Marketing Cycle - Concept and How to Apply 4U in Its Marketing

Bài vi?t ti?ng Vi?t ? bên d??i bài vi?t này ??         

Continuing with the series on '4U in Marketing and How to Apply It,' we previously discussed U1, which is 'Understanding the Customers,' through '7 Common Types of Customers in Marketing and Sales.'

Alongside that, on my TikTok channel, I have shared some customer pain points across different industries where The Fool from Easy Knowledge Channel has had the opportunity to collaborate and learn valuable lessons:

Check out more in the comment:

In this article, let’s explore U2 'Understanding Yourself' and U3 'Understanding Competitors' through the lesson on the 'Marketing Cycle' applied in the 'Customer Journey.'

At this point, you might be thinking: 'Wait, how do Understanding Yourself and Understanding Competitors relate to the Customer Journey?' Calm down and read through the entire article to get the answer from The Fool!

Now, let's delve into the Marketing Cycle! I’m sure that all of you here, if you have been active in the marketing field, are aware of the 'Customer Journey.' Briefly, it is the journey from a 'Stranger' to a 'Loyal Customer' (Brand Advocate) of a business, as mentioned in my article on inbound marketing .

So, what exactly is the 'Marketing Cycle'?

Let’s look at the transition from 'Stranger' to 'Prospective Customer' to 'Customer' and finally, the largest and concluding cycle in the customer journey, which is 'Loyal Customer,' like the gears of a machine turning steadily and growing larger. We realize that:

If that gear turns in the right direction, the business will become stronger and advance forward.

Conversely, if that gear turns in the wrong direction or stops altogether, the business will fall behind, stagnate, or worse, risk bankruptcy.

Therefore, the key to resolving the bottlenecks referred to as 'Customer Decisions' to ensure that the gears turn correctly lies in the 'Marketing Campaigns' for each phase of the overall 'Marketing Strategy' of the business.

Furthermore, throughout the business’s growth, these gears must continue to turn consistently in the same direction to form Cycles, allowing the business to expand and develop further.

From this, we can infer the concept:

The Marketing Cycle is a series of rotating activities within the business's 'Marketing Campaign' to turn 'Strangers' into 'Loyal Customers (Brand Advocates)' through four larger gears to address five stages: 'Awareness' => 'Consideration' => 'Purchase' => 'Repeat' => 'Advocacy.'

How to Apply the 4U in the Marketing Cycle

As I mentioned above, the Marketing Cycle is employed in the process of 'Understanding Yourself' and 'Understanding Competitors' once customer insights have been discovered, enabling the development of the most appropriate 'Marketing Campaigns' for the business in each stage. Specifically, it supports:

Conducting a SWOT analysis based on 9 elements in the Business Model Canvas, including:

• Strengths of the business and its products/services compared to the market.
• Weaknesses of the business and its products/services compared to the market.
• Opportunities for the business's products/services in the market.
• Challenges faced by the business's products/services in the market.Setting

KPIs for the growth of both branding and support for the sales team corresponding to the 'Marketing Cycles' in the Customer Journey.Most importantly, allocating budgets and suitable communication channels for each stage to match the established KPIs.

For example, the following tactics are often used in campaigns where I have the opportunity to collaborate with SMEs or startups in the pre-seed stage that haven't secured investment yet, and they may differ for larger corporations:

• Owned Media: frequently utilized due to limited budgets, including shared articles, ebooks, and free educational videos to educate the market, answer user experience questions, build communities, and resolve bottlenecks referred to as 'Customer Decisions' in the 'Awareness' to 'Consideration' phases in the Customer Journey.
• Earned Media: typically used alongside owned media to connect with previously built communities and address bottlenecks of 'Customer Decisions' in the 'Purchase' phase, turning into 'Repeat Customers' and 'Loyal Customers' by enhancing recognition through positive information and addressing negative feedback about their products and services.
• Paid Media: often used to directly promote products or services to users in the 'Awareness' to 'Consideration' phases alongside Owned Media (with limited budget and usually requiring continuous management to avoid exceeding limits and efficiently stopping when ineffective).

A specific example of applying the Marketing Cycle in building the OA channel for Indomie Vietnam can be found in a specific video clip on the Ki?n Th?c D?o Channel.

Real Example: Applying the Marketing Cycle for my Big E Gear

If anyone has watched Episode 3 of the 'One Cigarette' series or later titled 'One Journey' from Ng?c Ki?n Th?c D?o, they would know a significant milestone in my journey was building my 'Gaming Gear Components' sales page from an initial capital of just 20 million VND after saving diligently since college and succeeding in my 'Self-Selling Flowers' endeavor in Episode 2.

At that time, being a business management major, I immediately applied the knowledge I had acquired in this second business venture, which was more structured than before, and invited a friend to invest together. We carefully drafted a detailed small business plan, including:

• Capital utilization plan,
• Marketing plan,
• And anticipated the worst-case scenarios that could occur for my business.

You can revisit Episode 3 in the video below:

In the Marketing Plan, I discussed a detailed SWOT analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges for this business operation after rigorously analyzing customer insights at that time, including wholesale customers who were primarily Internet café owners mostly in Ho Chi Minh City and neighboring provinces.

They typically sought information for purchasing through wholesale buying sites such as Thitruongsi.com or wholesale markets like Nh?t T?o, commonly looking for gaming mice and keyboards in the mid-range price bracket of 150,000 VN? to 300,000 VN? each, often purchasing in quantities of 30 or more (for an Internet café with around 30 seats and sometimes to replace worn-out equipment).

At that time (2017-2018), my competitors, if they offered wholesale, had not yet updated their information online effectively, mostly relying on long-standing business relationships. Particularly in neighboring regions, they had to order from Ho Chi Minh City and then bring them back to save on shipping costs.

My strengths included:

• Early technology adoption and grasping the e-commerce trend as platforms began to operate robustly and invested heavily to attract users in Vietnam. It was quite simple to open an online store on these platforms, and leveraging my prior digital marketing knowledge, I quickly established my first online stores on Shopee, Lazada, and also Sendo and Tiki (with genuine imports).
• Another strength was sourcing my goods from a place very close to where I lived, which also sold at wholesale prices. However, it was a weakness because best-selling products constantly went out of stock when the source also ran out.
• My final strength was the financial knowledge I gained during my business management studies at university, which helped me calculate when allocating a marketing budget of about 8 million VN? for my media channels. However, it was also a weakness as that much budget didn’t allow for extensive advertising like larger shops in the market.

The interesting part here was that by tapping into the wholesale customer segment, I inadvertently reached the individual customers, who were primarily male gamers who were students.

Understanding the financial weaknesses, I allocated my budget and resources for the communication channels as follows:

• Focused on building Owned Media through SEO for my website, as well as on e-commerce platforms (the results have been mentioned in Episode 3 of the 'One Cigarette' series, later 'One Journey' mentioned above) - utilizing 70% of human resources but only accounting for less than 10% of the budget for SEO tools and design.
• Concurrently, creating a positive image in consumers’ eyes through Earned Media with thank-you notes or mouse pads and encouraging them to leave reviews on the fan page or e-commerce platforms, offering vouchers after they leave reviews (for individual customers). Subsequently, I leveraged those reviews as tools to approach wholesale customers, as their customer demographics and behaviors were similar to mine (approximately 12-20 years old).
• I used the remaining funds to offer discounts and promotions for wholesale customers (usually for buying 10 gaming mice/keyboards/headsets, get 1 free) and promoted further on Facebook (where many potential individual customers were concentrated) and directed traffic to my e-commerce site.

Of course, I achieved some of the KPIs I had set earlier, which were:

• After 12 months, products had keyword rankings for best-selling items on e-commerce platforms, achieving 1,000 orders/month.
• Sold to over 24 Internet café owners in Ho Chi Minh, Long An, Binh Duong, etc. (approaching 2 new customers each month, leading to repeat orders).

Here are the initial SEO results and sales of my products during that time:

Bài vi?t ti?ng Vi?t ? ?ay: