A Beginner’s Guide to Marketing

By Shubhangi Kumari

After finishing my diploma, fresh out of college — I found myself in the role of Assistant Engineer at a start-up. One of my many roles was to conduct marketing activities for the organization. We’ve spent many hours working and trying out different strategies for our products and services. I always thought that marketing was a salesperson’s work that involved going around and selling things, but then I realized it is also about the strategic planning, product development, research, and piloting etc.

A fresher out of college, when I joined the organization, I had no idea about how to do marketing. For the first time I was meeting clients and I had no idea how to present myself in front of them. When I asked for support and time to learn from my organization, I was allowed to take a senior colleague with me who would guide me. She enabled me to do things on my own and would often encourage me to take the lead in marketing conversations. Beforehand, she would tell me verbally how to do what, how to explain, what all I should keep in mind, and how to behave. But for me it was all new, so despite me trying, I faced failure. Looking back, the reason was not just because I was scared, unprepared, was not having potential, didn’t knew how to talk, what to say, and how to behave — but also because I was unconfident. It was because of this under confidence that I made a mistake and was not able to convince the client.

I continued to struggle at marketing over the next 4 months. Every time I used to face some problems but the people around me were not upset from my performance because they knew I was trying my best. I used to work day and night to learn things, worked on boosting my confidence, and stepped out in the market again after a month with a big project proposal which was handed over to me. I sat with a client in the school, shared my proposal, gave them a brief about the project, answered their questions, and though I was quite nervous inside, I acted confidently. So, there might be a halchal in your mind that how this lady became confident after so many difficulties. I remember this one day very nicely, I was sitting with the principal of a school with a proposal in my hand of Atal Tinkering Labs. This was a big chance for me to prove myself. I started my presentation and just after 20 minutes the principal and teachers were very happy and they were ready to make a deal with us. My colleague and I were very proud of this.

Today I am self-confident and prepared to face any challenge, which is why I am writing this for people like me, who are at their first job and overcoming many fears and challenges. From all my experience I can tell you, in terms of the skills needed for marketing, we need to look into few points-

1. We must know the need of customer and value of that product in market.

For example: I was working on the Tinkering Colab project for which I had to go to schools and tell them why tinkering will be beneficial for the school and its students. I tried to convince them, but soon realized that they didn’t want to invest in something new and unfamiliar. Then I started working on understanding the needs of their school and came back to them with a different project where they had to make very little investment. By understanding their mentality, needs, and what they are actually interested in, I was able to engage with them in a project of their interest.

2. Need to create remarkable customer experience, most important need to be a good storyteller.

The simple thing I have learnt here is that people understand stories. My team and I have done a lot of market research, but when we go out, instead of quoting academic papers we talk to teachers and students about stories of other teachers and students. For example, how tinkering helped boost a student’s confidence in their ability to do well in academics.

3. Never stop acquiring new marketing tricks.

This means that even if you have found one marketing strategy that works well for your organization and product or service, keep experimenting with different tactics. It is only by doing that you will learn the realities of your customer base. For example, we are currently running a program for youth in semi-urban and rural areas. In terms of marketing, we are reaching out to NGOs, government institutions, and panchayats — for all three groups we use different tools like PPTs, posters, brochures, bill-boards, and door-to-door conversations. Each works out in different situations — PPTs are helpful with government whereas posters are very helpful when speaking directly to the youth.

I would like to conclude by saying that being in a marketing position is a great opportunity for growth — personally and professionally. Personally, one learns new things through research and how to conduct oneself whereas professionally we learn how to interact with and understand others better.

If you want to learn more about marketing, here is a beginner’s video for you!