8 Things a Marketer Must Know — Learnings from working with 8 different brands
For new marketers just beginning to walk the long road of retention, conversion and corporate identity, the entire industry can feel overwhelming. Specially since it’s overrun with insider concepts and head-spinning jargon.
Luckily, marketing doesn’t have to be an impossible task. With practice, a little patience, and a few tips, you can create a winning marketing strategy. In this blog, I have enlisted the top 8 crucial pieces of advice that I would like to share with my fellow marketers.
These are my learnings that I have garnered over the years of my experience. I am sure these will help you in transforming your marketing efforts and reaching your goals.
The Top 8 Things Every New Marketer Should Know
► Users you keep are as important as the users you get
► Men buy, Women shop
► Not every influencer can influence
► Marketing is not just about selling
► There is always a gap in the market, but there’s not always a market in that gap
► Fire content that doesn’t work
► Be your user’s best friend
► Marketing isn’t free, but it can be cheap
Users you keep are as important as the users you get
We marketers are often so focused on acquiring new users that we forget the importance of keeping the old ones engaged. This cycles back to the product-speaking-for-itself problem.
A common assumption is that once you’ve convinced a buyer of your product’s worth, he or she will return with little to no prompting. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
Just as we give new users a reason to engage with the product, it’s imperative that we provide old users a reason to stick around. Referral and loyalty programs are one of the most efficient ways to accomplish this. However, a simple buy-ten-get-one-free coupon won’t always cut it when it comes to loyalty programs.
In case you are an early stage startup, you can achieve this by onboarding your users as beta-testers or implement streak based rewards that keep them coming back to your app/website.
Men buy, Women shop
When working in e-commerce, it is imperative to know the psychological difference between the “buying habits” of men and women. Women react more strongly than men to personal interaction, perception and trends. They are invested in the overall shopping experience. Their acute shopping awareness is high and they have higher expectations from the purchases that they make.
Men on the other hand, get convinced by the utilitarian aspects (features) of products. They won’t go about nitpicking on smaller details of anything if they are convinced that the features checks major points on their list. Shopping, for men, is instrumental. They indulge or splurge in it only when they are backed against the wall with the items they require. (Please remember that these don’t stay true in the case of cars, games, electronic gears, or as men call it — Big Boy Toys).
E-commerce and retailers apply different tactics to capture the purchasing intent of their end consumers. The image below, sheds some light on it.
Not every influencer can influence
Influencer marketing saw a significant rise in demand over the past few years. To say influencers were a calling to brands and businesses for marketing campaigns would be an understatement. Marketers, all over the world, were quick to jump on this trend. However, this all has seen an uproar of change in the recent times.
The signs that the influencers can barely influence is blaring and glaring. In fact, recent studies have found that on an average only 3% of online population are influenced by celebrity influencers to purchase specific products. Still huge, right? NO!! In a cumulative way, the 3% might look like a huge number. But for brands with smaller listening and higher reliance on influencers, this is a major roadblock.
So, what’s driving this change? At the heart of this pattern is a huge shift in the way consumers interact with brands. The age of the passive audience is over. Instead, customers are actively engaging with each other (and brands), looking for authentic and meaningful engagement and forming their own communities based on shared interests and values.
The other major reason is that platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook have become a dumping ground for sponsored posts and advertising, and social media users are quick to call influencers and brands out when they spot lack of authenticity.
Other reasons can be:
- Higher demand for authentic engagement
- Better understanding of users about bought followers and engagement
- Redundant content and cliché routines
A way out of this is to rely on creators who have worked and built a community of their own. These creators are explicitly vocal about vouching for products and services that will benefit their community. This makes them stand out and protects them from the Influencer Fatigue Disorder.
Marketing is not just about selling
It would be wrong to interpret that marketing is about selling. My fellow marketers, if you are reading this, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Instead, selling is a teeny-tiny part of marketing. I will even go out and gutsy and say that selling can be marketing, but marketing can not be selling! Confused? Let me break it down for you.
Marketing begins with identifying customers, recognising their needs, understanding their psychology, pitching the product/service, analysing what can and is engaging and drops off at consumer feedback. Marketing is about creating a brand relevant to a target group of customers, aid them with purchase decision by educating their emotions. It’s about gaining prospects, leads and interests.
Marketing helps people choose your brand/product/service. Selling on the offhand, forces consumers to go with your brand.
There is always a gap in the market, but there’s not always a market in that gap
A gap in the market provides an opportunity for something that isn’t available yet to be made or sold. ‘Gap’ refers to the difference between the supply and demand of that product. In other words, it refers to a demand that has not been met by supply.
For companies, a gap in the market represents an opportunity for it to widen its customer base. You can achieve market penetration by identifying a gap in the market and filling it.
However, often after identifying the “gap”, founders skip the most important part. And that is to check whether there is a market in that gap or not. Let’s take this very trivial example. While at work, we often tend to snack on wafers and chips. We then use our stained fingers to work on our sleek keyboards, and end up making them greasy. Now, if you mention this problem to your friend and say that you want to work on a product that works on suction and helps you reach for your chips without staining your fingers, the initial reception would be that of awe. But do you really think people will pay to buy it?
The way around this is to create a MVP, take user’s feedback and then rely on that feedback to plan or scale your business.
Fire content that doesn’t work
As marketers, our major amount of time goes in producing content and campaigns that speaks to our audience. But there are ways in which our content and campaigns fall short for our audiences. This could be because of the following reasons:
- The content is not relevant to your audience.
- You are sticking to one tactic.
- Your content is either moving ahead of time or has lost the race.
- The channel that you chose is not a friend of your content.
- Consistency is not a key trait.
If you can’t zero down on the probable cause behind your failed content marketing strategy, I suggest you audit, audit and audit your content. This is the easiest and the best way to find out what is working and what is not.
You should rely on your patience, not a trait that marketers are known for, and instead of creating ad hoc + ready for disaster content, go ahead with research. This is always more efficient than the “spray and pray” method. Collect data on who your audience is, what they are interested in, what they want to receive, on which channel, how often, and allow it to do the heavy lifting for you.
Remember, one piece of content is not silver bullet. You can’t expect to grow because of it. But also don’t forget that a bad piece of content is like vervain. It’s better to fire it, before it kills your marketing strategy.
Be your consumer’s best friend
Friends, they are our pillars, our support system. They accept us with our flaws and love us unconditionally.
Now think of a world where this could also stand true for your brand or business. A select few who love your brand and vouch for it, are the ones you should be going after. And how can a marketer do this? By being their best friend.
Building friendship (or rapport as the industry calls it) with consumers is very similar to striking a relation with an offline friend. And you can approach it in 3 steps: (a) communicate (b) connect (c) invest in your relation
Communication, is the first and most important key to brand’s success. In order to build relationships, you need to stay in touch with their consumer. Almost every marketer knows this. But this approach is easier said than done. With social media and mobile connecting everyone to everything, there is no excuse for brands to neglect or ignore their consumers. However, I’d present data that reflects a major disconnect between companies and their consumers.
5 out of every 6 requests made by consumers on social media to a business go unanswered.
70% of companies ignore customer complaints on Twitter
7 of every 8 customer messages go unanswered within 72 hours
Communication is a two-way process, but best brands know that you have got to listen more and talk less. The conversation shouldn’t stop at your response. Make your consumers feel important. While addressing grievances, ensure that you make them understand that you deeply regret the inconvenience caused. Don’t just say it because it’s a template.
Respond to the comments your consumers leave. Analyse and understand what they want to engage with. AND, be compassionate. Offer them an out of the blue discount coupon or call them to share their story.
By doing this, you will be able to create an army of loyalists who want to understand your brand, its communication and are invested in its growth.
Marketing isn’t free, but it can be cheap
Whenever it comes to marketing, the old saying holds true: You have to spend money to earn money. How much money you spend, however, is completely up to you.
In the modern world, the most effective marketing is often the most affordable to produce. Gone are the days when billboards and television spots were the only games in town. The glamour of big-ticket items is undoubtedly alluring, but they’re no more effective for a small business than a targeted YouTube ad or a well-placed direct mail piece. A person’s ability to think outside the box is crucial to succeeding in this situation. This is what has led to the hike in the usage of the term “growth hack”
What are some engaging, interruptive strategies you can deploy to introduce your name to the public? Well, here are some:
- Get involved with your community
- Ask for referrals
- Invest your effort in local SEO
- Rely on e-mail marketing plans
- Create saveable data-rich infographic and circulate it.
So these were some learnings that I was able to gather by working on businesses and products in the past. GoSocial, Elitify, WhatsHot, AutoO2, Liberty, Sintex, MensXP, STIRworld, GreetSmile, MKU, Innovative Pencil, Comic Con, Dineout, iDiva, Hands carpet, Feducia Serve, Make My Dream and some other products that I am not at the liberty to discuss, have helped me understand marketing beyond the average. I truly hope that this adds value to your life.
About the writer:
I am a marketer and strategist with 5+ years of work experience in the field of marketing. I love being a marketer as it helps me see the bigger picture and analyse the minute pixels that leads to such beautiful creation. You can read more about me on my website.
