3 Stupid things I thought marketing was all about

In 2018 I decided to start my marketing journey, you know why??

Our family runs a pharmacy store in Abia state Nigeria, that was where I saw the magic called marketing at work.?

One day, a well-dressed gentleman walked into the store with a carton full of medical products, I guessed he wanted our store to market the products for their company, as a local retail store.

Do you know those parents you can never impress no matter how productive you’re with your home chores? – yeah, I guess you know em, I had two of them under my roof- i’m serious.

What amazed me was how this gentleman attracted my father’s attention within split seconds and walked out of the door with NGN56,000 ($120), something I couldn’t do since I was born!

From that moment, I wanted to be a marketer, this thing seems to give quick money- I still cannot believe how childish it was to think that marketing was all about these three things:

Marketing is all about asking people to buy

Because of my ignorance back then, I could not understand the real function of marketing.

Every inexperienced marketer or company wants to make money through marketing, that was my thinking too. Everything changed when I realized that “marketing is all about communicating strategic values to drive sustainable convictions”.?

It’s all about telling prospects what they want or need to hear about the values you are offering, especially when these values tend to resonate around solving their immediate problems.

I realized that marketing is not about telling the customers to “buy”, it’s about telling them “why” they should buy and if you succeed in giving them enough reason, they will ask “how much”.

That was the beginning of my “wow moment” in marketing .

Did you know, that gentleman told my dad he could earn a refrigerator if he sold 5 cartons of the product? Guess the question my dad asked next?

“How much for one carton?

?I wrote an e-book called 3 marketing psychology, that man used one of those marketing tricks on my dad, it worked!?

Did we later got a refrigerator? Of course! - I don’t want to talk about it.

Marketing is a rush hour game

“Did you know why I got this drugs?” My dad asked after the man left, I said no.??

“I’ve been seeing their ads everywhere”?

To me, as a novice in the marketing industry, I thought everything started and ended within split seconds, but marketing has been going on long before the sales person approached our store.?

The billboards on our way home, the adverts on tv, the promotion discount banner on other nearby retailers stores (about the same product), I guess my dad has been seeing all that and something is being done to his psychology even without him knowing.

“The best marketing strategy is one that doesn’t look like marketing at all”

It has occurred to me out of experience that; where marketing starts is not where it ends, marketing is a process more than an impulse, it is a system designed to walk prospects strategically through their customer journey and bringing them to the point where they automatically become loyal paying customers.

Some companies want to see immediate turnover on their marketing investments, but it doesn’t necessarily work that way. I realized after 3 years in marketing that the greatest index for measuring marketing effect is “loyalty” not rush-hour sales.

I repented of my sins on short term marketing mindset after I found this truth.

Marketing is digital Marketing

I messed it up here guys. I thought digital marketing was marketing!

I’m not going to explain this one to you, think about it yourself. One is a skill, the other is a system.

To finally start my marketing journey, I decided to take my first digital marketing class on?Google, when I obtained my certificate of completion, I felt like a badass marketer!?

This is where most newbies in the industry get it wrong, the assumption that digital marketing is marketing, but this is not close to the truth.

Digital marketing is a form of marketing, more like some piece of the complete marketing puzzle.?

Having digital marketing knowledge and skills alone is not enough to qualify one to lead the marketing department of a company, because there is more to marketing than social media advertisement, Google ads or content marketing.

The broader scope of marketing necessitates that there is a good understanding of the complete marketing terrain and activities, far beyond digital marketing alone. A good marketing manager knows how to leverage other channels of communication to reach more audience.?

He knows when to invest in media marketing, he knows when to go guerilla or leverage on event marketing, his knowledge is not limited to digital marketing alone.

Marketing is more like a system designed to establish market authority or communicate organizational values to the customers, so as to drive brand loyalty and attract sales, this has to do with all the possible activities and channels that will lead to the accomplishments of this purpose.

However, digital marketing is just one of those channels through which marketing objectives can be actualize. If you by any means knows digital marketing alone, you will need more study and exposure to have a the complete marketing knowledge.

In a nutshell, digital marketing is just one piece of marketing, I never saw that coming during the early stage of my career.

Conclusion

To be good at marketing, one must get practical with marketing, more than studying all the handbooks or marketing materials, you need to get out there and do marketing.?

Discovering these truths about marketing changed my career and made me a better marketer and I hope it helps you too.?

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