PART – A

INTRODUCTION

Hey, have you ever thought of what plays a pivotal role in entire sales cycle of a product or service? Have you ever realized the importance of understanding customer pain points? Have you ever tried to fit a product or service into customer’s woes so that it can sell itself?

In today’s topic, I am going to discuss about all that and more. You, as a reader will get to know about some important aspects in “Laws of Marketing”, “Branding”. I will further reveal to you how marketing encapsulates all other things, i.e. Conceptualization & development of a product, Selling and post sales activities. What will engage and enthuse you further is that I will narrate couple of unique concepts that will be a game changer in your ideas & general know how of Marketing. The reader will get to know about “ 4P’s of Marketing”, “CATT Model”, “Traditional vs Digital Marketing” and finally the “Integrated Digital Marketing,” “Personal Branding & Mass Trust Blueprint.”

This article will be useful for bloggers, freelancers, professionals and students / starters in careers who want to learn / form some basic idea about marketing

IMPORTANCE OF MARKETING
Today, large and small-scale, global and local, innovative and traditional, public and private, everyone is competing for the same market. Companies have realized the power of holistic approach to marketing to create and maintain a desirable demand, reputation, and competition. The role of marketing is too diverse to be summarised in one small article. Nevertheless, I have come up with few points to state the importance of marketing in today’s world.
Marketing is helpful for creating a Brand, Product developments, Communication, Building Relationships, Maintaining the company’s reputation & Tackling Competition.

Marketing as a topic has existed since the dawn of civilisation. It is the most valuable investment in a business since it gives direct returns. Every business owner should have knowledge of marketing and should not be outsourced to an external agency.

PART – B
BUSINESS PLAN OF 1 CR. – DISCUSSION ON HOW TO CONVERT DREAM INTO REALITY

Let me now discuss on how we can achieve a revenue plan of One Cr. in 1yr. Initially, this may look impossible or a distant dream. However, on giving some strategic thought, it can be seen that it is achievable.

 

Let us now concentrate on FIG :-1 above. If we have a product priced at Rs. 100/-, then by having 1,00,000 customers for the same, we can achieve 1Cr revenue. Similarly, if we have a quality product of Rs. 1000 and can acquire 10,000 customers for the same, we can easily achieve 1Cr. revenue. Further, if we can develop a somewhat niche product which is slightly higher priced at Rs 10000 or very niche product of Rs. 1,00,000 we can achieve 1cr revenue by acquiring 1000 customers or 100 customers respectively. For niche products, the suppliers are less and hence competition is less. Thus, if one can develop a niche quality product which fits into customer’s requirements, the same will sell itself and revenue of 1Cr can be achieved.

However, the niche should neither be too narrow, nor be too broad. India is a country of 1.3 Billion people. The Tier-I cities has nearly 100 million people and they have the purchasing power in their hand. Hence, acquiring 1,00,000 customers or 100 customers should not be of any problem.

The above is Revenue & not Profit. However, if we can think of three turnovers of the above with 33 percent margin, then we can have 1 Cr. profit

  1. THE FUNDAMENTALS OF MARKETING :-

Today, marketing is not only an indispensable tool in the hands of business executives but it has also become an essential technique in the hands of consumers. With the changes in socio-economic, political, technological and competitive conditions, new ideas and theories have been evolved in the field of marketing and the marketers who are aptly adopting these changes are achieving a new height in the field of business. More importantly, the wings of marketing are spreading to cover a wide range of human activities. Both economic and non-economic activities are being influenced by marketing theories, concepts, practices and strategies. Undoubtedly, every entrepreneur wishes to get success in one’s entrepreneurial activities but the desired success can be achieved only when an entrepreneur is imbibed with both conventional and modern marketing knowledge and understanding. Similarly, for a consumer it is imperative to know the fundamentals of marketing in order to take appropriate buying decisions at the market place.

  • Marketing is based on Science and not on Creativity.

Marketing is science and eternal. The concepts are there for several thousands years and will remain same. It is not about creating a flashy advertisement or hoarding or writing a couple of slogans / taglines. In fact, Marketing is there even before the product is conceptualised. By analyzing the requirements of the customers the company tries to produce the quality products so that the satisfaction level of the customers can be enhanced effectively. It is seen that to satisfy the needs of the customers it is important to analyze the requirements so that success rate is high, product fits nicely into customer’s requirements and finally sell easily.

  • The KFC principle of Marketing

The KFC principle implies ‘KEEP’, ‘FIND’, ‘CLOSE’. In the initial stages of Marketing we try to look for prospects and build a Sales Funnel. This stage is called  FIND. During this stage, we try to understand customer requirements, buying behaviour, competition strength / weaknesses and try to map a product / solution in to the requirements of customers. Once this is accomplished successfully, trust is developed & transaction takes place. This second stage is called CLOSE. However, Marketing do not end here. It is not just about selling. The fundamentals of Marketing Principle says it is also about keeping an existing customer happy by communicating with them during their bad times / down times so that they can remain a customer for life & repeat sell happens in future. This stage is KEEP.

 #Mass Trust

In our day to day life and even in Marketing the scarce resource that is available today is TRUST. Nobody easily trust other people. We can trust our parents, siblings, close relatives but when it  comes to a stranger, we hardly tend to trust him / her at the first instance of communication. As a marketing fundamental / principles, it is thus of utmost importance to build trust with the target audience.

  • Marketing means to an end – Branding & Positioning

The purpose of marketing is to build a BRAND and capture a position in the minds of customers. Once a strong brand position is achieved, the requirement of Marketing goes down. Lets take examples of GOOGLE & APPLE. When people think of search engine, they immediately take help of Google. For that, Google do not need to do any marketing. Similarly, APPLE is no1 in the field of i-phones, Macbooks, Tablets etc. Customers find APPLE themselves when they require it.

  • Word of Mouth – Biggest Marketing Tool

Word of Mouth marketing is the best channel of Marketing ever. When a product sells well in the market, the customers become brand ambassadors of the product. One customer get to know from other and he from other. Thus the chain continues and a huge customer base is formed easily without any marketing.

  • Marketing is a game of perception but a Product is rooted in reality

You need a great product. Marketing not only helps people discover the product, it also helps to form a good perception about the product. If you do not develop a good product or fail to provide class-I service, marketing and more marketing will only accelerate the death of your company. Thus never let marketing become more important that the product. A good product sells itself automatically.

B. THE FOUR P’S of MARKETING

Marketing is simplistically defined as ‘putting the right product in the right place, at the right price, at the right time.’ Though this sounds like an easy enough proposition, a lot of hard work and research needs to go into setting this simple definition up. And if even one element is off the mark, a promising product or service can fail completely and end up costing the company substantially.

The use of a marketing mix is an excellent way to help ensure that ‘putting the right product in the right place,…’ will happen. The marketing mix is most commonly executed through the 4 P’s of marketing: Price, Product, Promotion, and Place.

Product

The product is either a tangible good or an intangible service that is seem to meet a specific customer need or demand. All products follow a logical product life cycle and it is vital for marketers to understand and plan for the various stages and their unique challenges. It is key to understand those problems that the product is attempting to solve. The benefits offered by the product and all its features need to be understood and the unique selling proposition of the product need to be studied. In addition, the potential buyers of the product need to be identified and understood.

Price

Price covers the actual amount the end user is expected to pay for a product. How a product is priced will directly affect how it sells. This is linked to what the perceived value of the product is to the customer rather than an objective costing of the product on offer. If a product is priced higher or lower than its perceived value, then it will not sell. This is why it is imperative to understand how a customer sees what you are selling. If there is a positive customer value, than a product may be successfully priced higher than its objective monetary value. Conversely, if a product has little value in the eyes of the consumer, then it may need to be underpriced to sell. Price may also be affected by distribution plans, value chain costs and markups and how competitors price a rival product.

Promotion

The marketing communication strategies and techniques all fall under the promotion heading. These may include advertising, sales promotions, special offers and public relations. Whatever the channel used, it is necessary for it to be suitable for the product, the price and the end user it is being marketed to. It is important to differentiate between marketing and promotion. Promotion is just the communication aspect of the entire marketing function.

Place

Place or placement has to do with how the product will be provided to the customer. Distribution is a key element of placement. The placement strategy will help assess what channel is the most suited to a product. How a product is accessed by the end user also needs to compliment the rest of the product strategy.

  1. DIGITAL Vs. TRADITIONAL MARKETING

A solid marketing strategy is important for any business to promote their products and services to their target audience. Large companies spend millions of dollars to convert their audience into paying customers. But, this is not possible for a small or medium-sized company. The two most common marketing choices companies have are – digital and traditional marketing.

While the budget is not a big issue for larger firms, and they spend in both traditional and digital marketing channels, a small business has a limited budget and has to invest in the right strategy. For making the right decision, any company should have clarity on the digital marketing vs traditional marketing debate.

What is Traditional Marketing?

Traditional marketing is a conventional marketing strategy that uses various offline promotional and advertising methods to reach customers. It is the oldest form of marketing and is tried & tested by many companies. Until the emergence of the internet in the 1990s, this was the only marketing strategy in use. The major categories of traditional marketing are —

  • Print ads in newspapers, magazines, books, leaflets, pamphlets, brochures, etc.
  • Outdoor ads such as billboards and flyers
  • Broadcast ads in TV and radio
  • Direct mail – catalogs and postcards
  • Telemarketing –  SMS marketing, calling customers from an existing database and even cold calling
  • Face to face marketing via sales personnel

Advantages of traditional marketing

  • An engaging TV commercial or a colorful billboard ad is easy to understand and remain in the customer’s mind for a long time
  • Putting ads in local newspapers, FM radio stations and flyers or pamphlets are very effective for attracting local customers
  • The hard copy of the ad – such as a magazine or a flyer- will stay with the customer until recycled

 Disadvantages of traditional marketing

  • No direct customer interaction with the masses. You won’t be sure as to how the customer will react to your ads or campaigns
  • Posting ads on TV, newspapers, billboards and magazines are often expensive
  • Unlike digital marketing, there are no ways to analyze the success of your marketing campaigns

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing refers to all the marketing strategies that are executed online on various electronic devices. It is currently the most popular marketing strategy adopted by large, small and medium-sized companies across the globe.

As the internet is perhaps the most common form of technology used by people, digital marketing can be used to connect to millions of potential customers worldwide.

The major types of digital marketing are as follows –

Advantages of digital marketing

  • The interaction with your customers is high. If you launch an ad campaign on a social media platform, you can see what everyone thinks about your brand through their comments, shares, likes, etc.
  • You can easily measure the effectiveness of your campaigns through tools like Google Analytics. This will help you see what is working for you and what is not, all in real-time
  • Although you have to pay for some online ads, it is still way cheaper than print ads and TV commercials

 Disadvantages of digital marketing

  • Digital ads, emails and social media ads are not permanent. They can be ignored and the user does not have any copy of it. If you fail to grab their attention, they will scroll away to something else
  • Some ads may seem annoying to customers and they may deliberately ignore it, hide it or remove it
  • Creating, launching and managing online campaigns is a time-consuming job. Plus, your entire marketing strategy is dependent on the internet

Digital Marketing Vs Traditional Marketing head to head comparison can further be made from the point of view of 1. Customer engagement, 2. Reaching Customer and 3. Measuring ROI.

D.  CATT MARKETING FUNNEL —

 Let us now discuss about CATT Marketing Funnel & Framework.

Wealth = n^CATT, where n stands for niche. Your success and wealth depends upon the niche you choose. When we are approaching a prospective market, the people over there are having some problem and they are looking for somekind of product or service from you.

Having a niche and finding out an audience segment whose requirements are met by your product / services is extremely important.We call it the CATT framework.

Niche > Content > Attention > Trust > Transact framework.

1: Content [C]

Content is the center of all marketing.

The content can be a blog post or a social media post or a podcast or a video to capture the attention of your audience. The content here also points to the lead magnets that you offer your audience in exchange for joining your email list or becoming your lead. There are 100+ lead magnets you can create in various formats.

The trick here is creating the right lead magnet that makes sense to your audience and convinces them to become your lead by joining your email list.

 

2: Attention [A]

Once you have created the lead magnet, you need to get your audience notice it or get their attention to it so that as you planned, they become your leads. You need to drive your audience to your lead magnet. You can do this either organically with the help of SEO, Social Media, Referrals or paid ads.

When your audience meets your lead magnet, the magic happens.The magic transforms them from visitors of an unknown entity to your leads where you know their name and email id. And that’s where their journey begins.

3: Trust [T]

Now you need to gain their trust.

Trust is the most crucial element of the entire sales process. People don’t buy from anyone randomly. People buy from people they trust.

When your audience became you lead, a relationship begins. You need to make this relationship healthy and grow the trust to the level where they start considering doing business with you. You can build trust through email sequences, trip wires, marketing automation and retargeting ads.

 4: Transact [T]

And then we come to the final stage where the transaction happens.

But because they trust you doesn’t mean they will buy whatever you are selling. People don’t care about you or your product. All they care about is themselves. They should have a need strong enough to warrant the purchase.

So you need to understand whether your leads have reached the stage where they are ready to transact.

 E. INTEGRATED DIGITAL MARKETING FRAMEWORK

In earlier section, we have learnt about CATT framework and model and we will discuss about Integrated Digital Marketing and see how these two are interlinked

Lot of people try to approach digital marketing in individual silos and then expect results. For example, lot of people do Content Marketing, expect results but nothing happens. Similarly, lot of people just do SEO / SOCIAL MEDIA / EMAIL MARKETING, expect results but nothing happens.

Paid Advertising is boosting the entire momentum of Email marketing, SEO, Social Media etc. Since the entire momentum is boosted, then people end up building trust and this is what we say, CONTENT > ATTENTION > TRUST > TRANSACTION.

So, we have Content at the Centre. Then one drives Attention to it using, Paid Advertising, SEO, Social Media. Then you build trust using Email Marketing and then one goes ahead to do the transaction through Sell & Convert. This is how it works in real time.

When you put the CATT funnel its very linear. The way CATT funnel is executed is through Integrated Digital Marketing. So, we need two frameworks here.

CATT is the framework of how an individual user goes through different stages staring from Niche to Transaction. Integrated Digital Marketing Framework is how you execute it. Because, One will find people at all the stages of the funnel at all the time. There will be people who are building trust with you. There will be people who are transacting with you or there may be people who are getting attracted to the content.

So, Integrated Digital Marketing framework is kind of an engine that drives the CATT funnel.

F. PERSONAL BRANDING : MASSTRUST BLUEPRINT

  • Why Personal Branding is Important?

The best known will always beat the best. People want to hear from people, not from brands.Ex:- ELON MASK has a bigger following than SpaceX or Tesla. However, Personal Branding has got both downside as well as upside.

Downside – A personal brand cannot be invested in, it can not be sold.

Upside – A personal brand can give rise to many brands from his/her influence.

A personal brand becomes an influencer and a brand ambassador for the companies that they run.

  • The Evolution of a Personal Brand # MassTrust Blueprint

Learn – Learn a new skill through Concepts, Facts and Procedures. Understand the concepts. Remember the facts and practice the procedures.

Work – Put your new found skills to work.Go from Practice to Implementation. Implementing it in the real world will give you understanding ( Work = Job / Freelancing / Own Projects).

Blog – Write about what you have learnt and experienced through your work. When you write, you understand it better. But you will also start building your personal brand.

Consult – Now that you have a personal brand through your blog, have work experience and have learnt the fundamentals, start consulting other business instead of working for them.

Mentor – Mentor others who want to become like you. Mentoring will help you scale your understanding to a whole new level.

Startup – Start your own product or service business with the understanding that you developed about the market, the problem and your own skill.

PART -C

CONCLUSION

I have discussed in detail about Marketing and its various facets. I am sure this blog will help many who want to have a preliminary idea about marketing & more so about digital Marketing. There is no end to learn about marketing. Its fundamentals are very strong and various frameworks ( CATT, IDM, MASSTRUST) discussed are integral part of digital marketing. Those who want to learn further may refer to the following books :-

  • This is Marketing – Seth Godin
  • How to Talk to Anyone – Leil Lowndes
  • Principles of Marketing – Philip Kotler

In my next blog, I will write further about Marketing Mix, Marketing Management, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Segmentation etc. Till then wait with bated breath.