Are you a marketing enthusiast?

December 3, 2020 by Shrishti Bhardwaj

Are you someone who either wants to kickstart their career, earn some pocket money, someone who wants to be a helping hand in their family or someone who wants to earn extra money over and above their salary? Yes, I understand your reasons because I am coming from the same place where you are today.

In today’s world, we are so confused between marketing and digital marketing and a few days back I was also in a great dilemma. I wanted to know everything about these two terms. You must have read many articles from marketing professionals about marketing but I think that you would definitely want to hear about it from someone who is still in the learning process, right?

So, you are at the right place because here I am going to tell you everything that I have learned about ‘Marketing’ till now.

So, the first thing that I want to tell you is that to become a successful Digital Marketer, you need to become a good ‘Marketer’ first. Someone who would work as a chain between the customer and the product. I want you to understand that Digital is just a medium, but the term Marketing is the same as before. So, if you are serious about it, which I think you are, then work on improving your Marketing skills along with learning Digital Marketing.

Before moving on to Digital Marketing let me give you an idea about Marketing. So, Marketing starts even before the product is created. In order to understand marketing firstly you should understand the 4 P’s of marketing properly.

· The first step is to understand the needs and demands of your customers as we know ‘Customer is the King of the market’. Now, when you understand this, half of your problem is solved automatically because now you know what you have to create i.e. the ‘Product’.

· The second step is to ‘Price’ your product in the effective way and also understanding when to give the discounts on your product.

· The third step is to know where you are going to sell your product i.e. ‘Place’. In some cases, placement may refer to the act of including a product on television shows, in films, or on web pages in order to garner attention for the product.

· The fourth step is to make a freaking awesome ‘Promotion’ strategy. The goal of promoting a product is to reveal our customers the fact that why they need our product and why they should pay a certain price for it. Here you have to decide where you are going to promote your product Online or Offline. In the digital age, the “place” and “promotion” factors are as much online as they are offline.

So many people think that they have an amazing marketing plan and they spend lots and lots of money in promoting their product. But they forget the most important thing that is the PRODUCT itself because marketing will work only when you are selling something which is worth buying. Your product should give maximum amount of satisfaction to its users. If you have used cheap raw material or if you are in the services industry and your services are not satisfying its users, then no matter how much amount you have spent on marketing, it will not work for you. Your target audience will eventually find that your products/ services are not worth buying. That’s why the first P among the 4 P’s i.e. the Product should be given your utmost attention.

You must always remember the fact that a great product will sell itself. You should make the product in such a way that your customers will love it and when they love it, they will definitely recommend it to their relatives, friends, family and neighbors. Your customers will ultimately become the marketer of your product and when you reach this level, know that you have achieved your target. That is the time when you will start getting your ROI which means the amount that you have spent in marketing your product.

Reaching at this level do not mean that this is the end of marketing because this is the point where you have to make long lasting relations with your customers because you don’t want them to just go away and try other products. You want them to use your products repeatedly, right? While grabbing the attention of new customers, you have to pay full attention to your old customers as well.

Marketing and Communication goes hand in hand.

When I say communication, I hope you understand that it’s a two-way process, communication doesn’t mean that you will be speaking endlessly. You have to think like a customer to know what your customer actually needs and this is how you can become a successful marketer.

“Knowing what to speak, when to speak and how to speak is a game changer and it is not about sophisticated English, it’s all about how you transfer your thoughts to your customer”.

I strongly suggest you to improve your communication skills. I know, this is the point where most of people quit before even trying. I understand that not everyone is born with extraordinary communication skills, but we were also not born with this smartphone, laptop, iPad, or computer in our hands, right? We know using this because we wanted to learn this, in the same way you can improve your communication skills as well. This is the skill which will always be in trend and will immensely benefit you throughout your life.

Now, I will help you to understand the differences between traditional marketing & digital marketing.

o On the basis of Cost, traditional marketing has recurring costs that can make it expensive and may not give you a good return. But if you are running an ad on a digital platform, let’s assume your website, it will stay there till the time you want without any additional costs.

o In terms of reach, even you know this that the reach of digital marketing is wider than the traditional marketing. Suppose, If you run an ad on Facebook, it will reach a larger audience but if you are using traditional method of marketing, the reach will be limited to the local audience only.

o In terms of analyzing the result, it isn’t easy to measure results in traditional marketing, because when you distribute fliers, give away brochures, or advertise in newspapers or magazines, you don’t know how far your marketing is going to reach. But digital marketing lets you measure results easily.

o On the basis of feedback, it is not easy to get feedback from your customers in traditional marketing but in digital marketing you can easily collect customers reviews and their experiences.

Another interesting thing that I learnt was the CATT Marketing Funnel. The first thing that you will have to select while following the CATT approach is your NICHE.

NICHE = Talent + Passion + Market

Your niche should be something which is your passion and you acquire the skill set that is required for it and you have the audience to which you can sell your product/services.

Let me tell you the easiest way of choosing your niche. For Example — Pooja is passionate about dancing, and she performs really well. She knows various form of dancing like contemporary, bhangra. kathak etc. which means she has got the talent and she has audience who would want to learn dance from her. So here her niche is dancing. In the same way you have to select your niche.

Now when you have your niche selected,

· The first thing that you will have to do is to create high quality content that would attract your target audience. Some forms of content are webinars, blog posts & videos.

· The second thing that you will do is to start gathering the attention of your target audience using SEO, SEM, social media etc.

· After grabbing the attention of your audience, you have to build trust in the minds of your target audience. You will have to interact with your target audience frequently, so that they can build trust on you.

· Now comes the most important and the final step i.e., transaction. Here you will convert your target audience into your customers.

I hope now you will also be able to select your profitable NICHE.

Now, I am going to tell you about the mechanism that will help you in the execution of CATT marketing funnel i.e.,

Integrated Digital Marketing.

It means combining all the methods of digital marketing that are available today in such a way that will help you in -

> creating a valuable content,

> grabbing the attention of your target audience,

> building trust in the minds of your target audience,

> and help you in converting your leads into customers.

The above flowchart describes the mechanism of integrated digital marketing. Each one of them have their own importance and functions and combining them all together will take your business to new heights.

o Content — Posting your content on a regular basis will help you in engaging with your audience, building trust. It will also keep your audience updated about your products and services.

o Social Media — If you are active on social media, it will help you in getting new customers. Along with it you can get the feedback directly from your customers.

o Email — This is the best and the cheapest way to get in touch with your email list personally. You can tell them about the new launches and send them the information about the new content.

o Paid Ads — When you run paid advertising, it will immensely boost the entire process of integrated digital marketing.

o SEO — This is one of the most powerful tools in digital marketing, you can easily get the traffic on your website by doing this.

o Sell & Convert — Doing all the above-mentioned things rightly, will help you convert your leads into transaction.

Don’t you think it’s not that tough to understand all these concepts?

Now, after understanding the concepts the most important thing that you will have to focus on is Personal Branding.

In this Internet era, everyone is struggling hard to grab the attention of their audience, everyone wants to be known. In this rat race if you don’t have something unique to offer, then it will become very difficult for you to connect with your audience.

So, now I will reveal all the rules of personal branding that I have learnt -

1. Have a Purpose

- You should be very clear about your purpose. You must know what you are going to offer to your target audience. You can not be everything to everyone, right? That’s why you should be very clear with your Purpose.

2. Be Genuine

- You should be true to your audience. When you are genuine, you will connect with your audience on a very deeper level.

“Be genuine. It will make it much easier to manage your personal brand on a daily basis,” explained William Harris, Facebook ads expert.

3. Consistency is the key

- Personal brands are not built in a day. You will have to be consistent. People will start noticing you when you will share your content on a daily basis and that’s how a personal brand is built.

4. Don’t let your failures stop you

- Failures are an inevitable part of our life. And we should never let them stop us, this is what I have learnt and this is what I expect from you too.

Walt Disney said “I think it’s important to have a good hard failure when you’re young. I learned a lot out of that. Because it makes you kind of aware of what can happen to you.”

Personal Brand is not built in a day. It takes time to get it evolved. Let me tell you the steps through which a Personal Brand gets evolved.

1. Learn

Learn a skill through which you can create value for your target audience. If you already have a skill with which you can create value then start working upon it without any delay.

2. Work

So, when you would have learned a skill, you will need to implement it. Because if you don’t do the work then with time you will forget all the concepts that you have learnt.

3. Create your Blog

Start writing about what you have learnt, that will not only improve you writing skills but will also gather the attention of your audience and this how a ‘personal brand is built’

4. Start Consulting

When you will have a good work experience and your personal brand, you can start consulting because then you will have a much better understanding of you niche and people would want to work with you.

5. Mentor

After the experience of consulting, you can choose to become a Mentor. Because that time you must have gained tremendous amount of experience in Digital Marketing.

6. Startup

By this time, you will have funds, you have your personal brand and people would want to work with you. So, the final step is to establish your own company.

This process will keep on repeating itself even when you have reached the final step. You will always have to upgrade your skills, implement them and so on..

I hope you enjoyed reading this article. I will keep you updated about all the things that I am learning about Marketing.

If you have read this article until this point, please comment and let me know about the things that are stopping you from learning marketing?