Marketing basics
Marketing is a broad term. No matter how much ever we know, it is not enough. I have put together the knowledge I have learned over the years. This article will definitely brush up on your marketing concepts and give you a whole new perspective.
Fundamentals of Marketing:
So, let’s start with the fundamentals of Marketing. Marketing is based on science more than creativity. It is based on understanding the needs of the customers. Marketing is about sending the right message to the right audience at the right time.
Keeping the existing customers happy by communication is as important as targeting the new audience. The purpose of Marketing is to build a brand and capture a position in the minds of the customers. Thus, it is very important to stay at the top of the consumers' minds, thereby creating brand recall and recognition.
As it is rightly said, a great product converts your customers into brand ambassadors and hence word of mouth is the best marketing channel.
It is important to select the right category and study the competition. To succeed, one has to be a market leader in the category. For example, Google, Zoom call. In case if you cannot be the leader in that category, focus on the sub-category. For example, in the case of luxury cars, it is a tough market, they have tried to distinguish among themselves. BMW is known as a driver’s car, Volvo as a safe family car, and Mercedes as an executive car.
Now let’s look compare Digital marketing v/s Traditional marketing. Looking at the current market trend, one would feel that digital marketing would take over traditional marketing, but it is not true. No doubt, digital marketing is booming but there is still a long way to go and traditional marketing would never die especially in a country like India. There are a lot of reasons for it. One of the reasons is 65% of the population in India lives in villages. Though there is a tremendous growth rate in the number of internet users due to easy low rates and easy accessibility, yet the usage of the English language is done merely by 10% of the entire population.
The traditional channels like television, radio, newspaper, outdoor media are still performing well due to their wider reach. Television has a reach of 800 million to 1 billion. Radio has a reach of 845 million of the Indian population. The newspaper has a reach of 465 million.
Digital marketing is the best medium to reach the affluent English-speaking population in India which is 100 million users. Services like SEO, Social media marketing, pay-per-click, Google ads, Email marketing are all coming under digital marketing. The main advantage of digital marketing is that a targeted audience can be reached cost-effectively and measurably. It is a great way to increase online sales and brand recall.
CATT Marketing Funnel:
Under CATT Marketing Funnel, one should have a niche and focus on customers hungry for that product or service. It can be further explained as:
The above figure shows that one should have talent, market, and passion and that’s how the niche is formed.
Content: Content should be such that it is useful and attractive for the consumer which can be in the form of blog posts, videos, webinars, lead magnets, etc.
Attention: Need to attract attention traffic with the help of SEO, Social media, Paid ads, Referrals.
Trust: Build trust with marketing automation, retargeting
Transaction: When the trust is built it becomes easy to convert the leads into customers through natural sales.
Integrated Digital Marketing
To see the best result for the efforts you have put in, you need to integrate the above process.
To grab attention, run paid advertisements for free content. Users will get attracted and consume the content. They would want to consume more, hence they will come on your website through a search engine. Search engine starts ranking your website. You will generate a list of leads through campaigns. Use this list for sending out emails. Through social marketing, people will become more aware of your campaign and would reshare. This will lead to an increase in traffic. That’s how sales happen. It is based on how you execute the campaign and you need to know when and where to pump in money.
Personal Branding: Mass Trust Blueprint:
People want to hear from people, not from brands. That gives the feeling of personal touch. There are pros and cons to this. The upside is this can give rise to many brands through one’s influence. The flipside is personal brands cannot be sold or invested in.
Evolution of personal brand:
Learn a new skill through concept, facts, and procedure.
Work so that you will practice and implement the skill you have learned for better understanding.
Write a blog on things you have learned.
You can consult and help others grow. This will give you the much-needed confidence required for mentorship. This will help you to establish your own start-up.
This way you will grow your personal brand.
Thus, I could say that the time and money that I have invested in this internship are definitely worth it. Every week I learn some new concepts and improve my knowledge. Marketing is vast, there is always a scope to learn something new. All you need is an open mind, passion to learn and grasp.
In this article, we discussed marketing fundamentals, digital marketing vs. traditional marketing, CATT Marketing Funnel, Integrated Digital Marketing, Personal Branding: Mass trust blueprint.
Thank you so much for staying with me till the end. I hope I helped you in brushing few marketing concepts from a new perspective. If you have enjoyed the article, kindly share your comments and feedback. Thank you.
