Gain an edge over your competitors in the marketplace: Learn fundamentals of marketing
Are you aware of funnels??
Have you ever created one? If not, then let’s gain some insights about how to do it and why to do it. We’ll proceed with learning about marketing, its importance & relevant skills, traditional vs digital marketing, and effective marketing strategies. This article will be useful for bloggers, professionals, freelancers, mentors, and entrepreneurs.
Funnel is a process where a customer is led to make decisions strategized by a marketer to reach the conversion. A good marketer is like a chess player playing the game in attacking mode where the other player (here, the customer) seems to make decisions on its own for his moves but is actually governed by the strategies of the first player (here, the marketer) to play the final move.
Let’s start with understanding some very basic concepts first.
What is marketing?
Marketing refers to activities a company undertakes to promote the buying or selling of a product or service.
You must have learned that the role of marketing comes into play after the launch of a product or service but you must be surprised to know that the marketing of a product or service starts way before the designing or creation of a product.
Marketing is something that seems to be very confined to only advertising and promoting the product or service at various platforms through online and offline mediums but it is actually not. Marketing is huge!
It starts with understanding the market and consumer needs first. It is not possible to understand the business without understanding the market.
The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.
Every entrepreneur should learn about global economics. Business decisions fit the market when they are based on economics.
The next thing is creating brand awareness. This step is not at all concerned with any sort of profit generation. It’s all about making people know you and building trust about your brand in the mass. You as a marketer, your no.1 goal is to build trust with the target audience. We could term it as MassTrust.
Here are a few tips that can help you build your brand strong.
- Draw people’s attention through your own ways. Put a unique angle to the existing system and you are ready to conquer the market.
- Do not try to cover the entire market at once. Start with a category and become a leader in that category. If you can not be a leader in a category, be a leader in a sub-category. For example-
Once the potential customers have entered the funnel and you have built their trust, close the deal and convert your leads into customers with natural sales method.
This is how a marketing funnel works.
Let’s dive deep into this and understand it better.
Fundamentals of Marketing
What do you think, what all it requires to become a good digital marketer or a good marketer? Is it storytelling? Or attractive posters and banners? Or is it creativity of knowing how to manipulate people? The answer is NO!
- Marketing is based on science. It is about sending the right message to the right person at the right time.
- Marketing is not just about selling, but also keeping an existing customer happy by communicating with them so that they can remain customers for life.
- The great product converts your customers into brand ambassadors. Word of mouth marketing is the best channel of marketing ever.
- You need a great product but marketing not just helps people discover the product but also has a good perception of the product. (ex- apple)
- Components of marketing: Advertising, Copywriting, Sales.
Why should you learn marketing?
Okay, now you know the importance of marketing. You being a blogger, freelancer, entrepreneur, or professional in any domain, you definitely need to market yourself or your product or service so that people could discover you. But when you know that there are plenty of marketing agencies available out there to fulfill your marketing requirements then why would you go and take a step ahead to learn marketing.
See, the most valuable investment in a business is marketing because it gives direct returns. But it’s time for you to learn that it can not be outsourced entirely to a marketing agency. Being a professional, you must be aware that understanding marketing is understanding the business. And you can not do business without understanding marketing. If you know how to market and sell, you are never going to be out of a job. You can make use of this skill for yourself as well as for serving others.
Importance of communication
- Good marketing is all about good communications. Whether it be traditional marketing or digital marketing, communication is going to be the key.
- Good communication is not about sophisticated English or a high vocabulary. It is the ability to transfer your thoughts effectively in a simple manner.
Traditional vs digital marketing
The main difference between digital and traditional marketing is the medium through which an audience encounters a marketing message.
Traditional marketing channels include Outdoor (Billboards, bus/taxi wraps, posters, etc), Broadcasting (TV, Radio, etc), Print media (Magazines, newspapers, etc), Direct Mail (catalogs, etc), Telemarketing (Phone, text message), window display, and signs
Digital marketing channels include Social media (Facebook, Instagram, etc), Website, Content marketing, Affiliate marketing, Inbound marketing, Email marketing, PPC (pay per click), and SEM (Search engine marketing).
Which type of marketing should you use?
Traditional marketing doesn’t mean it’s old-fashioned. The key to a great marketing campaign is to find the right balance between traditional and digital.
There are three reasons or three T’s why digital marketing is far superior to traditional marketing.
1. Targeting
For example- Google AdWords. You can target the keywords that they are searching for, you know the buyer's intent and you can put your message right in front of them so that when they search the keyword, they will find you. You can target very precisely who you want it when you want it and where you want it that you can not do with traditional marketing.
2. Tracking
With internet marketing, you can track very precisely where that buyer comes from and you can even track their journey. While with traditional, you can only have a rough count of overall responses.
3. Tweaking
If you want to change your message/ offer on the billboard, you’ve to take out the whole damn billboard. You have to replace everything and reprint everything. With digital, if there’s an ad that you’re running and you don’t like it you can change it in seconds and you can split test different ads at the same time. In traditional, there is a huge delay in terms of time and that gap makes it very expensive and very costly while in digital, you can tweak very quickly.
Traditional marketing is good for low-end consumer-based products. If a product is generic with a very wide targeting, TV ads can reach millions at a low cost.
Ultimately both types of marketing have their benefits and downfalls, but the key is understanding your specific marketing needs, considering your budget, and understanding your target audience.
The CATT marketing funnel and framework
CATT marketing funnel represents the formula of wealth creation. It says the amount of wealth that can be created is equal to the niche to the CATT (Content, Attention, Trust, Transaction) power. The results of this formula are highly dependent on your niche.
Wealth= n^CATT
[n]= Niche: Niche is finding the right market requirement and fulfilling that requirement with your skills and interest. The figure below shows what niche is:
“Deciding where to compete is half of your success.”
Finding the right niche is where most of us fail. When you have an ocean of opportunity, you must be wondering why to choose and stick to a particular niche. Working on multiple niches and not sticking to a particular niche will consume all your efforts, time, and money for no result. Focussed sunlight with the help of a magnifier can even burn the paper. Similarly, working with full focus on one niche could bring unbeatable results.
[C]= Content: Everyone knows content is the point of attraction. Content can be in the form of blogs, emails, webinars, videos, images, and podcasts. Create content that adds value to the lives of people. People won’t come back to you to consume junk.
Tip: Add spices of your learnings and experiences to your content to come up with a unique flavor.
[A]= Attention: This step involves driving consumer attention to your product or service. Here comes the role of different traditional and digital marketing channels and tools. You can use paid ads on google or other social media platforms, search engine optimization, referrals, TV and newspaper ads, or any other tool or technique depending on your target audience and budget.
[T]= Trust: The ultimate purpose of marketing is to make a positive presence in the consumer’s mind. Building trust is the most important factor to build your brand strong. People look not only for product features but also brand reliability before indulging in any conversion. You can overcome this challenge with tripwires, marketing automation, and retargeting.
[T]= Transaction: When the trust is built, convert your leads into customers through natural sales methods.
The CATT framework is the one that each marketer ought to comprehend before defining up any financial goal for them. You have a decision of completing your work with a predefined structure and get guaranteed results, or you may get yourself lost during the time spent on the equivalent.
Integrated digital marketing
Integrated digital marketing is the merging of various digital sub-disciplines into a cohesive online strategy for developing a market for products or services.
Some of the common digital marketing methods are:
- Search Engine Marketing (PPC)
- Search Engine Optimization (Organic Traffic)
- Email Marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- Digital Display Marketing
- Content Marketing
Integrated digital marketing communications include advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing, and social media as well as customer support and customer relationship management. People approach digital marketing in a way that from each and every segment, they try to get results separately. Digital marketing strategies rely on all the tactics, methodologies, channels, media, and tools to work together toward a defined goal that is centered on the customer needs. The idea behind integrated digital marketing is that, while each individual strategy doesn’t have a huge impact on its own, when used in conjunction, you can create a more influential online presence. To reach customers, generate leads, and generate a return on digital expenditures, an integrated digital marketing strategy is essential.
Of course, there are still one-off campaigns out there, but most agencies are moving toward integrated solutions, as a well-rounded marketing strategy provides better visibility and ROI for businesses online.
Personal Branding
For me, personal branding is just as much about determining internally what’s important to you, what your qualities are, what kind of work you wanna do as it is about the external, of promoting yourself and making it easy for the right kinds of people to find you for the right kinds of work.
Everybody in this world has a gift to offer the world. Furthermore, a piece of that is getting that word out, that hey, I have this gift, and I want to give this gift. So you’re providing awareness to people, of yourself, however, you are going to get on things.
Why Personal Branding?
It also helps people to feel as if they know you better which helps to increase your trustworthiness (even if they have not even met you in person). This is particularly so in the eCommerce space, where consumers often look for trust from a familiar face because people want to hear from people, not from brands.
We have a great example of Oprah Winfrey. Oprah clearly knows her personal branding well and has managed to capitalize on it in ways that few others have accomplished. There are two critical parts of her personal brand. One is the need to be consistent and another is the need to be true to your intentions.
The best known will always beat the best.
A personal brand becomes an influencer and a brand ambassador for the companies that they run. It can give rise to many brands from his/her influence.
The only downside is that it can not be sold and can not be invested in.
The Evolution Of a Personal Brand
There are certain steps involved in the process of the evolution of a personal brand, we call it masstrust blueprint.
It says,
Start with learning a new skill. To learn a new skill, understand the concepts, remember the facts, and practice the procedures.
Then work on your new-found skills through practice, practice, and practice. Implement them in the real world through your own projects. Freelancing is also a good move at this stage. It will keep you motivated and help you gain a better understanding of the concepts.
Once you have gained some experience with your skill, share it with the world through your writings and other forms of communication. Create content that adds value to the lives of people. Put your thoughts, learnings, and experience at a place. This place could be your blog, youtube channel, or any other medium. This is where you start building your personal brand.
Now people know you and value you, take a step up and start consulting other businesses.
There must be people who you inspire every day and who want to learn from you or become like you. Mentor them. Mentor and consult groups of people instead of consulting just one person at a time. It will help you scale your understanding to a whole new level.
After putting so much of yourself into learning and experiencing things, think about taking your steps towards having your own startup. Create your own product or start a service business with the understanding that you have developed in the market.
Conclusion
I really hope that you had a great time learning about marketing. You can check out more on divyaagrawal10x.com.
Niche Clarity Blueprint, CATT Funnel, the Integrated Digital Marketing Framework, and the Mass Trust Blueprint are four very incredible yet simple concepts that cover nearly everything about marketing.
The beauty of anything powerful is its simplicity.
Now you at least know what you need to learn. Knowing what to learn is half your learning done.
I truly was inspired when Digital Deepak introduced me to these concepts.
I had a great time learning from him. I have tried to share most of what I know. Do let me know in the comments below whether this article added some value to you or not. Your feedback will motivate me to write better and better.
