Marketing, explained.

No, it’s not a web series but yeah, it’s full of real-life examples to explain marketing and related concepts.

If you ever wanted to know about marketing in the easiest way, then you are in the right place. In this article, I am going to talk about various marketing related concepts with examples that you can easily relate to. And in the end, I will also take you through a model that can help you build your own Personal Brand. This article will be useful for students, bloggers, freelancers, and entrepreneurs.

Good Marketing vs Good Product

One fine day, my younger sibling came to me and asked “What is more important: having a good marketing campaign or having a good product?” 

I was wondering how could I answer her question in the easiest possible way. That’s when an interesting example came to my mind.

So, would you want to hear that example too? I presume it as a Yes .

I told her to assume that she is driving a car.

And assuming her hands and legs as a good marketing campaign while her eyes as a good product.

With the hands and legs (good marketing campaign) one would be able to drive a car from one place to another. With the use of eyes (good product) one would be able to drive safely.

But what will happen if the persons eyes are closed. Disaster

Having a good marketing campaign for a bad product is the same as driving a car with eyes closed and disaster is bound to happen in the long run.

Ofcourse, we are not including Tesla’s self-driving car in this.

And what will happen if only eyes are open and legs and hands are not used. Standstill

If good product is not assisted by good marketing campaign, the company growth would come to a halt.

If it comes to choosing one between the two, having a good product would be a priority to avoid any disaster but having the two together is almost essential.

What is really meant by “Good Marketing”?

We frequently hear the famous line – “Marketing is meeting needs profitably”

But we often wonder what is a good marketing.

What constitutes a good marketing is hidden in the same line. “Meeting Needs”

Let’s get a quick example to understand what I really mean by “meeting needs”

Suppose few guests have come to your place and you decide to serve them tea as a welcome drink.

Then you make the best of the tea and serve them. You would most probably think “I have served them the best of the milk tea and they would eventually be satisfied with such a nice tea”. Right?

But what if one of the guests has a habit of having green tea. Would that guest be satisfied? Most probably “No”

But that’s not your fault because you did not know about his/her need.

The need of that guest was green tea while you served milk tea. Milk tea did not meet his need.

That’s where “Good Marketing” comes into scenario:

Good Marketing helps to get a clue about the need. A good marketing starts before creating the product. It starts with understanding the consumers’ needs that eventually leads to creating a product that fits automatically and continues even after the sales of the product. Good Marketing is sending the right message, to the right person, at the right time. Good Marketing helps in making selling superfluous.

Who is the winner between Digital Marketing and Traditional Marketing?

The main difference between digital and traditional marketing is the medium through which an audience encounters a marketing message. While traditional marketing uses traditional media like magazines and newspapers, digital marketing uses digital media, such as social media or websites.

Is any one of the two-marketing method superior?

Simple Answer. Not Really.

It depends on the kind of product and the target audience as to what method would be better to use.

If your target audience does not use digital media on a regular basis, then reaching out to them through traditional marketing methods like newspapers, radios, magazines, etc would be much more useful.

While, if your target audience regularly uses digital media through mobile or laptops, then using digital marketing methods would be more impactful.

Ofcourse, this isn’t a set rule to follow as exceptions are always there.

At the end, you must remember that a combination of the two is what you must aim to have in the long run and when you have the right mix of digital marketing and traditional marketing, your marketing communication is bound to reach your target audience. In these times, having an online presence of your business is becoming all the more very crucial for the growth of any business.

If you want to know about how you can take your business online, then refer to this article.

CATT Marketing Funnel and why it is utmost important for digital marketing?

Wealth = n^CATT

(n)Niche: A niche market is a segment of a larger market that can be defined by its own unique needs, preferences, or identity that makes it different from the market at large.

Let’s see a visual representation of “what can be a good niche for your business”

A good niche is one which has market and you have the desired talent and the passion to work in that niche. Your success and wealth depends on the niche you choose. Selecting the right niche is almost half success achieved. Just like selecting the right ingredient’s before cooking.

(C)Content: Content is the presentation of any information to an audience for a purpose through a channel in some form. Create content in the form that attracts your target audience. If they like video content then do so, if they like blog posts then do blogs. Remember you attract traffic to your content only if the content is in the form that audience wants to consume. If I go ahead and create blog posts for – How to spell “Gucci”

Do you think I would be able to drive traffic to such blog posts?

No. I won’t be able to because someone who would be searching for this query would want to look and hear a video to get his query of “how to spell Gucci” solved. Thus, creating the content in right form is of utmost importance.

(A)Attention: After creating the content in the right form, one must grab the target audience’s attention. The various tools to grab attention(traffic) are SEO, Paid Ads, Social Media, and Referrals.

If a chef makes the most delicious dish but that dish name is not there in the menu given to the customers. Would that delicious dish be sold? Ofcourse, No. So, get your customers attention towards your product.

(T)Trust: Be honest with your audience or customers which will eventually build trust. This will help in creating a long-term relationship with the audience.

(T)Transaction: Once you create the right form of content, drive attention and gain the trust of the target audience, you are ready to encourage them to have a purchase or transaction with your business. This will make selling easier as the target audience would be well assured of the products that you can offer and you also are well aware of the kind of product your customers want. And as supported by various research, retaining an old customer is much less costly than acquiring a new customer. This will eventually create a continuous flow of wealth for the business.

Integrated Digital Marketing

We often hear about having “integrated digital marketing”

But what it really means?

When all the techniques used by a business for marketing digitally like SEO, Paid Ads, Email Marketing, Content Marketing, etc are integrated and they all work together, it is called as “Integrated Digital Marketing”. By integrating your communication, you help people to easily go through the buyer’s journey, from a visitor to an excited and loyal fan. If you want to know about google ads then you can refer to this article.

Let’s look at a diagram provided by DigitalDeepak for understanding the same:

Personal Branding: MassTrust Blueprint

Do you know that you can build a prominent personal brand through the MassTrust Blueprint?

Let’s understand this blueprint that not only will help you to build a great personal brand but also would help in winning the trust of your customers.

Learn

The stock exchange might give varied returns but investing in learning a new skill will give lifelong great returns. Learn a new skill through concepts, facts, and procedures. Understand the concepts, Remember the facts, and Practice the procedures. Without learning a new skill, you cannot start your journey of creating a personal brand.

Work

Put your newly learned skills to work. Implementing the newly learned skill in the real world will help you get a better understanding and experience. When you practically implement the learnings, you show the world that you not only have the knowledge but are also capable of implementing that knowledge.

Blog

When you write about the skill that you learned and worked on; you help other individuals to learn from your experiences. This will eventually be useful for building your personal brand.

Consult

Once you develop a significant authority through your blog and work experience, you can go ahead and start consulting other businesses or customers. Consulting will help you to serve multiple clients.

Mentor

Mentor those who want to have the skills that you have developed over the years. What better than spreading the knowledge you have to those who want to have like you. A good mentor is the one who has learned the skill, worked on it for years, wrote blogs or articles on it, consulted people about that specific skill, and then only started mentoring. Mentoring will take your understanding of the skill to a whole new level. Why do we credit Rahul Dravid for any young cricketers’ success? Because Dravid has mentored and groomed them well.

Startup

The ultimate level in the evolution of a personal brand is starting your own product or service business with the understanding that you have developed over the years about the market, the problem, and your own skills.

That’s how the never-ending circle of Learn-Work-Blog-Consult-Mentor-Startup will help you in creating an impactful Personal Brand for life.  If you want to know more about the freelancing business, then you can refer to this article.

Conclusion

So that brings us to the end of the article in which we talked in length about good marketing vs good product, what exactly is good marketing, the winner between digital marketing and traditional marketing, CATT marketing funnel, and the MassTrust Blueprint. I hope that you could now get a better picture of marketing and related concepts after reading this article. And let me know in the comment, if you were able to relate to the examples or if you have any other real-life example to share.

If you want to know more about digital marketing, then refer to this article. And if you want to get tips on how to do digital marketing for small businesses, refer to this article.