How Marketing Fundamentals Can Help You Predict the Future
Deepti Singh Ganguly
Centre Head ( Customer Acquisition) at Frankfinn Aviation Services Pvt. Limited. | Intern in Digital Marketing at Learn Today.Com
In today’s digital age of social media and online advertising, marketing skills are essential for businesses to grow successfully.
Like a lot of things, though, future success starts with solid fundamentals.
And if you’re looking to learn, you’ve come to the right place.
This Article will cover everything you need to get started on your marketing journey. Think of it like the ultimate guide, packed full of actionable advice you won’t learn in the classroom.
you’ll learn:
What is Marketing?
"Marketing is the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods, and services from producers to consumers".
Marketing is about understanding the customer psychology that is why artificial intelligence will not be able to replace marketing. Marketing requires close understanding of customer’s need and what they want and how the product can move then from current state to the desired state.
"satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process",
Needs: Something necessary for people to live a healthy, stable and safe life. When needs remain unfulfilled, there is a clear adverse outcome: a dysfunction or death. Needs can be objective and physical, such as the need for food, water, and shelter; or subjective and psychological, such as the need to belong to a family or social group and the need for self-esteem.
Wants: Something that is desired, wished for or aspired to. Wants are not essential for basic survival and are often shaped by culture or peer-groups.
Demands: When needs and wants are backed by the ability to pay, they have the potential to become economic demands.
The 4Cs
The 4Cs has emerged as a modern marketing mix model.
Consumer (or Client): The consumer refers to the person or group that will acquire the product. This aspect of the model focuses on fulfilling the wants or needs of the consumer.
Cost : Cost refers to what is exchanged in return for the product. Cost mainly consists of the monetary value of the product. Cost also refers to anything else the consumer must sacrifice to attain the product, such as time or money spent on transportation to acquire the product.
Convenience: Like "Place" in the 4Ps model, convenience refers to where the product will be sold. This, however, not only refers to physical stores but also whether the product is available in person or online. The convenience aspect emphasizes making it as easy as possible for the consumer to attain the product, thus making them more likely to do so.
Communication: Communication refers to how consumers find out about a product. Unlike promotion, communication not only refers to the one-way communication of advertising, but also the two-way communication available through social media. Marketing communications (also known as marcom) is the messages and media that marketers use to communicate with target markets.?
Examples of marketing communications:?
The Laws of Marketing?
The Law Of Leadership
“It’s better to be first than it is to be better.”
Many people believe that the basic issue in marketing is convincing prospects that you have a better product or service. Not true. If you have a small market share and you have to do battle with larger, better-financed competitors, then your marketing strategy was probably faulty in the first place. You violated the first law of marketing. The basic issue in marketing is creating a category you can be first in. It’s the law of leadership: It’s better to be first than it is to be better. It’s much easier to get into the mind first than to try to convince someone you have a better product than the one that did get there first.
You can demonstrate the law of leadership by asking yourself two questions:
1) What’s the name of the first person to fly the Atlantic Ocean solo? Charles Lindbergh, right?
2) What’s the name of the second person to fly the Atlantic Ocean solo? Not so easy to answer, is it?
The second person to fly the Atlantic Ocean solo was Bert Hinkler. Bert was a better pilot than Charlie-he flew faster, he consumed less fuel. Yet who has ever heard of Bert Hinkler? (He left home and Mrs. Hinkler hasn’t heard from him since.) In spite of the evident superiority of the Lindbergh approach, most companies go the Bert Hinkler route. They wait until a market develops. Then they jump in with a better product, often with their corporate name attached. In today’s competitive environment, a me-too product with a line extension name has little hope of becoming a big, profitable brand.
The leading brand in any category is almost always the first brand into the prospect’s mind. Hertz in rent-a-cars. IBM in computers. Coca-Cola in cola.
Gillette was the first safety razor. Tide was the first laundry detergent. Hayes was the first computer modem. Leaders all.
One reason the first brand tends to maintain its leadership is that the name often becomes generic. Xerox, the first plain-paper copier, became the name for all plain-paper copiers. Not only does the first brand usually become the leader, but also the sales order of follow-up brands often matches the order of their introductions. The best example is ibuprofen. Advil was first, Nuprin was second, Medipren was third. That’s exactly the sales order they now enjoy: Advil has 51 percent of the ibuprofen market, Nuprin has 10 percent, and Medipren has 1 percent.
What Is Branding?
Unsure about the meaning of “branding”? Don’t worry! Branding is one of those marketing concepts that are a bit vague and can quickly become confusing, even for people who have studied marketing.
In order to understand the concept of branding, first we need to know what products and brands are. Let’s go!
Product: “Broadly, a product is anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy a want or need, including physical goods, services, experiences, events, persons, places, properties, organizations, information, and ideas”.
we will use the example of water:
Water is a free resource that every human being needs to live and survive. Yet it became a product the day humans and companies started to commercialize it, for example by selling mineral water in glass and plastic bottles.
But water always looks the same, isn’t it? It is liquid and transparent. So, how can different companies sell the same product but still convince people to purchase their bottled water instead of the one from the competition?
Brand?: “A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers”
Let’s illustrate this again with our water example. The product sold is water, but in order to convince people to purchase a particular water, companies developed different water brands, such as Evian, Perrier, Fiji or Volvic. And each one of these brands provides a different meaning to the product water:
– Evian makes you feel young
– Perrier is refreshing, bubbling and sexy
– Fiji Water is pure, healthy and natural
…and so on.
Branding
What is it?
“Branding is endowing products and services with the power of a brand”
Branding is the process of giving a meaning to specific organization, company, products or services by creating and shaping a brand in consumers’ minds.?It is a strategy designed by organizations to help people to quickly identify and experience their brand, and give them a reason to choose their products over the competition’s, by clarifying what this particular brand is and is not.
How can it be done?
Companies tend to use different tools to create and shape a brand. For example, branding can be achieved through:
Brand definition: purpose, values, promise
Brand positioning statement
Brand identity: name, tone of voice, visual identity design (which includes the logo design, color palette, typographies…)
Advertising and communications: TV, radio, magazines, outdoor ads, website, mobile apps…
Sponsoring and partnerships
Product and packaging design
In-store experience
Workspace experience and management style
Customer service
Pricing strategy
Indian Economy?
"Indian economy shows strong signs of recovery, upswing in 19 of 22 eco indicators"
Indian economy is showing strong signs of recovery from the devastation caused by the pandemic, with an upswing being reported in 19 out of the 22 economic indicators as compared to the pre-Covid levels.
High-frequency indicators (HFIs) are being monitored to track the progress of economic recovery in India since the first COVID-19 case was reported in the country in January 2020
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Conclusion:
Traditional vs Digital Marketing?
What is digital marketing?
Put simply, digital marketing is using digital channels such as websites and social media as tools for marketing communication. If you’re using social media you will be well versed in the adverts that pop up in your stream—that’s digital marketing.
What is traditional marketing?
Traditional marketing on the other hand involves traditional channels, like billboards and printed media. Think Don Draper in Mad Men brainstorming TV commercial ideas and copy for Coca-Cola. Up until the development of the internet in the 1990’s, traditional marketing was pretty much the only type of marketing.
Digital marketing vs. traditional marketing: what’s the difference?
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.
Which type of marketing should you use?
The key to a great marketing campaign is to find the right balance between traditional and digital. In 2020, digital marketing is the yin to traditional marketing’s yang. Both play an important role in a marketing strategy, but they are each elevated when used in unison.
Find what works for you
Ultimately both types of marketing have their benefits and downfalls, but the key is understanding your specific marketing needs, considering your budget and understanding your target audience.
Traditional marketing channels are often more expected and welcomed by the Baby Boomer generation and Gen X—people who own televisions and prefer to buy newspapers for example. However, digital marketing is a surprisingly suitable route for all ages, not just millennials and Gen Z—my nan spends hours scrolling through Facebook, sharing Lad Bible videos and shopping online.
The moral of the story: both digital and traditional marketing can work for you, as long as you know what your audience wants.
Direct Response Marketing?
Direct response marketing is a type of marketing strategy where the goal is to encourage an immediate response from consumers in order to quickly generate new leads. The response can be any action such as visiting a website, making a purchase or even just sharing a post on social media
4 essential tips for building direct response marketing campaigns
Direct Response Marketing Examples
The CATT Marketing Funnel?
C.A.T.T. – means Content, Attention, Trust & Transaction.
When you have good quality contents which help in solving user’s problem, then you get more attention from users and they will give us opportunity to build trust. This trust will convince you to make a transaction with me. When I sell something, you will pay attention to me because you trust me. CATT Marketing funnel is the technique/approach we can use to achieve our goals.
Wealth= n^ CATT
Where ^ denotes power. Where your niche (n) will be successful and powerful with the CATT that you will apply
[N]—– stand for Niche. The category/expertise/interest you are going to offer to your audiences. Your achievements and wealth depends on the niche you choose. We choose a niche to a hungry market. These people have some problems and you are going to solve their problems with your product and services.
[C]—– stand for Content. Content is king. Create useful content, that attracts people to your blog posts, videos, podcast, live webinars, and lead magnets to generate leads to your tribe.
[A]—–stand for Attention. It means driving attention (traffic) to your content using SEO, social media, Paid Ads and Referrals.
[T]—–stand for Trust. Building trust with your audiences with tripwires, marketing automation and retargeting .One of the method of building trust is deep marketing where you send out communication which is much personalised based on who your target audience are so that each and every person feels like you are communicating with them directly to the point.
[T]—–stand for Transaction. It means converting your leads into customers with natural sales methods.
CATT funnel is how your audience will go through with you in the entire journey.
Niche test to find your Niche
To know your niche you need to know 3 things
If the answer is yes, then this is the niche you should go for.
Integrated Digital Marketing
Integrated digital marketing as the name suggest is the integration of various forms of digital marketing together. You have to focus on all 3 areas, then only you will succeed in your niche. If you focus on only one area out of these then you are bound to fail. You have to use all the techniques together in an integrated way.
Personal Branding
Personal branding is very important to build the trust and reputation among your audience. People love individual to individual communication rather than business to individual communication. Branding should be your key strategy if you want your business to grow.
The evolution of personal branding is achieved through these steps below:
Learn: Invest in learning a new skill through concepts, facts and procedures. Understand the concept, remember the facts and practice the procedures.
Work: Put your new found skills to work. Go from practice to implementation. Implementing it in real world will give you better understanding. Work can be either job/freelancing/own project
Blog: Write about what you have learned and experienced through your work. When you write, you not only understand it better, but in the process you also built up your own personal brand.
Consult: Now that you have your personal brand through your blog, you now already have work experience and have learned 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 whole new level. If blogging is level 1 of clarity, then consulting is next level of clarity, mentoring is whole new level of clarity.
Start-up: Start your own unique product or service business with the understanding that you have developed about the market, the problems and your own skills and then launch it in the market
In a nutshell: Learn a subject———Work——–Write about it in a blog———Consult other people (1 on 1) ———Mentor group of people——–Start-up
Conclusion?
In very simple words, a product is what you sell, a brand is the perceived image of the product you sell, and branding is the strategy to create that image.
I hope this article helped you to have a clearer idea of what is branding means, Traditional vs Digital Marketing, CATT marketing funnel ,Niche selection and integrated marketing.
You cannot imagine a world without marketing in your life. All humans are marketers at some point of their life, whether it is your job interview, generating sales pitch for your leads or pitching your idea to your boss, we all promote or market ourselves for betterment of our future and getting the desired results.
If you have any comments or suggestions to improve the article, please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments below!
Written by: Deepti Singh Ganguly.
Profit Driven Business Operations Management Specialist
3 年Very Well and Detailed Article ??
Content arbitrage, Social Media paid ads Specialist, | Projects: Shinez, Pub+, factinate, illumeably, RSOC, | PPC Paid media ads, native ads | Python developer |
3 年very well written, Content is so clear and concise. ??