The Insider’s guide to marketing
In this article, I am going to talk about a insider tips basics about marketing. We will talk about 3 key tips that beginner marketers can implement in their work straight away. We will also talk about some bonus marketing concepts that can potentially take your understanding of marketing to the next level
Insider tip 1 : Marketing is not just about creativity
This is a common misconception among most marketers. While creativity does help in a few aspects of marketing (such as designing ads), marketing as a whole is extremely logical. It is a systematic science of understanding the customer’s needs, designing a value proposition to cater to these needs and communicating the offering to the customer
Insider tip 2: Do not lose sight of the product
While marketing is the key component of any business, it can never be bigger than the product / service offering itself. The focus should always be on building a great product that maximizes customer’s delight.
Insider Tip 3: It’s better to be a big fish in a small pond
Rather than being in the top 10 in a big category, instead be the market leader in a small sub niche. If you find a niche crowded, pick a sub category. For instance, the generic search engine market is dominated by google and Bing. But creating search engines for video marketing campaigns is relatively empty.
Bonus Concepts
Bonus Concept 1: Forms of marketing
Now that we have 3 key tips, let’s learn about the forms of marketing. Remember, the fundamentals of marketing remain the same, irrespective of the medium.
1. Traditional marketing
· Marketing communication through traditional medium
· Eg: Newspapers, TV, Radio etc.
· Great for mass reach. For instance, in India, the reach of TV is close to 900Mn (Almost 75% of the country!)
· Can be difficult to track ROI, as we do not know which customers who viewed the ad actually purchased the product / serviced
2. Digital Marketing
· Marketing communication through modern digital medium
· Eg: Social media platforms like Facebook, Search Engines like Google (SEO, SEM)
· Great for small, but targeted reach. In India, digital marketing has a reach of around 100Mn
· Great for track ROI, especially for conversion campaigns.
· Not suitable for scale. Beyond a certain budget, the ROI of digital marketing campaigns fall
Most successful brands focus on a mix of traditional and digital marketing. For example, Flipkart focuses on YouTube and Facebook ads, but also invests in Print / TV ads before sales.
Bonus Concept 2: Integrated Digital Marketing
Many beginners make a mistake of focusing on just one digital media. This might not be fruitful because each medium has it’s pros and cons, and relying solely on one will be counterproductive. Instead, embrace multiple medium for different marketing objectives.
Let’s taken an example. The first step is lead collection which can be done through paid advertising such as Facebook Ads. Facebook Ads are great for reach and scale at the top of the funnel, but because the user is looking at your ad for the first time, large ticket sales cannot be possible as the trust factor is no built. Hence, try offering a low ticket product/ free lead magnet to the user, in exchange for email ID. Now that you have the email ID, you can re communicate with the user with value adding content, at practically no cost. And once the trust factor has been built, the big ticket product can be pitched — the chances of sale are now higher because you are no longer a stranger to the customer. If you have done your content marketing correct, the user will love to purchase your product to get more of what he/ she has been getting so far.
Bonus Concept 3: Personal Branding — A tested method to boost your personal brand
Personal branding works similar to product branding — the only difference being you are the product. In certain niches such as coaching and training, people trust individual humans than companies.
A ready application of personal branding is the job market.
Personal branding is a great assert in today’s competitive job market. Do you know that an average job in India gets thousands of applications? Instead of reducing your identity to a CV, a great way of differentiating yourself is to build your personal brand.
Let us discuss my favorite way of building a personal brand — this will take consistent efforts over a period of months. So if you are looking for an overnight tip, you may skip this section.
1. Start a simple blog on WordPress / medium related to your industry: For example, if you work in the Sas tech industry, talk about latest products in the markets, mergers and acquisitions etc.
2. Post 3–4 articles per week.
3. Market the blog in your circles, as well as platforms like Linkedin. Also harness the power of the internet through SEO to get organic traffic.
4. Within a few months, provided you are consistent, you would have started receiving a fair amount of traffic to your site!
5. Before a job interview, write 3–4 high quality articles on the specific industry of the company and the problems the industry is facing
6. When applying for a job, share the website link to the recruiter to showcase your depth of knowledge in the field. You can also reach out to the line manager directly on Linkedin and subtly bring up the topic up too before the interview. Y
You’ll surely be placed at the top of the pack! How many candidates actually have an active blog / website? My guess is less than 1 in a 10,000!
As I said, this is no overnight success mantra. But it definitely is a solid option to build a personal brand in the long term.
Bonus Concept 4: CATT Marketing Funnel
This is an important concept for anybody looking to create wealth through marketing.
Wealth = n CATT
Where n = niche
C= Content
A= Attention
T= Trust
T= Transaction
The formula is so powerful yet self explanatory.
The niche one chooses is the most important factor in any form of business. Your expertise in the niche is then amplified by 4 factors — Quality of content, how your are able to capture the user’s attention, how much trust you are building and lastly, whether the user finally purchases the product / service you have to sell.
Conclusion
Phew. That was a lot of ground we covered. I hope you found value in it. Let me know in the comments section what you’d like me to cover in next week’s edition.
Till then, take care!
