THE FOUNDATION & EMERGING TRENDS IN MARKETING

They say marketing is rooted in human psychology & Marketing is based on science & not on creativity.

Are you aspiring to grow your career in marketing & want to dive deep into digital marketing?

If yes, then this article will help in bringing out your desired goal in the field of Marketing.

INTRODUCTION (The Laws of Marketing)

Let’s talk about how marketing plays a crucial role in our day to day life.

I believe marketing is purely based on science & not on creativity. You may ask how’s that possible? Let me convince you with the same,

Marketing starts before creating a product. It starts with understanding the customer & customers need that leads to creating a product.

 At the same time it is very important to make sure that the product is problem solving.

Marketing is about sending the right message to the right person at the right time. Yes you read that right, Marketing is all about targeting the right audience at the right time.

Marketing is not just about selling, It’s about keeping an existing customer happy by communicating with them so that they can remain customer for life.It’s basically the WORD OF MOUTH. This plays a very crucial role in marketing & even with your business goodwill.

Word of mouth is not easily gained in the market. You need to build trust in the market & with your customers. Every entrepreneur’s goal is to build trust with their targeted audience.

The purpose of marketing is to build brand & capture a position in the mind of the customers.For example take Google, Does Google have to market themselves as Search engine? No, pretty much everyone uses Google & when u think about search engines Google is the first which comes to mind. So, when u reach a certain position in the market where people start to recognize your brand, the product will start selling itself.

The word of mouth will be your biggest asset in marketing.

Here is a quote from Peter Drucker (Management consultant & educator) “THE AIM OF MARKETING IS TO KNOW AND UNDERSATND THE CUSTOMER SO WELL THE PRODUCT OR SERVICE FITS HIM AND SELLS ITSELF. THE AIM OF MARKETING IS TO MAKE SELLING SUPERFLUOUS”.

Another aspect of marketing is that, Marketing is a game of perceptions. The product is rooted in reality. Never let marketing become more important than the product. A great product sells itself. If the product is not according to the need of the customer, all the marketing efforts will go in vain.

So, if you don’t have a good product or service, Marketing will accelerate the death of the company. Always have focus on the product or service which you’re offering to the market.

You need a great product, but marketing not just helps people discover the product, but also have a good perception about the product.

Apple is a company perceived with great products, apart from that, they also have great marketing for their products. People feel special if they have an iPhone, iPods etc.

So, Marketing is not just about product promotion, it also creates a perception about the product.

Let’s talk about BRANDING

Don’t be the NO1. Be the only 1

Yes, you read that right. It’s very important to choose a category & to become a leader in the same category.

From the above image you can make out, Why branding plays a vital role in the Market. Branding is how people recognize & portray you in the market.

Nike dominates nearly every sports brand in the market. The brand continuously innovates through technologies in foot wear such as React, Adapt & air.Quite simply Nike is in a league of its own, a winner that just does it.

Marketing is the most valuable investment in a business because it gives direct returns.Everything else like PRODUCTION, MANUFACTURING, ACCOUNTING, ADMINISTRATION is an expense that doesn’t give immediate ROI.

MARKETING & ECONOMICS

A country’s economy goes up as the age of the country goes up. For an entrepreneur, it’s very important to make business decisions based on economics.

Economics is the science that studies money, specifically how money is made & transferred. While marketing is a profession concerned primarily about sales and promotions of goods and services. The science of behavioral economics can be used in marketing because it sheds light in the conditions and actions that lead a consumer to spend money. Marketing and economics may seem like strange bedfellows, but they are a perfect match.

DIGITAL VS TRADITIONAL MARKETING

Am pretty sure that you’re aware that marketing trends in today are changing very fast pace & the market has drifted to digital marketing from traditional platform. Digital marketing platform’s such as Facebook marketing, Google ads, Search engine marketing, E-mail marketing are being used more often and are available to the maximum number of targeted audience. All these above steps can be done sitting in a corner of your office with a laptop and an internet connection. So, rather than spending marketing efforts on traditional marketing, most of the companies are adapting the digital marketing for reaching out to maximum number of targeted audience & for generating more revenue & profit for their brand.

Digital marketing is purely automated and there are no guaranteed results, where as in traditional marketing you have the man power to decide the end to end work flow. In man power you can rectify the errors made for better results, where as you cannot blame a machine which is purely automated. Therefore, it’s very important to adapt the concept/theories of traditional marketing.

COMMUNICATION SKILL

Good communication doesn’t mean sophisticated English and vocabulary. Your message should be clear and hard hitting, should be able to transfer your thoughts effectively to the customer. Every entrepreneur needs to stay updated with the latest communicating trends and should join the conversation rather than starting.

THE CATT MARKETING FUNNEL

Let’s talk about the most interesting and important aspect of marketing, The CATT Funnel.

I think by this time you would have figured out your NICHE.Niche is very important when you’re planning to build a career in the business industry.It’s important to choose a niche which is very hungry in the market. Your success and wealth depends upon your niche.

Mainly your Niche should be problem solving to the people.

CATT

CONTENT– They say content is the king. Without the content you cannot market anything. Your content should be very eye catchy & attractive. Blogs, Posts, Videos, etc are the types of content.

ATTRACTION – The primary goal of any business organization will be to drive traffic (Attention) to their website or business. This can be done through S.E.O, Paid advertisements, Social media marketing, Facebook and Google ads.

TRUST– It’s important to build trust in your audience & customers. You need to communicate directly to the point. Your content creation plays a crucial role in building trust with your customers.

TRANSACTION – Convert your leads into customers with natural sales methods. When you have leads, you have your targeted audience who has shown interest in your products & have trust in you. This is the time where sales will happen naturally.

The above image will give an idea of how to select a NICHE.

Your Niche should have a combination of all 3 that is PASSION, TALENT, and MARKET.

Most importantly your desired niche should have market.

INTEGRATED DIGITAL MARKETING

Integrated digital marketing can be termed as the Life cycle of Digital marketing.

As you can see from the above image, every aspect is linked with each other. The one plus point of integrated digital marketing is that its time saving & makes the content work flow easier.

1. You have content in the center
2. You drive attention to the content by social media and paid advertising
3. You build trust using E-mail marketing. (E-mails are tend to be communicated personally which builds the trust)
4. Finally u transact with your audience that’s sales and conversion.

The above 4 points refers to the CATT Funnel which I had mentioned earlier in the article.

Integrated digital marketing is all about how you execute your Niche.

THE POWER OF PERSONAL BRANDING

 Personal branding is about marketing yourself. People want to hear from people and not from brands.

For example – ELON MUSK has bigger following base than SPACE X & TESLA

A personal brand cannot be invested or sold. The investors won’t be investing their shares. But, a personal brand can give rise to many other brands from his/her influence.

THE EVOLUTION OF PERSONAL BRAND

(The journey of evolving yourself as a Personal brand)

LEARN- Learn a new skill through concepts, Facts & Procedures. Practice the procedure. Without a skill you cannot build a personal brand.

WORK– Put your new founds skills to work. GO FROM PRACTICE TO IMPLEMENTATION. Implementing in the real world will give you better understanding.

BLOG– Write about yourself and your experience, Your success and Failures. When you write you understand better.

CONSULT – Now that you have a blog you have your personal brand. Through your work experience, start consulting people instead of working for them.

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

STARTUP – Pitch in your own product in to the market with the understanding you have developed about the market, the problem and your own skill.

The above image is called the MASSTRUST BLUEPRINT, where you will develop trust in all the categories in order to move forward.

“A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories & relationship that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another” – Seth Godin  

MOBILE APP MARKETING

Mobile app’s are now integral part of our lives, with people spending an average of 3 hours to 8 hours per day on app’s according to reports. Mobile application has been necessary for every business in today’s market. Every upcoming business have been adapting the app marketing strategy to promote their business and to showcase their services through the app. Mobile apps play a key role in collecting the data of every user when they sign in through the app, this in return helps the business organisations to reach their customers easily & swiftly. Mobile apps are mainly used by business to provide services to customers which makes the workflow easier to both the business & customers.

“MOBILE APP MARKETING IS AN ADVERTISING MEDIUM THAT CAN COMPLEMENT A BRAND’S OFFLINE EXPERIENCE, DRIVE E-COMMERCE, OR SIMPLY HELP CONNECT A BRAND WITH IT’S LOYAL CUSTOMERS“

THE EPILOGUE

From the above article I believe that your perception about marketing has changed that marketing is not just about selling or about creativity. The importance of branding and how it depicts your brand in the market. Your success and wealth depends upon your niche selection. The importance of “WORD OF MOUTH” in marketing & building trust with your audience and customers. The power of personal brand & its evolution. The importance of CATT funnel.

Please leave a comment if you find this article was helpful.