What is Digital Marketing and a Digital Marketing Strategy?

Have you heard that digital marketing is the future? Let me tell you, it's not the future, it's very much a present and in the future, more businesses will deploy digital marketing and the communication is only going to become more personalized. According to Statista, the number of Indian internet users in 2025 will be 975 million from 677 million internet users in 2020. Furthermore, Digital Marketing is going to be a 539 billion rupees market by 2024 from a 160 billion rupees market in 2019. So, if you master this skill, there is a huge market opportunity and your financial goals would not be far away!

If you are a student, a graduate, an employee wanting to start freelancing on the side or a business owner who wants to market digitally and reach your target customers just by using your laptop from the comfort of your office or home, then this post is just for you.

In this post, I will cover :

1. Fundamentals of Marketing
2. Traditional v/s Digital Marketing
3. CATT Marketing Funnel
4. Integrated Digital Marketing
5. Personal Branding: Mass Trust Blueprint

So without further ado let’s dive into the world of marketing.

FUNDAMENTALS OF MARKETING

Marketing is not just creative ways of making advertisements and selling products/services but it is a very scientific approach towards customer acquisition which is rooted in human psychology. To start marketing, you have to get a deep understanding of the market and the customer and then create or market products/services that are a perfect fit for them. For effective marketing you have to deliver the right message, to the right person at the right time in it’s buying journey. Marketing is not just selling something to the customer but it is also about keeping the customers so happy after the sale that they become your brand ambassadors and drive word of mouth. Marketing is about building trust on a mass level because people are only going to interact with you if they can trust you. The purpose of marketing is to build a compelling brand and capture a position in the mind of the customer.

Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” — American Marketing Association, 2013

There are some basic steps to begin with in marketing. The first is to understand the market you have to operate in from the context of Politics, Economics, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental (PESTLE) standpoint. Then comes Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (STP). Take a look at the picture below to understand STP.

After STP, you need to follow the traditional ‘marketing mix method’ which is still in use since its conception in 1960. It is called the 7Ps of Marketing. It is explained in the picture below.

These fundamentals remain the same whether it is traditional marketing or digital marketing and would probably be the same for a very long time to come. So, what is the difference between traditional and digital marketing?

TRADITIONAL V/S DIGITAL MARKETING

Traditional marketing happens through the channels which were available before the coming of the internet. These channels were TV, Radio, Newspapers, Magazines, Pamphlets and Billboards. These channels have not become outdated, in fact, TV still has a much wider reach than digital in India reaching almost 800 million to 1billion people. TV ads have the potential to reach millions and people cannot even put adblockers. 65% of Indian people still listen to radio and newspaper has a reach of 465 million. Traditional Marketing is best suited if you have to market low-end consumer-grade products while digital marketing is best for the affluent classes of the country who is connected to the internet 24*7 and have high education and greater purchasing power. Sometimes a mix of traditional and digital channels is the most optimum way to reach the target customers. It really depends on the product you are marketing and where your target customer is available.

Take a look at pros and cons of traditional marketing.

Digital Marketing is reaching the customer and sending marketing messages through the channels available via the internet. You can use a variety of channels to reach your target consumer. The Digital Marketing Channels are:

1. Search Engine Marketing (Pay per click)
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
3. Social Media Marketing(Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, TikTok etc.)
4. Content Marketing (Blogs, Vlogs, Videos, Posts, MEMEs, Ebooks etc.)
5. Email Marketing
6. Digital Display Ads

Digital Marketing allows very precise customer targeting and even retargeting if the customer has interacted with the brand in some manner. The communication can be personalized, more engaging and every marketing effort can be analyzed, tracked, recorded and improvised accordingly.

Take a look at the pros and cons of Digital Marketing.

CATT MARKETING FUNNEL & FRAMEWORK

A marketing funnel is a roadmap of the customer’s journey from the point where he/she becomes aware of the brand to the point of conversion and beyond. Before, you start bringing in the customers in your marketing funnel you need to select a niche for yourself. A niche is a specialized segment of the market for a particular kind of product or service. If you are an entrepreneur then you must have already selected a niche for yourself. To create wealth you need to carefully choose your niche as,

Wealth = n ^CATT, where n is your niche.

You can find your profitable niche by looking at the framework in the picture below.

When you have clarity on your niche you can start applying the CATT marketing funnel. CATT stands for Content, Attention, Trust and Transaction.

[C]CONTENT:- You need to start creating content that adds value to your target customer and also proves your knowledge in your niche. Your content is going to be your biggest asset as it will position you as an expert in your niche while driving engagement your brand. Content can be blogs, videos, lead magnets, live webinars, social media posts etc.

[A]ATTENTION:- Once you have created content, you need to get people to find it and pay attention to it. You can do it by using SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques, you can use social media, paid ads or use the power of referrals to get people to notice your content and engage with it.

[T]TRUST:- Trust is the most critical factor that you need to build with your audience to make them take action. Trust can be developed through personalized email messaging, effective retargeting and by using tripwire marketing (the practice of offering a low-cost product with the intention to sell more expensive ones).

[T]TRANSACTION:- Once the trust is established you have to convert your potential leads into your customers via natural sales methods. When you given great content, got your target’s attention and built trust with them sales happen naturally but you still need to conduct sales webinars, video sales letters and have a sales page.

INTEGRATED DIGITAL MARKETING

Most of the times people use a single digital marketing channel to acquire customers. For example, they may only use paid advertising, just use content marketing or may optimise their website and content according to search engine algorithms (SEO) to generate organic traffic. These methods when used individually may generate some leads and results, but it is not the optimum way to execute the CATT marketing funnel.

Integrated Marketing on the other hand is the approach where you will use all the channels to acquire customers. In the Integrated Marketing approach, the content leads the whole process. You drive attention to the content using paid ads, SEO and social media, then you build trust using Email marketing and then finally sell and convert your leads into your customers.

CONTENT- You have to create relevant content that should be informational or educational for your audience. This will help you establish your expertise and authority in his mind and if it really adds value to him he will keep coming back which will increase the chances of conversion.

SOCIAL MEDIA- You can use social media to post your content in your community or your page and harness the power of virality and sharing to spread the word for you. People on social media are generally honest with feedbacks and reviews so it will also help you optimize.

EMAIL- You can ask people to subscribe to your e-mail newsletters. Email helps in building a personal connection and trust with your potential customer by sending them relevant links to the content and also sending out personalized information for the product or service you are selling.

SEARCH- Everyone on the internet uses search engines, and this is a very powerful way to be found by people who are looking for the products or services you are selling. You have to optimize your content on the blog and website using on-page SEO techniques so that it appears whenever someone searches it or something related to it.

PAID ADS- Paid ads increases the reach of your content on social media, search engines and you can generate tons of leads using paid ads. You can use paid ads on search engines and social media platforms. Paid ads act as a catalyst to the whole integrated approach and can give a good return on the investment.

PERSONAL BRANDING: MASS TRUST BLUEPRINT

Personal branding is intentionally and consciously building your public reputation as an authority and an influencer in a specific niche. The ultimate goal of creating a personal brand is to monetize your authority and reputation. You can build your own personal brand if you show your talent, expertise and build trust with your audience. Also, you have to constantly present yourself in the ways you want people to view you.

The reason personal brands work is that people can relate to a person more than a non-living brand and the engagement with personal brand can feels very real. Some people may also aspire to be like the person behind the personal brand. For example, Elon musk has a higher following than SpaceX or Tesla on Twitter. Elon musk is a personal brand.

If you have an excellent personal brand, a lot of clients, business opportunities and even people looking to hire may reach out to you because people will notice you if you are continually putting yourself out there and posting relevant things and showing off your knowledge.

Although you can’t raise investments for the personal brand but you can build more brands and businesses using the power of your expertise and influence over your community.

So, how do you build a personal brand?

There is a blueprint called MassTrust Blueprint which helps you build your personal brand from scratch and also help you develop trust with a lot of people.

LEARN- The first step in building your personal brand is learning. You have to dive deep within your niche and become an expert at the related skills, concepts, facts and procedures. You have to again and again practice to master the concepts and the facts.

WORK- Start putting your learnings and new skills into work. You can start your own project, freelance or volunteer for someone in the beginning, this will give you a practical experience and more learnings.

BLOG- You must start writing about your learnings and work experience. This will not only help you understand things better but will also tell the people that you know about the subject and your expertise can be relied upon. This will start building your personal brand.

CONSULT- Once your personal brand starts getting established through your blogs and you have good knowledge and work experience you can start consulting businesses instead of becoming a full-time employee. You can set up calls or meeting for them just to advise them and a little bit of execution.

MENTOR- There will be a lot of people in your niche who would like to learn the skills you have acquired and would want to be like you. You can mentor these people and scale your understanding also. Also while mentoring you will be building your community around you and propagate your personal brand.

STARTUP- With the understanding of the market the current problems and your own skills you can now build your own products and services and scale your business to new heights.

CONCLUSION

In this article, I have mapped out the basics of marketing which are applicable in the traditional and digital marketing world while clearly distinguishing the differences between the two. The frameworks (CATT and Integrated Digital Marketing) will help you acquire customers in a step by step way and also retain them for the future. You will be able to build an effective personal brand using the Mass Trust Blueprint that can push you towards success!

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