Why should start-up founders be marketing leaders?

Introduction

Good marketing efforts keep a business ahead of its competitors. "Don't be afraid to get creative and experiment with your marketing: Mike Volpe."

Mike Volpe's, CEO at Lola.com, states that marketing possesses creativity and experiment with ideas and concepts. With the start of the COVID19 pandemic, many people have started their businesses. India has become the third-largest tech start-up hub globally and added more than 1600 start-ups in the year 2020. NASSCOM stated this data in Strategic Review 2021 titled "New World: The Future is Virtual."

The growth of start-ups depends on the sound marketing knowledge of entrepreneurs. Good knowledge and deep insight into marketing concepts are helpful to develop the right product-market fit. Unless you know what the customer needs, you can't make a successful product. The right marketing strategy helps understand customer needs and highlight information about products and services the customer wants to hear. For a start-up, it is important to transcript the message clearly so that the user can get it completely.

Fundamentals of Marketing

The fundamentals of marketing are focused on 4P's only. Founders of any company have to target the right audience, with the right product from the right place at the right price. It also helps and provides knowledge about ways to meet customer needs. Hence, marketing fundamentals help founders build the right solutions and products. Marketing fundamentals indicate that a business needs vision, goals, values, and targets. If you break this chain, the result will be the breakdown of dreams.

Entrepreneurs have to assess their strengths and weakness and write relevant content. Complete research is a part of marketing, which also includes an understanding of segmentation, target audience, competitor's strength, and final results. All these are considered under the fundamentals of marketing, followed by great leader Jeff Bezos.

Jeff Bezos never studied marketing in high school and college but was interested in computer science and electrical engineering. The interest in opening a company and taking risks made him a great entrepreneur and a successful founder of the largest e-commerce company (Amazon).

A leader must possess business knowledge to run a successful enterprise as the big brand name is an essence of hard work, contribution, and entrepreneur's dedication. Like Bezos, he was the one with computer knowledge but made Amazon's largest e-commerce company and sold almost everything.

Don't you think what makes Amazon a big brand name? How things remain favorable for Amazon always?

Bezos understands the concept of marketing and deploys it in the operations of Amazon. Amazon was selling books in the US and 45 other countries within 30 days. Bezos and the team envisioned their work with immense success in the next two months. Later, they started to sell CDs and videos and successfully deploy operations dealing with clothes, electronics, toys, and more through significant retail partnerships. This was why Amazon became a big brand name because Bezos defines dedication and hard work to establish a successful unit. Moreover, the skills of Bezos signify him as a great marketing leader due to his appropriate knowledge of market concepts. Bezos targets a relevant audience and provides the right fit product at an affordable rate.  

Digital vs. Traditional

Choosing the right marketing method is an age-old question for marketers. Traditionally people use newspapers, magazines to advertise products and services. With time and technological advancement, some new methods have been invented. Both techniques are good at their place, but a slight difference is medium to deliver the message.

Traditional marketing includes certain ways like magazines, newspapers, business cards, and commercials on radio, TV, posters, brochures, billboards, etc. Reference or network marketing is also a great part of traditional marketing. Many companies still use conventional approaches as maximum market groups to watch television, commercials, read newspapers and magazines. Coca-Cola, P&G, Pepsi, LIC, etc., are significant groups that use traditional marketing for promotion.

On the other hand, digital marketing provides a digital platform to promote business. Databox survey 2019 has claimed that SEO is better than PPC for generating sales. Hubspot 2020 reveals that 64% of marketers invest in Search Engine Optimisation. Think with Google in 2019 has said that 60% of smartphone users contacted business directly with search results. Thus, digital marketing uses digital aspects to promote business through a social media channel. Maximum people can be reached with DM and engagement with blogs, stories of product reach vast audience.

Integrated Digital Marketing

Integrated digital marketing involves multiple marketing strategies to form a cohesive online approach. Advertising and branding become constant sources to take the attention of users. Companies are needed to use a common language to speak in different situations. This statement means that a common strategy that blends entire marketing tactics. There are various sources of integrated digital marketing:

·      Organic Search

·      Social Media

·      Content Marketing

·      Paid Advertising

Integrated marketing is not limited to these methods only. The results of integrated digital marketing are quite impressive. Apple Immersive website and storefront is an example of integrated marketing.  

·      Apple provides a great experience to users whether they visit the website or the store. Many companies want to imitate the same thing but failed. This indicates that companies integrate their strategy and want to give the same experience when they visit to store.

Integration of digital marketing activities enables a business to create awareness of the brand. Moreover, it also provides a great return on investment with an appropriate marketing plan. The leads also get generated easily with the collaboration of multiple marketing aspects.

CATT marketing funnel

An understanding of niche is essential to make the business successful. Founders with great marketing knowledge always understand their niche and then work on their products and services. Founders can generate sales, wealth with appropriate knowledge about niche. A simple formula in the CATT funnel is;

Wealth=n^CATT

CATT is about creating content, grabbing the target audience's attention, developing trust, and converting such leads into transactions. To find the niche, a person must be passionate, talented, and understand market requirements. The marketing funnel is the best method to break down the customer journey from the awareness stage to the purchase stage. CATT marketing funnel represents certain abbreviation;

·      The right niche can be attracted with appropriate content creation. Contents can be developed in images, videos, emails, blogs, etc. Thus, a successful founder or entrepreneur needs to present content properly to attract customers. Zazzle Media claims that 60% of companies face issues to produce content, and 65% find it challenging to produce engaging content. Zomato, Coca-Cola, Hootsuite are some great examples of content marketing. They have developed so much content in the past few years to engage users.

·      The attention of the niche market is essential to run a successful unit. Founder with relevant content can grab the target audience's attention as per audience. Thus, for attention, content creation is essential. "Pay Attention, because Attention Pay" clearly indicates that attention marketing aims to engage and acquire new customers through non-invasive means.

·      For building a brand, trust between the company and end-user is important. Amazon is a big brand and builds trust with the customer. If users don't like products, they can return them with a defined duration. The strong position of Amazon is a reason for consumer trust towards brand loyalty.

·      Leads generation is a digital marketing process. The conversion of results is the last stage, and the user facilitates transactions when a bond and trust get nurtured.

Personal Branding

A good marketer possesses the entire message accurately to the consumers. Personal branding describes a person's identity to benefit Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motor. Elon defines himself as tech-oriented and develops his name as a personal brand after criticism. Musk went famous as Space X launched a rocket to send the commercial vehicle to International Space Station in 2012. He presented himself as a person of technology and innovation. People now believe that Musk will contribute some significant aspects to the world with personal branding. The personal brand name Musk makes TESLA a giant and prominent company in the market.

Conclusion

"It is not important from where you start but end matter." Founders are needed to make sound marketing strategies that differentiate their business from others. Deployment of multiple tactics makes a company effective and helps gain a competitive edge. Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk is some great founders in the world. They have deployed effective market tactics to reach new heights.