The Ultimate Marketing Guide in 8 minutes!
Welcome back to my blog-series on Digital Deepak’s Internship Sessions!
The fact that you are here, to me, means that you have visited my previous blog and it has impressed you upon the worth of Digital Deepak’s content and coaching style.
We had our second class last weekend. Deepak Sir discussed the fundamentals of marketing which I would like to summarize in this guide.
I’m writing this not just as a way to complete the assignment but as a token of sharing the happiness and the delight that I experienced in my second class. More to come!
I am 100% sure you must have heard the word “Marketing”. But are you sure you know everything about marketing?
In this guide, you will learn some basics of Digital Marketing that I mastered during the class.
So, are you all set to start reading about Digital Marketing? Grab a mug of coffee because it’s going to be a bit long, but believe me it’s worth a read!
Overview:
- Fundamentals of Marketing
- Digital vs Traditional Marketing
- Mass Trust
- Personal Branding
- Finding Your Niche
- CATT Funnel, Integrated Digital Marketing
Fundamentals of Marketing
“Good things will happen when you listen to the consumer” this is a quote that attracted me when I was reading an article related to marketing research. The sentence is very small and the meaning is quite simple until you try to decode the real meaning behind this plain sentence.
If someone will ask me to define Marketing, I will simply conclude, “Marketing is the process of identifying and understanding your customer, and building a relationship with them”.
This is what the above-mentioned quote states, that your business will bloom, your organization will make a profit and your customers will be happy, only if you will try to identify and tackle the needs of customers.
Marketing isn’t simply a part of business, it is the business. It is rightly said that the customer is the king, it is the customer who makes the business. So if you want your business to grow positively, you must listen to the customer.
Marketing is all about doing business as per the consumers’ needs. The organization needs to be flexible if it wants to succeed in the market. The need, demand, taste, and preferences of the consumer keep on changing and the organization must work with it.
In the current scenario, where there are hundreds of options available for a product or service, why will the consumer choose you over others?
This will happen only if he/she is your loyal and satisfied customer and how did he/she become loyal? It is because their needs and preferences were taken into consideration by the company.
If you wish to survive in this competitive world, you must do marketing to a large extent and should try to increase the headcount of your product.
Let’s move on to the next segment and discover some marketing strategies!
Digital vs Traditional Marketing
We now live in a digital age where everything is influenced by technology. From how we dress to what we eat, when picking outfits we scroll through social media on apps like Instagram and Pinterest for inspiration, when deciding where or what to eat, we search for restaurants on Google or Zomato. However, the main aim of any business is to achieve profitable results. Our mindsets are left behind with a question as to which marketing strategy will provide the much-needed profits? Digital Marketing or Traditional Marketing?
When there were no smartphones, then people used television, newspaper, magazine, and radio which are the traditional methods of marketing.
More than in all these places countless companies used to advertise their product and they used to buy products from the market by seeing those advertisements.
But in this era of smartphones most people, especially the youth, spend all their time on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter. Watching videos from YouTube instead of TV, listening to songs on different types of apps instead of radio, and reading online blogs instead of newspapers which are digital mediums of marketing.
There are indeed many similarities between traditional and digital marketing, but there are also some key differences, which are the difference between winning a campaign that makes you money, and a losing campaign that gets you nowhere.
First, you need to identify and clearly define your target market, and to whom you are trying to reach. This is crucial because your target market will dictate how you advertise, where you advertise, and what you have advertised.
As an example, you are going to use a very different message to market to a 63-year-old grandmother who likes gardening, to a 22-year-old male who likes to go to the Gym and lives in say Florida. These markets are likely to respond to completely different images, messages and they likely hang out in different places. Clearly defining them, first allows you to target them better.
However, as I have mentioned in my previous blog that the marketing strategy that you choose is crucial for running your business. Both digital and traditional marketing will give good results if you know your target audiences well.
Once you have decided on your marketing strategy, you need to create trust among your audience so that they remain clingy towards you. And this is what is called “Mass Trust”.
Hey, where are you going? I know it’s a bit long but hold on with me for the next segment to gain some insights about Mass Trust! Ready? Let’s go!
Mass Trust
The key basic skill required in marketing is communication which is necessary to build trust within the audience, which we can term as ‘MASS TRUST’.
Communication helps in creating content, sales, and becoming a successful professional or entrepreneur. If we cannot communicate properly about us or our brand to our audience then we might fail as a marketer. We can excel in communicating by reading books or listening to podcasts, watching English sitcoms, or watching a stand-up comedy or by writing.
We also need to learn how to sell our brand and create a mass trust! So, now let’s jump onto Personal Branding in the next segment.
Flair your style with the real YOU: Personal Branding
In the world today, branding has become very crucial for success. And, we have seen this play out in the success of a lot of companies, from the golden arches at McDonald’s to the Apple icon for Apple company. Branding has become a fundamental part of the business and corporate world.
It is relevant when they say, you never get a second chance at a first impression — make it one that will set you apart.
Developing a personal brand that reflects who you build trust with potential employers and customers.
So it is important to build a Personal Brand and stand out of the rest by creating unique and engaging content. Effective personal branding is not about trying to impress people; it is about cultivating, nurturing, and promoting the right perception of you.
You do not have to be on Richard Branson or Oprah’s level to have an effective personal brand. All you need to do is consistently craft and curate your digital presence. Your authenticity, transparency, and honesty are what will differentiate you in the long run so make sure this is your priority when you begin your branding journey.
I’ll end with Tim Ferriss thought on branding,
“Personal branding is about managing your name — even if you don’t own a business — in a world of misinformation, disinformation, and semi-permanent Google records. Going on a date? Chances are that your “blind” date has Googled your name. Going to a job interview? Ditto.”
— Tim Ferriss
Finding your niche
Albert Einstein was a failure at school — is a widely repeated fallacy. Yes, in history and geography he did not do well but in his favorite subjects, he was incredibly brilliant namely physics and mathematics.
The punchline: Albert Einstein went on to become the greatest physicist of all time. So no, he wasn’t an academic failure; he just chose his niche early on and turned it into an enduring, lifelong career.
Following the footsteps of Albert Einstein, you can also choose a career niche for yourself. But first, let us understand what a niche means and why it is important to pick one.
A niche is a natural ability or a specific skill that you are good at.
We can understand Niche through an example that the author is experienced and have a vast knowledge of poetry so niche is writing another example that a doctor is experienced and have a knowledge of health so the doctor will choose a health niche or fitness niche.
A niche should focus primarily on passion, talent, and opportunities for the market. You’d be stunned to find your niche when you’re mining it out and you’d end up discovering microniches too!
Another way to find out whether your niche is currently in demand is to find out about the business demand through google searching or talking to people, and sometimes even online reviews tell us a lot of pre-expectations and post-requirements, look for gaps in people ‘s path, scratch your itch and seek to find answers and solutions in your niche!
CATT Funnel
Well, let us now come to the main question — How Integrated Digital Marketing works?
It starts with creating content and building a tribe. Once we have constructed the content, we start bringing in SEO traffic to it. Then we use social media strategy to market the content to our target audience and also via email marketing. We then start mixing paid advertising to it and eventually we sell and convert. This whole process can be summed up as Content, Attention, Trust, and Transaction (CATT).
Have you used an approach like this? Did it pay off well? If not, then go ahead and add wealth with the CATT funnel.
So, I conclude by saying that Implementing marketing is a must if you want to take your business to new heights. You must implement new strategies to leave a long-lasting impact on your customers that leaves them wanting more. I have curated some of the strategies and fundamentals that will help your business grow. Hope it helps you in your long run!
Did you find this guide informative? Please comment below your views about this marketing guide.
