Why Marketing Will Make You Question Everything
Are you stuck in your business and hit a saturation point!
Do you think, you have a good product but are unable to sell?
This article will take you one step closer in getting your business on track.
In the rat race while most of us in business are so engrossed to run faster that we sometimes are not able to focus on the basics.
The only solution is to have right marketing strategy in place.
So let’s understand how it can solve your problems and is answer to every question that your business wants.
Lets look at the fundamentals of marketing —
marketing involves understating of 7ps -( earlier it was 4) namely — product,people. price, promotion, place, packaging and positioning.
- Price — Right pricing is not only important to convert your customers but also achieving your business goals. For e.g, if you have a product and if you want to target revenue of 1 cr, which is for mass market like an low end smart phone, you will have to keep the price 100 and sell to 1lk people but if you want to sell an i phone worth 1lkh rs, then you would require to target niche customers with paying potential and sell it to only 100!
2. Product — You have a product which you need to sell.
3. Place — You have the product and price but now you need a place, that means you need select your niche, a market where your product fits well and currently is untapped. You need to map the potential of the market by forecasting the buying power, demographics, GDP, house hold data etc to arrive at a correct size of the market which will be your niche.
4.People —
Out of these the most important ‘P’ is People/consumers/customer.
“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” — Peter Druker, Management guru
If you know your customers needs and wants and if your product fulfills those demands at right price then you have won the battle.
But how can we know our customers and how can we reach them ?
5.Promotion — Once you know your customers, try and communicate with them by building consumer understanding. It can be done in various ways.By doing primary research, by writing blogs and generating content and by using marketing.
Lets talk about how was marketing before and what has changed!
Traditional vs Digital Marketing —
Digital Advertising — It uses online medium e.g social media, blogs, SEO, Email marketing etc to market and reach customers.
Pros of digital advertising —
- Cost of customer acquiring is less
- Greater reach and controlled environment
- ROI is greater
Traditional Advertising — marketing through TV, Press, Hoardings, BTL etc.Cost of advertising is very high. Cannot be measured and ROI is less.
Integrated Marketing Communication —
Though digital is growing at faster pace and has greater reach garantee but if you look at Indian population your consumers having access to inernet and actually transacting only through digital media could be limited as a result you might loose on the opportunity to capture them. Hence traditional media has to be used along with digital to get maximum result and this is called as integrated marketing communication.
E. G. — Integrated Marketing Communication Case Study — Taco Bell
A huge buzz created by the integrated marketing effort made DLTs responsible for nearly a quarter of the Taco Sales. They consequently posted an 8% increase in sales.
Taco Bell’s Integrated Marketing Communication Activities included:
- A commercial based on a Youtube video of a customer who drove 900 miles to try the DLTs. A montage of Instagram posts in which customers were trying the DLTs for the first time.
- Influencers were identified amongst the fans and were invited to try the DLTs which motivated them to spread the word about DLTs through their social media channels.
- The company launched a 60-second Super Bown Ad on the Live Mas theme featuring a bunch of senior citizens sneaking out of their retirement home to party. After a long night of crazy pursuits, they finish at Taco Bell for a bite before heading back. This ad received a lot of attention on social media and drove a lot of traffic towards the brand.
- A Taco Bell Mobile Ordering and Payment App was launched.
- Taco Bell tested platforms such as Periscope to live stream launch of a new product to catch the attention of Generation Z.
Taco Bell has now started the Taco Bell Live Mas Scholarship supports innovators, creators, and dreamers who want to make a difference in the world.
Taco Bell’s Integrated Marketing Communication Channels
- Social Media
- Television
- Advertising at high profile events
- Influencer marketing.
Taco Bell combed through their social media feeds to find user-generated content that they broadcasted on their TV spots. It seamlessly integrated two channels which were until then believed to be incompatible. (Source:https://www.paperflite.com/blogs/integrated-marketing-communication-case-studies)
The CATT model
Wealth = niche^CATT
CATT model very well captures customer jouney from identiying them to making them transact and buy your product.
If you have a product and you have identified your N-Niche market to sell it then next step will be to identify the C -Content to grab A -Attention and develop a T-Trust in you brand so that ultimately your customers T-Transact/buy your product and pay for it. E.G is Tacobell. They identified a product for health conscious youngsters then marketed it with right medium to reach them and grabbed attention.Did continuous IMC to develop trust and capture the market as they ultimately started buying the product.
Important to note is that customers could be at any point of this CATT funnel
Importance of personal Branding
We are coming to a very important part of discussion which is personal branding!
Creating a personal brand can be a very unique and best investment that you will make for yourself.The golden rule of advertising is ‘ what is seen is remembered’.
If you are seen and heard and people are reading about you and your stuff that means your probability of either getting hired or driving traffic to your own business via your own personal brand will be more.
The edge in personal branding is that people trust people more rather than brands or products, products and logos makes it look unbelievable and purely commercial. But if you have a person as a brand it brings trust and gives personal touch.
Example numourous personal brand is Steve jobs, Neil patel, Digital deepak, Richard branson etc.
Steps in perosnla branding:
You can start learning a skill then start working on it by getting a job or freelancing. Start writing about your work in form of case study which people will read and follow you. This will increase your followers and you will be a though leader. Once this happen you can pitch for projects and start consulting. Next level will be consulting to masses, i.e become mentor.
This would mean you can now be called as brand and you can attract group of people into various other business you have created.
So to summarize, marketing is all about questioning the Ps and understanding a whole lof of things about your consumers. Right targeting brings your product to right customer. Right customer with a laser sharp commmunication message which is relevant to the target group will creat awerness and ultimately with right promotion and integrated marketing startegy (digital+traditional advertisng + personal branding) will give you the required sales you are looking at to grow your business.
Stay tuned for exciting tips and content on marketing in the next article!
Please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts and tips that worked for you or you are searching for.
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