“Marketing’s job is never done. It’s about perpetual motion. We must continue to innovate every day.”
-Beth Comstock
Why everything is marketing but marketing is not everything?
Why building a strong personal brand is very important?
Why integrated digital marketing is powerful?
Why… Why… Why????
Are these questions daunting you? Then, this article is for you.
In this blog, I am going to talk about the laws of marketing that ought to be followed by marketing professionals, the fundamentals of marketing, digital marketing versus traditional marketing, different marketing frameworks, and the power of personal branding.
Why Everything is Marketing but Marketing is Not Everything?
Marketing neither has a beginning nor a fixed process. Whatever the brand does, be it getting to the prospects, interacting with customers, or the service being provided, is marketing. If the interaction with the customer and the services provided are extraordinary, the word-of-mouth method of marketing begins on itself.
You do not get to decide when to start the marketing process. The customers decide. Therefore, it is always better to have a marketing strategy that is blended with the culture. By culture, I mean, the employees should be aware of the marketing values the company follows and embrace them in their routine to promote word-of-mouth and referral marketing.
But remember, marketing is not everything. When you don’t have a quality product, do you think marketing will help? Perhaps, for a short while, but it leads to the utter failure of a brand in the long run.
Marketing cannot help you when you do not have a strong product.
And, the best part is marketing has an end when the product has reached the target audience and it starts selling itself. Besides, the marketing ends when a strong personal brand is created. For instance, we all know Elon Musk.
Laws of Marketing – The Key to Unlock Success
Every marketing professional should have read the book, “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing,” where Al Ries and Jack Trout, who coined the term ‘positioning,’ speaks on the fundamentals of marketing.
The book emphasizes the following points.
- Create a category and be the first one in it.
- Do not try to prove to the leads that you are better than the other product. Instead, be a leader and tell them that you are the only one in the category.
- Marketing is perception. There are no best products. It is all about how the audience’s minds perceive it.
- When your category divides into multiple sub ones, treat each sub category as a separate brand
- Focus on one and earn a lot. Generalists do not excel in most cases.
- Admit your negatives and convert them into your positives to catch the attention of your target audience.
- Embrace resilience.
- Spending money to capture the minds of people when you are not the first in the category does not work.
- Have adequate resources to implement the strategy effectively.
These laws help you to stay right on track and be sensitive to the changes around you. It is a must-read book to excel in marketing.
Marketing is The Fundamental
Marketing is a mindset. You just use various media to get your strategy into action. Learning the media and digital tools does not make you a marketer. To become a successful marketer, you should have the Mindset, Talent, Market, and Passion. Without one of the four, one cannot have any niche, let alone marketing. In recent days, most digital marketers have this toxic thought that learning tech tools make you a marketer. But technology helps marketers to collect data, schedule posts, and automate, etc. Knowing those tech tools does not make them a digital marketer. Digital marketing is nothing but marketing in the digital space. You need a robust and effective marketing strategy to become a marketer, and technical knowledge will help you in implementing the strategy and getting results out of it. Owning an Xbox and knowing how to use do not help you win the game. You should know how to play the game. Learn the game and master it!
Let me tell you a short story on the mindset of a marketer. After all, everyone loves to hear stories.
A kid wanted to have a lemonade stand.
Also, he needs someone to be there at the stand as he had to do something.
So, he manipulated his friends to look after the stand. I would rather use ‘manipulated’ than ‘persuaded.’
What do you think he did when his friends were selling lemonade?
He went around to look for a place where there would be more people who would crave for a lemonade.
He was looking for his target audience.
This is the marketing mindset you should have. You should look at things from a marketing perspective. You need marketing skills to sell your lemonade or upma to your kids. The products are great; you have to sell it to the audience where the product fits.
Traditional Marketing Versus Digital Marketing
The marketing that you do not do online is traditional. The traditional marketing methods involve print media like newspapers, brochures, pamphlets, etc. Television advertisements and billboards too come under the traditional marketing method. The ROI is higher on digital marketing as it is less expensive and you can target the audience and promote your product. But that cannot be done in traditional marketing as it is expensive. That does not mean traditional marketing is not used by any marketer. It still plays a vital role in marketing strategies.
How?
For instance, take the pain-relieving oils. The target audience would be people above 40 years old. Do you think the audience would be online posting on Insta and Facebook? No. The audience would be watching TV shows and reading newspapers. Traditional marketing is the best way to market the pain-relieving oil. This might change when Gen z and millennials get older because they are digital-savvy.
Digital marketing is the best when it comes to B2B companies. They can drill down the audience and promote their product through paid ads and emails only to the targeted people.
Therefore, find the right balance between traditional and digital marketing. Create the right strategy.
What is CATT Funnel?
Content marketing is becoming popular because of its ability to drive traffic to your sites. When you create content, you should drive attention to it through sharing it on your social media handles, using SEO, creating referrals by delivering value, and leveraging paid Ads. Create blogs, videos, eBooks, case studies, webinars, etc., to churn out more content and build trust among your audience.
The process does not stop with that. The aim of creating content, driving attention, and building trust is to enable transactions through the natural sales process without cold emailing or messaging via social media. Therefore, make your readers take action by giving a CTA or making them sign your newsletters.
Before doing all that, the most important thing that you have to focus on is, selecting your niche. Generic writing will not generate revenue or drive sales. You have to show the expertise in your niche through your content to build trust and make the readers your evangelists.
Strong Communication is Inevitable in Marketing
No! Not English. I am not telling you to be fluent in English.
I am telling you that you should be able to convey the message to your audience.
You need strong communication skills to convince your prospects and establish a long-term relationship with them. It will also help you to create an emotional connect with your leads, and you can also explain clearly how your products or services can help them.
I will tell you a short story to help you understand.
There is a company that sells pulleys and couplings.
There is a marketing person and also an employee who hails from Kanyakumari, a district in Tamil Nadu, India.
The marketer deals with all clients in English, Tamil, or whichever language the client is comfortable with. And not only language, but he can clearly communicate the message through some case studies, strong customer service instances, etc.
But he will ask the person from Kanyakumari to deal with customers from that place.
Do you know why?
Because the employee conveys the message in the local dialect and he has a good knowledge of the product. He can also confidently explain the product. What else is needed? The customer will easily form a bond with this employee.
Isn’t that a good tactic?
Integrated Digital Marketing Framework is the Boss
Source: Digital Deepak
In the Integrated digital marketing framework, content is the main focus. SEO, social media, and paid advertising will be used to drive traffic to the content. Email marketing will be used to build trust among your targeted audience by sending them regular email updates with content that adds value. Finally, you can do your sales and convert them through live webinars, but remember, you should make the viewers, listeners, or readers immediately take action to convert them from being your prospects to customers.
Being specialized in one of these and trying to generate revenue only through that method for an entire startup is not going to work. The marketing strategy will fail. Adopt an integrated digital marketing framework to drive results.
Everyone has a Personal Brand
That’s true. You are born with a personal brand. You have to choose whether to build it, crush it, or maintain it.
Elon Musk has a strong personal brand, and so he spends almost 0$ in advertising and marketing. He has built his personal brand over the years and today, people are ready to invest and buy products from his company without any advertising. That’s the power of personal branding.
You cannot build your personal brand overnight but over time. How to build a personal brand? Personal branding is nothing but reputation, connotation, and consistency. So, focus on building your reputation. When you are building your personal brand, focus on these four parts.
- Your Image
- Your Mission
- Your values
- Your vision
These points can help you create a strong personal brand when blended with the consistency of content on social media platforms.
Final Comments…
If you are a beginner in the marketing field, learn the fundamentals of marketing, and then move on to learning the digital tools. Combining both strategy and technology will help you sustain and thrive in this globally competitive world.