A beginner’s guide to become the World Champion of Marketing.
Have you ever wondered why some people excel in their businesses and some don’t despite having better products/services? Do you want to know “what they know” that helps them earn so much?
This article will surely help you get the answers to these questions. It will give you the insights of marketing, global economics, communication skills, niche selection, personal brand building and a lot more. It will help you achieve your business goals.
Law of Marketing
Marketing and Global economics are one of the key components you should know to run your business or to convert your leads to sales. People believe that marketing is an art but it’s based-on science.
As a beginner you must focus on your customer’s needs. This will help you create a product/service that suits your customer. When the product is of high quality it sells itself. Its all about marketing the right product at the right time to the right person.
Marketing is a continuous effort to keep your customer happy from pre-sales to post-sales. This builds trust and encourages customer to purchase more from you. This trust will help you build your brand and capture a position in the mind of the consumers. Once this trust is built your customer will refer your products to others. So always aim at keeping your customer happy by providing high quality products/services.
Marketing will help people discover your product and create a perception about it. Advertising, copywriting, sales are few components of marketing.
How to build a strong brand?
Knowing where you have to compete is very important. Choose a category and become the market leader. Brands like Google, Xerox, Gillette have become market leaders. They have focused on becoming the “only one” in their category. If you can’t be the leader in a particular category try its sub-category.
Once you become a market leader the marketing cost goes down. Start from a small niche, become market leader in it and then expand. Always have a unique angle while entering a highly competitive market. Its where most of the traffic lies.
Importance of marketing
Marketing is the backbone of any business. Lets say you have a product which is the best in the market but no one knows about it. You would not be able to generate sales as the consumer is unaware of your products. In addition, your product should have a long shelf-life. There is no use of creating a product that will become obsolete in the future.
Marketing is the most important investment in any business as it gives direct returns. Relying completely on a marketing agency for the promotion of your business will also wont help. The founder should learn these marketing skills.
Marketing is everything right from the beginning of conceptualizing the product till you receive the customer feedback at the end of the product cycle.
Importance of communication skills
One of the major aspects of marketing is communication. If you are able to effectively transfer your thoughts about the product to your consumers, your product would sell itself.
Clearly communicating your product to your customer requires skills. The communication should be like two people are talking. It should not have heavy vocabulary or complex sentences. It should be simple, short and informative. It should consist of everything the customer would want to know/should know.
The customer should understand what you want to communicate. For this you must understand your customer well. Talk to your audience and join their train of thoughts. Do not start a new conversation rather join the conversation that is going on in their mind. This will happen only when you know what is going on in their mind and you will know this if you talk to your consumer.
How Global Economics affects businesses?
If you have an understanding of global economics, it becomes easy to take various decisions in your business. You get to know things like where to invest, how much to invest, to what extent the market situation can affect your business.
The average age of the population of any country defines its economy. There are promising opportunities in a developing country so focus there.
Money circulation in the economy: People take loan from banks to buy various commodities. Banks create money by giving loan on higher interest rates than the rates on savings. These banks hold a cash reserve ratio (CRR) where they keep some amount in their savings for customer withdrawal and lend the rest to customers in the form of loans. The borrower gives this money to seller who deposits it in another bank which again maintains its CRR and lends the money to other borrowers. This way the cycle continues in the economy and the amount grows 10 times if the CRR is 10% and so on. Hence the more the debt the more money is created and circulated in the economy. This leads to inflation.
When everyone starts repaying their debt the cash shrinks. Recession happens when the expenditure reduces or stops. Banks often reduce their loan interest rates to encourage customers to buy more and increase money circulation in the economy by increasing debt.
Difference between Traditional and Digital Marketing
In traditional marketing, the marketer uses traditional means for product promotion to reach the target audience like print media and broadcast media. Traditional marketing uses TV, radio, newspaper, networking, cold calling, magazines and outdoor mediums. It can be used to target local audience also. In digital marketing, the marketer uses all the digital platforms for product promotion like social media, internet etc.
The decision to either use traditional or digital method depends on the type of product and the target audience. If the product is generic and the target audience is wide, traditional marketing is preferred. Generic products are the ones that mostly everyone uses like soap, biscuits, cold drinks etc. For non-generic products digital marketing is used.
Disadvantages of traditional marketing: The communication can not be personalized as the target audience is wide. Deep marketing and natural sales are not possible. It cannot be used for non-generic products.
As a beginner, you should use direct response marketing. If an ad encourages the potential customer to give some response, its called direct response marketing. This will help you to know the efficacy of ad campaigns. It also helps in potential consumer data collection. Examples of direct response marketing are a link that opens a feedback form, newsletter against name and email ID of consumer etc.
CATT Marketing Funnel
CATT stands for Content, Attention, Trust and Transaction. It’s a framework of the different stages an individual goes through in the process of buying.
Wealth= n^CATT
Niche (n): Your success depends on the niche you select. While selecting your niche, you should focus on your talent, passion and market.
Content ( C ): Your content should be clear and informative which can attract potential customers from your niche.
Attention (A): Grab customer attention through your paid ad campaigns, SEO, Social media etc.
Trust (T): No one will ever purchase anything thing from you if they do not have trust on you. Build trust in the mind of your target audience through retargeting, marketing automation, deep marketing.
Transaction (T): It happens when your leads are converted into customers. Have a good content, convey your thoughts to customers, attract them to your products, build trust and you will see that sales happens naturally.
What is Integrated Digital Marketing?
Integrated digital marketing is the way to execute CATT funnel. It means using the above digital marketing components in such a way that leads to maximum sales.
Running these components individually does not give the desired results. The primary motto should be to engage with your customer by including them in your email list through paid ads against their name and email ID. Focus on attention rather than payments in the initial phase and build trust in the customer’s mind.
When your content will get traffic, you will start ranking on the search engine. This will help you generate sales.
Importance of Personal Branding
If someone is searching for your niche, the one who has marketed himself will get the benefit. Developing your own brand and let the world know about you. Market yourself as a brand and tell your story to the world.
Remember an individual has more following rather than a company. Once you establish your personal brand, you can become the brand ambassador and influence other brands.
You can not sell or invest in your personal brand. But you can run companies and businesses which can be sold later on without hindering your personal brand. Personal brand brings in authority.
You can evolve your personal brand by developing MASS TRUST. For this you need to learn new concepts and skills, work on it, write about it in your blog.
With the understanding of all these concepts and work experience, you can consult people and businesses. You can even opt to help others who want to be like you by being their mentor. You can build your own start-up with the knowledge and understanding you have developed.
Conclusion
Marketing means conveying your thoughts to your customers. Understanding your customer needs and communicating about your product will help you gain customer attention. Create awareness, grab attention, build trust and sales will happen naturally.
Traditional and digital marketing have their own importance the difference lies in their medium. Businesses that survive a recession come out stronger than ever.
Choose your niche based on your passion, talent and market. Use all the digital marketing components in an integrated way to bring in sales. Develop your own brand by developing mass trust.
This brings us to the end of this article. Hope this was helpful to you.
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