Introduction– Marketing is all about identifying the needs of the customer. It begins before the inception of the product, it begins at understanding the needs of the customer and making the best possible which fits into their need frame. You need to find products for your customers rather than finding customers for your products.
“Help your customers and you help your business”-Leo Burnett.
Since the early 90’s there has been a change in the perception of marketing. Modern businesses have started emphasizing selling satisfaction and not merely on selling products. The activities are to be coordinated to develop the marketing mix, which provides maximum satisfaction to the customers. That’s why marketing research and product planning plays a key role in marketing.
Objective: — After reading this article you should be able to
1. Understand the basic of marketing
2. Importance of communication in marketing
3. Importance of global economics in marketing
4. Digital Vs. traditional marketing
5. Direct response marketing
6. CATT marketing funnel
7. Integrated digital marketing
8. Importance of personal branding
Basics of Marketing
- Know your target: — You should know your target customers. You should know who you are trying to reach. How do they behave? Where can you find them? If you have done all your homework right you would be able to answer all these questions.
“ To get the right message to the right person at the right time you first need to right data from the right database at the right time”-John Caldwell
- Create a strong call to action-After you have identified your potential you must know what you want your potential customer to do. Do you want them to submit the inquiry form? Do you want them to call? Do you want them to buy? After you have identified the course of action you want them to take. Make sure that you have made the call to action smoother and obstacle-free. Is your website link highlighted clearly? Does your inquiry form structured well and easy to understand? Are your payment gateways reliable & easy to use? Run a test and you will be surprised to sometimes how difficult we make it for the prospective customers to complete the desired action. Make transactions smooth and easy, no matter what the call of action is. Zero tolerance for obstacles.
- Measure & Monitor performance: — Make sure that you measure and monitor your performance. What were the results? Did they meet our expectations? If so why? If not why? Find the answers and start working to make the performance better.
Effective communication: — The importance of effective communication cannot be ignored in marketing. Effective communication is all about transferring your thoughts effectively to your target audience. It makes your campaign memorable and develops emotional links between the marketer and the target audience. When a piece of communication is relevant, worthwhile & compelling it moves the audience to a prospect and from prospect to a consumer. It needs to be creative and effective.
Key Economic factors affecting business decisions.
Every entrepreneur should learn about economics and make decisions based on economics.
- Consumer confidence- It measures the overall optimism of consumers about the economy of the country. A highly confident consumer is likely to spend more as compared to a low confident consumer. Periods of high confidence is an opportunity for the new businesses to enter, whether periods of low confidence will force businesses to cut their costs to maintain their profit margins.
- Employment- During the boom period employment opportunities are much more and when employment is high people tend to spend more as they have more money to spend. During unemployment, people tend to spend less as they don’t have excess money to spend, so during the boom period new businesses have the opportunity to enter.
- Interest rate- Theinterest rate is the rate implied by the lender on the borrower. Small businesses depend on banks for financial needs. Higher interest rates will increase the business cost for the companies with debt. a higher interest rate will discourage consumers who want to buy things on load like cars, home, appliances etc.
- 4. Inflation-Inflation is the rate at which prices in the economy are increasing. inflation increases the cost of running a business. it causes a rent increase, increase in the cost of raw material, which forces businesses to increase prices of their products to keep pace with the inflation and maintain their profit margins subsequently consumers tend to buy less unless their wages are matched with the inflation.
Digital vs traditional marketing
In the history of advertising, advertising has never seen so many changes in so little time. The audience demands changes quickly. The competition has to find new and innovative ways to engage while pushing the market advertising towards the customer.
Traditional marketing- Traditional marketing is all about reaching a large audience and winning by number through broadcast ads, print ads, billboards, flyers etc.
Digital marketing- Digital marketing has evolved very quickly with the emergence of new technology, which includes the use of smartphone &* internet. Digital market includes
. Email marketing
. Click ads
. Social Media
. Affiliate Marketing
.SEO
. Content Marketing
“ If your business is not internet then your business will be out of business”- Bill Gates
Digital Marketing is more effective in comparison to traditional marketing. It is cost-effective because you can measure the performance of your ad with different analytical tools whereas in traditional marketing it is not possible. The cost of print ads and media ads is much as compared to digital advertising. Digital marketing is probably the best option for most. However, there is still a space for traditional marketing as well. If you want to reach an older audience or local audience then traditional marketing may be more effective and productive.
Direct Response Marketing- This is the marketing designed to encourage immediate response by the prospects. This can be anything from a click ad, your blog post, downloading a resource, or making a purchase. In direct response marketing customer doesn’t buy because you tell them to buy but he buys because you give them a compelling reason to buy. for example newspaper ads with phone numbers to call, late-night infomercials with limited time offer, and an ad leading you to a landing page with a lead form.
Advantages of direct response marketing
. It gives the best ROI irrespective of your marketing budget
. The result produced can be easily measured.
. Helps to increase the overall efficiency of the sales force.
. Helps Businesses to reach out of local or traditional markets.
CATT Marketing Funnel
CATT funnel framework is a mantra to make your business grow exponentially. CATT stands for Content, Attention, Trust and Transaction. The entire process revolves around the type of niche you select. From any selected niche you create effective content to attract customers which could be in the form of your blogs, videos or webinars. After the successful creation of content, you gain the attention of customers through SEO, social media ads, paid ads. After you gained customers attention you try to build up trust factor among them, which is possible when you give them valuable content. Tripwires, marketing automation and retargeting are necessary to be in their minds which will eventually convert them and make the transaction happen.
Integrated digital marketing
Integrated digital marketing is a strategic way of engaging customers and prospects with your company or brand that combines all parts of marketing communications to work together and assist the customer along their journey of awareness to loyalty and advocacy. It typically entails:
- SEO
- Social Media Marketing
- Paid advertising( pay per clicks) campaigns.
- Content Marketing
- Email Marketing
Benefits of Integrated digital marketing
- Brand awareness- After you integrate all means of communication in marketing it helps to increase your brand awareness.
- ROI-Every consistent effort made in an integrated approach results in increased revenue & more sales. Because it is easy for a leader to engage customers when you tell a clear & consistent story.
- conversion- When you talk to your prospect with unique content & offer them a great experience everywhere they go. So they left with no other choice but to sign up to discover more and become your lead.
- Brand Loyalty- Best way to build brand loyalty is to position your brand consistently in your customer’s mind through content advertising and social media messaging. Efficient here means your communication must t be tailored ass per the needs of your audience.
Personal Branding
Personal branding refers to the process of establishing your public image for your prospects. You use branding to differentiate yourself from others. It allows you to ensure to people see you in the way you want them to. Better they know you better they trust you. This involves carefully and accurately communicating your values, beliefs, goals & purpose.
Baba Ram Dev is the perfect example of personal branding. He has been practising yoga since 1995, He made people realize that many ailments could be cured by practising yoga. Many of the people got cured as well after following his yoga techniques. Slowly & steadily he became an icon for his followers, which eventually helped him to win the trust of the masses. By that time the brand Patanjali was ready to launch, it was his personal branding and mass trust which laid the foundation of acceptance of his brand among the people.
Pros of personal branding
. People like to buy from real people.
. It’s a great option if you want to establish personal credibility.
. You can establish like, know and trust factor faster.
. It allows your values & beliefs to grow as you do.
Cons of personal branding
. A personal brand cannot be invested in and cannot be sold.
. If you get the negative press it will follow you like a bad smell.
. You cannot afford to be a personal brand if you are a shy person.
. If your name is very common it would be may challenging to carve out a unique space online in google search.
Conclusion- We have learnt the basics of marketing, the importance of communication in marketing. How to consider economic factors while deciding to enter into a new business. How important it is to have your business on the internet. Digital marketing made it possible for businesses to reach nationally and internationally. Direct response marketing is a great tool for businesses where you can encourage an immediate response by your prospects. which gives you extra over traditional marketing. CATT funnel framework, where content, attention & trust helps you to achieve your ultimate wealth goal. How to integrate various channels & tools strategically to make your entire marketing process successful. Personal branding pays you back exponentially if you have gained mass trust.