A Layman’s Introduction to Digital Marketing
What comes to your mind when you think of Marketing?
I bet it would be sales or how about advertising, is that what came to your mind, maybe email or content marketing if you are too much into it. Let me tell you something, that’s exactly where the beauty of Marketing lies, it encompasses everything and yet everyone seems to know about it though not completely but in parts at least, isn’t that great?
Another question for you, when do you think marketing starts? Once you’re done with creating your product/service? Or while you are still in the process? Or is it at the very beginning even before you have figured out about the product in entirety?
Keep reading for the answer to this and many more such questions, that would help you gain insight into marketing and to be specific Digital Marketing!
A very good question to ask here could be, what is marketing? and why am I even talking about it?
Marketing in a layman’s terms is to get the product/service in front of prospective buyers and getting them to buy them.
However, in the words of Peter Drucker, “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself.”
Now comes the reason why I am talking about it, because at various points in our lives we assume the role of marketers, though for personal needs but we actually do it, be it in our childhood when we check our parent's mood and do things as they expect of us just so that they’d say yes to one of our demands, that’s how we marketed ourselves as a good child or maybe when we are actually applying for a job, we check the Job description, create the resume accordingly so that it resonates with the requirements, we market ourselves as a good fit for the position and there would be many more instances that you would remember.
The point I’m trying to make is that we all are born marketers and it’s one of the skills that we knowingly or unknowingly possess, not all may be good at it, but all of us have at least a little bit of it in us.
In today’s world, Digital Marketing is the buzz word and a comparison with traditional ways of marketing would often erupt and I’d say with the ever-increasing number of population that gets onboarded on digital platforms and social media, Digital marketing by numbers and revenue would gain the share, however, traditional ways may never go into oblivion because of the type and level of reach they provide.
With that said, let me take you through a very important and profound marketing funnel (the steps that the customer would go through before making a purchase) that goes by the acronym
CATT, that’s Content, Attention, Trust and Transaction and the formula for creating wealth through this funnel would be: Wealth = n^CATT, where ’n’ is your chosen niche.
It’s a very simple to understand funnel wherein you start with creating useful content like blogs, videos, webinars etc that would attract the people, get the right attention through advertising, SEO, referrals etc, building trust with your customers by providing them value through your free offerings, insights etc. and getting them to make a transaction based on the natural sales methods.
A framework of marketing that works seamlessly with the CATT funnel is the Integrated Digital Marketing Framework, wherein you use all your digital marketing methods and tools in an integrated manner instead of using them separately. If you check the illustrated image here, you can see a very good integrated strategy wherein you can create content and through Paid marketing, SEO and Social Media you can get the people you view your content, once they are in your funnel you can nurture them through email marketing by sending out emails that would encourage them to take action based on value and finally make the purchase.
Apart from the methods, tools and techniques, one of the most important aspects of marketing is Personal Branding, wherein you actually make yourself known for what you do and establish it as a brand that people can relate to, trust and resonate with, a brand that people would like to be associated with. People associate more with humans than the products and that’s where personal branding takes the lead. There are many examples of people like Ratan Tata, Elon Musk, Bill Gates whose following exceeds the brands that are created by them and the masses would easily buy into any new brands that they may venture into.
One such effective and proven ways to create a Personal Brand is through MassTrust Blueprint.
It’s a stage-wise process that can be deployed by anyone who wishes to create a personal brand. It starts with learning new a skill, knowing the concepts, facts and procedures. Once you are through with learning, you have to put your new skills to work i.e. take a job, do some projects, do freelancing or anything that would change your perspective from practising to actually implementing what you have learnt in the real world. Once you’ve started working you can simultaneously blog about your learnings and experience gained through working that would, in turn, help you to understand the practical applications of the skill better, it is a well-known fact that writing improves understanding. As and when your understanding and experience grows, you can start consulting people and businesses instead of working for them, it could be through 1–1 meeting, calls, small group sessions etc. Through consulting more and more people, you’d gain insights into mentoring a significantly large number of people. Mentoring is essentially consulting but on a larger scale that would require some changes in your process to accommodate the large numbers. At a later stage, you can develop your own product or service based on the understanding you have gained about the market needs, challenges and the desires solutions.
I hope you were able to learn something new and gain insight into marketing, the current trends, the importance of marketing and the integrated marketing framework that could help achieve your marketing goals easily. If you liked the article, please drop a clap and do comment below.
All of this and a lot more that I’m learning from my digital mentor is of absolute golden value, you can check out my mentor's blog here.
