving business growth, building customer relationships, and influencing consumer behavior.
Marketing strategies play a critical role in what we buy and where we buy it. Behind every targeted ad, promotional email, and Instagram reel, there are different types of marketing specializations at work. The end goals are the same for today's marketers: getting your attention and money.
What Is a Marketing Specialization?
A marketing specialization is an area of study within an undergraduate or graduate program that allows students to develop specific skills and gain insight into key marketing strategies and processes. A marketing specialization also concentrates on specific tactics, audiences, or objectives – like digital marketing ads or the videos created by video marketers.
These areas of specialization help marketers tailor their skills to align with business goals, consumer behavior, and industry trends.
“If you’re looking into the marketing career field or you’re unsure of where to start, my recommendation would be to go to LinkedIn, type one of these specializations into the search box, and see what pulls up,” suggests Leigh Buehler, an assistant professor of entrepreneurship and marketing at American Public University (APU). “Each specialization is wanted, but the question is: are you interested in doing that type of work?”
10 Different Types of Marketing Specializations
Technology keeps evolving, and there are now so many avenues to pursue a career path in marketing. With social media, influencer marketing, and digital marketing taking center stage, it’s easy to forget about the basic specializations, skills, and knowledge required to seek job opportunities in marketing.
Choosing a specialization can make you more effective at solving specific challenges and help develop a reputation as an expert. “As you grow in marketing, you want to be able to understand how the specializations intersect with you,” says Buehler.
“Understand the role, learn the role, become an expert. However, you may want to add to your skillset, such as content marketing or search engine optimization specializations, to help you grow and develop the skills for a managerial or supervisory role.”
According to Buehler, these 10 specializations that are in the highest demand today:
- Content marketing
- Influencer marketing
- Product marketing
- Digital marketing
- Email marketing
- Brand management
- Social media marketing (SMM)
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Marketing Analytics
- Event marketing
Content Marketing
Interested in thought leadership and educating your audience on the value of a business? Content marketing supports company goals by creating a mix of content types for platforms like blogs, videos, and infographics.
"Effective content marketing builds trust, establishes expertise, and has a strong focus on calls to action,” says Buehler. “All of these goals are done while maintaining consistency with a brand’s voice.” Once trust is established, customers will better understand your brand and depend more heavily on you for materials like webinars and e-books.
After you’ve piqued a prospective customer’s curiosity, the sales team can take over the customer journey. They can provide additional information, send product demos, and answer any questions.
Influencer Marketing
If you’ve ever seen a product review post, scrolled through TikTok®, or watched YouTube® unboxing videos, you’re already familiar with influencers and content creators. Influencer marketing is a relatively newer marketing specialization. It uses a person who has a social following to endorse a product or service by promoting it through social media platforms.
Influencers create engaging, meaningful, and authentic content that reaches millions of social media and internet users every day. This strategy works well because people trust recommendations from real people more than ads, making a recommendation to buy feel more like a friendly suggestion than a hard push.
Once seen as a temporary trend, the value of influencer marketing has more than tripled since 2019; the global influencer market was valued at over $21.1 billion in 2023. Brands see the value and effectiveness of influencers and continue to increase their investment in this specialization.
Product Marketing
Even the best product needs a strategic launch and compelling messaging to succeed in the marketplace. Certain questions need to be considered, such as:
- Who is your target audience?
- What makes your product different?
- What needs does it address?
- Who’s the competition?
Product marketing and product management involves bringing a new product or service to market, promoting it, and helping sales grow beyond the initial launch. It’s an ongoing process requiring a strategic plan that includes:
- Market research
- Product positioning and messaging
- Go-to-market strategy
- Sales enablement
- The launch
After the launch, marketing professionals will track the product or service and evaluate its success. They will also look for feedback from customers and teams, and they’ll find ways to improve sales and visibility.
Digital Marketing
See that smartphone in your pocket? Digital marketers are targeting you on it day and night.
Digital marketing is a specialization where marketing professionals use online strategies across websites, search engines, social media sites, email, and even mobile apps to reach current and potential customers.
Digital marketing promotes brands, boosts awareness, drives traffic, and hits marketing goals. “In this role, you work on paid ads, organic posts, and interactive campaigns and even some data analytics. How in-depth this information is depends on where you are professionally,” states Buehler. “Success in this specialization requires a solid presence, innovation, adaptability, and an understanding of interpreting data.”
Email Marketing
If you’re like me, you hit “Unsubscribe” more often than “Reply.” Whether it’s a promo, a subscription, or spam, email marketing remains popular.
Email marketing is a direct marketing channel. Customers receive personalized messages, promotions, newsletters, and brand updates, which are sent directly to their inbox.
“Effective email campaigns concentrate on clear communication, compelling calls-to-action, and audience segmentation to maximize open rates and conversions,” Buehler explains. “This specialization also blends content marketing and SEO with a strong focus on the sales funnel.”
Brand Management
Brand management is a marketing specialization in which a brand’s presence is closely monitored and manipulated in a sense to help increase its value and awareness. According to Buehler, “Brand management aims to cultivate a consistent and recognizable image that resonates with audiences.”
To develop an effective brand strategy plan, it’s important to gain a comprehensive understanding of the brand, its target market, and the organization’s vision.
“A brand manager needs to ensure continuity across all platforms and marketing campaigns,” Buehler says. “Managers oversee logos, messaging, product positioning, and customer perceptions to reinforce customer loyalty and build an emotional connection.”
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing, sometimes called digital marketing, is a marketing field that uses social media accounts to build an organization’s brand, boost sales, and drive website traffic. Social media marketers also use it to leverage brand communications, engage with existing customers, and reach new ones.
“SMM utilizes platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and LinkedIn to foster direct relationships with consumers,” explains Buehler. “Social media marketers leverage hashtags, influencer partnerships, and community engagement to boost visibility and interaction. It’s also a great way for interested students to break into the industry through an internship.”
SMM platforms also have built-in data analytics. They allow for social media monitoring so marketers can track and gain an understanding of their performance.
Search Engine Optimization
Search engines like Google® and Bing® are where people search for specific information. They use complex algorithms to decide which webpages appear at the top of the search results. Search engine optimization are the strategies used to optimize a website to improve a page’s ranking and visibility in search engine results.
“SEO is all about the art and science of improving a website’s ranking in search results,” states Buehler. “By using keywords, backlinks, and quality content, SEO drives organic traffic and ensures visibility for a brand or product when users search online.”
Search engine marketing strategies typically have a higher conversion rate than traditional advertising or marketing efforts. According to Buehler, “SEO is also linked across marketing channels, so having knowledge in content marketing and SMM is also beneficial.”
Marketing Research and Marketing Analytics
Curious to see how your campaign or post performed? Interested in better understanding your target audience? Look no further than digital marketing analytics and market research. Marketing analytics is the process of analyzing marketing performance and evaluating data to gain a deep understanding of consumer behavior.
“Market research focuses on gathering consumer insights through techniques like surveys, focus groups, and data analysis,” explains Buehler. “This research is vital in helping companies understand their potential target audience, as well as understanding trends, preferences, and competitive landscapes to optimize strategies effectively.”
Together, digital marketing analytics and marketing research specializations provide valuable insight, helping marketers and market researchers:
- Track performance marketing activities
- Measure the return on investment (ROI)
- Understand the competition and industry
- Segment the market
- Perform A/B tests
- Conduct consumer focus groups
- Research competitors
- Meet consumers’ needs
- Predict future trends
- Refine targeting
Event Marketing
Whether launching a new product or promoting and advertising an existing business, event marketing can help get your brand noticed and increase sales. “This specialization uses experiential events like trade shows, workshops, or pop-ups to engage audiences face-to-face,” says Buehler. “These events can showcase products, educate attendees, or foster partnerships, often creating lasting impressions.”
Event marketing can help a company stand out in the immense industry of marketing. It allows your business to connect with current and prospective customers, creating new channels of communication. Plus, the data and sales contacts you collect before, during, and after a business event can help you network within the industry, get to know your customers, and catch a buyer’s eye.
According to Buehler, “Event marketing is another area of marketing where students can start in an entry-level position or break into the industry through internships or volunteer work.”
American Public University’s Marketing Degree
For students interested in modern digital marketing, APU provides an online Bachelor of Arts in Marketing. The courses for this degree cover digital marketing, marketing strategy, branding, business ethics, and other areas of marketing. Students can also choose from one of several concentrations, including analytics, digital marketing, retail management, internet-Web technology, and general.
This degree program also has specialty accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP®). ACBSP accreditation ensures that the B.A. in Marketing has been carefully examined to fulfill high academic standards.
For more details, visit APU’s business and management degree program page.
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Bing is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corporation.
ACBSP is a registered trademark of the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs.
