Understanding the World of Marketing beyond One Size Fits All!

Hello there!

Do you think that Marketing is something that is omnipresent and fits in all sizes and under all situations?

Go ahead and read this article to find out more!

Before you start I want to tell you no matter where you are and what you are doing the whole world is affected by the outbreak of COVID 19 in the year 2020. This has changed the way businesses operate.

In the Wake of Global crisis, we are seeing: some companies are cutting back on Marketing while others have become more agile and are coming up with interesting ways of engaging with their audience during these difficult times. Many businesses and entrepreneurs are finding ways to reinvent themselves as they have to sustain their business and adapt to the #New Normal.

Before talking about reinventing let’s throw some light on the most common questions and myths that are associated with Marketing for a long time now: What is Marketing all about? Is Marketing and Selling the same thing? How to identify the target audience? Why the Product is important? Is marketing fits in all sizes to all the segments? Everyone is your customer? Which type of market is best suitable for my product?

Yes Exactly! Are all these questions look scary and their answers baffle your mind?

Do not worry! You landed in the right place.

Before reading this article further I want you to make two commitments:

First, extract maximum information out of this article by making handwritten notes so that you can revisit it for the future.

Second, that you share the acquired knowledge with a large number of people so that they can also learn and grow.

Are you ready to learn the concepts of marketing and understand how it can be applied?

In this article, I am going to simplify and dig deeper to provide you insights about the World of Marketing so that you can understand all the concepts and apply them as well.

I am going to talk about the following points in this article:

1)-Law of Marketing

(2)-Why Marketing is important and it is not restricted to Marketers

(3)-How to identify the target audience

(4)-Importance of communication skills

(5)-Comparison of Digital Marketing vs Traditional Marketing

(6)-The CATT Marketing funnel and Integrated Digital Marketing Framework

(7)-Personal Branding

The Ultimate knowledge-How to set a financial goal and make 1 crore of Revenue!

(1)Law of Marketing:

Let’s begin by understanding the purpose of Marketing-

“Marketing is about identifying and meeting human and social needs. It starts with the understanding of the customer and customers’ needs that lead to creating a product or a service that fits. Thus, Marketing starts even before the product is being created.”

Picture 1:Through Infinite Cookie Loop & Picture 2: the Tweet by Zomato on “Ghar ka Khana” shows Zomato creates a strong perception in the minds of the audience by identifying their needs

Example: Zomato- They have a huge database of customers and they know their customer needs very well. They know what would make them use their service and never fails to bring out the foodie in you!

With this Zomato has built trust with its audience.

Marketing is also a game of perceptions and a good Product plays an important role in developing perception. If your product is great then it sells itself. A great product converts your customers into brand ambassadors. Word of Mouth( W.O.M) is the best channel of marketing ever.

Components of Marketing-Advertising, Copywriting, and Sales are the components of Marketing. So you just need to learn and master Marketing which encapsulates everything.

Example-Nike, Amazon, Oyo, AirBnB, and Uber are the companies that do not own a single product but are marketing giants.

These examples show that -Why branding is important? Branding helps the product to stand out from the crowd and acquire a strong position in the minds of the consumer. Whenever you see these Logos it becomes a “Top of Mind Recall for you”. Building a brand means becoming a No1 as people remember only the No 1.Thus brand names becomes verbs in the long run.

(2)Why Marketing is important and it is not restricted to Marketers only:

“Marketing education is important because it is rooted in human psychology and understanding the market.”

That is why No computer or AI can replace marketing because it cannot build conversations with humans and fail to understand the different needs and states of the consumer.

Also learning Marketing over and over again will provide you a better understanding as it has a long shelf life. The understanding will get refined over a period of time.

Many Entrepreneurs and Business owners think that Marketing can be outsourced. In reality, Marketing cannot be outsourced completely. It is important to have the knowledge to reduce your dependency on other marketers or marketing agencies to push the product to customers.

It works like this-

(3)How to Identify the Target Audience:

There are 3 Simple Steps in finding out the target audience:

1- Knowing the concentration of wealth in India and analyzing Data to know about your audience. For Example-India has around approx- 20–25 Million online shoppers. Out of that your target customer will be only those that have a credit card, have a laptop/desktop, have a car, and earn more than 5 lakh income p.a.

2-What type of market you want to enter-B2B, B2C? and understand what you bring to the table for your target audience.

3-Detailed Marketing Personas of your audience

(4)Importance of Communication Skills:

Good marketing is all about good Communication.

Communication is a way of telling customers what product you are selling. This does not mean using fancy vocabulary or grammar. It means conveying your thoughts effectively. I am sharing some examples of brands that have changed their messages and slogans keeping in mind the current scenario.

“With this example, the companies can stay relevant during the current crisis is to listen to their customer’s needs, show that they understand and find ways where they can help”

(5)Comparison of Traditional vs Digital Marketing:

We are living in a digital era where you are expanding your reach to a much wider audience. However, if the product is generic with a wide targeting then TV ads can reach millions at a low cost. Example -Products that come under categories like-Food, Drink, and Households such as TATA Salt, Surf Excel, Tide, Colgate Toothpaste, and Lizol Cleaning, etc.

TV has a reach of 800 million to 1 billion people and this covers a huge amount of the total population in India who are living in rural, semi-urban, and urban areas. So do not underestimate the power of TV Ads.

Digital marketing works best when products and services are provided online via startups such as the delivery of food by Swiggy and Zomato, Booking movie tickets online through BookMyShow, and airline tickets through MakeMyTrip.This caters to an affluent population of India with more spending power.

The choice of medium here completely depends upon the type of product as well as the target audience to whom the product has to cater.

(6)The CATT Marketing funnel & Integrated Digital Marketing Framework:

According to the CATT marketing funnel. W= n^CATT

where,

W= Wealth

n = Niche: Identity which niche is suitable for you as your success and wealth will depend upon the niche you choose

C = Content: Creating useful content that attracts people from your niche and grows your business. This is done through blogs, videos, live webinars, etc.

A = Attention: Drive attention i.e traffic to your content using SEO, Social Media, Paid Ads, and Referrals.

T = Trust: After driving attention it is important to build trust with your audience with tripwires, marketing automation, and retargeting.

T=Transaction: Once you have build trust then it is very important that your customers do a transaction with you. This should be done in such a way that sales happen naturally. Without sales, you are not able to convert your leads into customers.

So it is important to complete the entire funnel to create wealth for you.

Power Loop of CATT Marketing Funnel that is going to create more wealth

6(a)-How to Choose the Right Niche

In order to select the right niche, it is important to know one thing

Have a combination of Talent, Market, and Passion. If you lack in any of the three you will not able to find the right niche and somebody else who is good in all 3 will find the opportunity and get ahead of you.

Integrated Digital Marketing Framework:

This framework relates to the integration of all the mediums so that it works like a machine in a systematic manner.

For example in the case of content marketing, you have to write a blog and run paid advertising for content so that people subscribe to free content (newsletter or e-book)that is available, and gain attention. Build an email list. After that, if you publish a new article people will again come back to the content. Due to the content on site, it starts giving signals to search engines about the content so the search engine will send the traffic.

If the content is shared on social media and people start liking the content then they start sharing the content so this will increase momentum. So people start developing trust with you.

To sum up we need two frameworks here-

CATT funnel is a framework of how an individual goes through each stage whereas the Integrated Digital Marketing framework a person executes it.

(7)Personal Branding:

Personal Branding refers to consciously placing yourself in such a way that it influences the public perception of yours. It creates credibility, authority, differentiation from the competition, and it finally creates an impression that you want your followers to see.

Having talent, knowledge, and skills is not sufficient unless you are marketing yourself in the right way that is why personal branding plays a key role.

Personal branding gives you the opportunity to highlight your strengths and passion. It helps people believe they know you better, and people have much higher trust in those they feel they know; even though they have never met you personally.

In this growing digital era, you have seen a lot of Youtubers and Social Media Influencers who are building their Personal Brand online to build their audience. This has become part of the growth strategy to build their “Clan” and “Grow”

The Power of Personal Branding is that you can create a positive influence on the audience and create sub-brands out of the main brand.

Now let’s discuss the Evolution of Personal Brand

(1)- You need to learn a new skill through Concepts, Facts, and Procedures which means understand the concepts, remember the facts, and practice the Procedures.

(2)-Go from practice to implementation. Implementation can be through the job, freelancing, or working on your own project.

(3)-Write a Blog on what you have learned and experience of your work because writing helps you to understand better and this will help you to start building your personal brand

(4)-Now that you have a personal brand through your blog and work experience the next step is to start consulting the businesses.

(5)-Start Mentoring people who want to become like you. This will help you to widen your understanding

And the Most Crucial Step Now

Start your own STARTUP! i.e start your own product or service business with the understanding that you have developed about the market.

I am sharing #MASS Trust BluePrint which is summed up the entire points above and it is very helpful in case of mentoring

Now towards the conclusion, I am going to share the most important principal related to Marketing is to “ How to achieve 1 Crore of Revenue-Pulse Candy: A 14-month-old Brand that touched 100 cr Mark”

Marketing is incomplete if you are not able to achieve your financial goal. Now comes the question Does one size fit is all dead? Not at all, in fact, the creatives that are shared above are the ways to fit marketing strategies into a wide range of customer sentiment. All the frameworks will help you to understand your customer as well as your product better.

Since now you have an understanding of product and customer I am going to tell you “How to make 1 crore of revenue?”

Source: Economic Times and Afaqs.com

The population of India:1.25 Billion

Value of DS Group’s Candy brand Pulse as on Jan 2016:Rs 100 crore

Price per unit: Rs 1

This data shows that almost every person in the country has sampled it at least once.

In February 2015:DS Group entered the candy segment with Pass Pass Pulse and within 6 months of its launch Pulse claim to have crossed 50 cr mark and it contributed 40% of the Group’s revenue in the confectionery segment.

Pulse was launched to capitalize on the fastest-growing HBC (Hard-Boiled Candy) segment in the confectionery basket. As per the market research and insight firm Nielsen India, while the overall sweet candy category, is growing at 14 %, the HBC segment is growing at 23 %. Kaccha Aam (26%) and Mango flavor (24%) together claim 50 percent share in the HBC market. Raw mango became the obvious choice. The makers further realized that there were only straight flavors such as mango, orange, and caramel in the market. Hence, there was a need for innovation.

The Idea of eating raw mango in India which was sold on the roadside is incomplete without the tang of spices. That is how the idea of powder-filled candy came up.

When Pulse was launched DS Group decided to do justice for the value of money to the customers. For example-A candy was weighing somewhere between 2–2.5 grams whereas DS Group decided to go with Rs 1 and the weight was increased to 4 grams. With this Pulse became a value-added candy that gives consumers a mouth full of a feel for a good experience. Also, the candy was visibly large and it lasts for more than 5 minutes!

After this, the advertising push was done through Word of Mouth with social media facilitated the reach. While the company pushed the candy through in-store promotions and an outdoor ad at select locations in NCR, its fans were active in the online world. The brand has, thanks to them, a presence on all social networking platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. In fact, the catchphrase on the outdoor ad — ‘Pulse of India’ — was also suggested by them.

According to many experts Pulse has changed the candy market in India. By taking this as an example other players have started launching their Gold version at rs 1.

So to sump up precisely these are the factors that have led to the generation of 100 cr revenue for Pulse

(1)-Low entry barriers

(2)-Innovation in product and Pricing strategy

(3)Distribution to reach a vast audience

and most important

(4)-Positive word of mouth by consumers that will drive trials.

With this article, I hope you are able to clarify all the assumptions associated with Marketing and this has become an ultimate guide for you.

If you find this article helpful. Please comment below to share your thoughts.

Looking forward to hearing from you