Unboxing Marketing - What is "Marketing" exactly means? Redefining Marketing

And I'm here again. For those who don't know me, My name is Shameer Chelaveetil Ashraf. I'm an intern of Digital Deepak Batch 4. Last week I wrote an article about my version 2.0. This is a unique internship and journey in my life. Every journey has chapters. I have decided to come up with an intro every week which connects every week assignments. 

Before kickstarting, I would like to add something. I was a guy who really won't share any good things with anyone. My fear is all about what if the person does things better than me. But after reflecting on my version 2.0 and my mentor's advice, I decided to change. I will appreciate other people's success, learn from them and feel happy for them.

Having said that, I want all of you to experience the joy I'm witnessing. If you want to apply for the internship, click this link

Digital Deepak Internship Program Batch 5

Let's rock and roll. In this week 2 of the internship, we were asked to write an article on Marketing based on what we learnt in the internship and on our own knowledge. Let's do this. See you on the other side.

 Answers you should know if you really wish to become a great marketer

• What is the exact meaning of Marketing?
• Have you ever read the story behind the demise of Nokia? 
• How the best selling phone in the world lost it's 90% market share?
• Did you know that Marketing is different from selling?
• Have you ever confused the term advertising with Marketing?
• Advanced Marketing: How to create a need or want that previously did not exist?
• What is the best marketing channel in the world?
• How to build a strong Brand?
• Traditional Marketing Vs. Digital Marketing?
• How to choose the right niche?
• Role of Communication in Marketing?
• Why should we more concerned about Global Economics?
• How Powerful is personal branding?
• Evolution of a Personal Brand?
• Integrated Digital Marketing

You Probably would have skipped most of the questions. I would have done the same. But while I was preparing the outline to write this article I went deeper into each and every concept.  Each and every concept has some sort of connection with each other. It is like a rhythm. When I move on from one topic from another it never felt new. It is highly impossible to neglect some of the topics. It would defeat the purpose of writing this article. 

What is the exact meaning of Marketing?

Marketing comes in a wide variety of flavours based on audience, media platform and business in today’s evolving and dynamic marketplace. Therefore, it’s no surprise that marketers define what they do differently. Everyone has described the term "Marketing" in different words but the meaning stood the same.

Let us think fundamentally in the typical way of Modern human. Let's google and see what it has to say about it.

Yes. What google dictionary has stated is fundamentally correct. Marketing is the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including Market research and advertising. Here, we must focus on the term "Market Research". Because this term has very much impact on this definition.

Market research - Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers: know about them, starting with who they are. It is a very important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining competitiveness.

The simplest version of marketing which can be derived from the above definition is: Marketing is an action which involves delivering products or services according to the needs and wants of customers. As simple as that.

You must know your customers. Define your customers' needs and preferences and offer products and services accordingly. So now we have a basic knowledge and understanding of marketing. 

Smart ones now feel this definition itself covers most of Marketing. What more could be it? Trust me I felt the same way at this point. But I had some interesting supplementary foods today which made me a little smarter. I decided to be smarter and dived deep into it.

Guess what? There is more to this definition. I came across this site which had 72 Marketing definitions in it. Everyone did explain it very well. To be honest, I went through half of it but not all of it.

Because one definition really caught my eye. This person really nailed it. He took the level of defining marketing to a whole new different level. And he is none other than Dr.Philip Kotler.

The only thing I feel missing in his definition is "Marketing can also create a market, need or want which was never existed". That is the power of Marketing.

The story behind the demise of Nokia:

Obviously, every Indian would have used Nokia mobiles in their childhood. Nokia phones were the best-selling mobile phones in the world in 2003. Until everything fell apart in 2008 with the increasing market share of Apple's iPhone. Here is the detailed story of Nokia's demise.

Let us see what went wrong for the former mobile hardware legend.

1)Apple was revolutionising the smartphone industry. They created a market for touch phones.

2)Meanwhile, Nokia thought touch phones have no future. They had their sheer confidence in their best-selling phones Nokia 1100 and 3300.

3)They ignored customers' wants and produced products on their will and expected people to buy. Sure it didn't happen.

4)Nokia had a core value for innovation. But that was destroyed by internal politics. They lacked vision and decided to stick with their outdated product.

5)After realizing their stupendous mistake, they decided to bet on Windows OS. The next big blunder. Soon it faced sharp competition from Samsung and Sony.

Advanced Marketing: How to create a need or want that previously did not exist?

Creating a new product is an exciting venture, especially if market and consumer research has revealed a need, but comprehensive solutions aren’t available yet. Customers want solutions for their problems, but they can’t quite identify what they need. This is where you come in.

If you launch a product and market it well, you’ll have an initial “aha!” moment with some of your audience. The rest of the crowd won’t immediately see it because they don’t know your product is the key to solving their problems. 

If you launch a product and market it well, you’ll have an initial “aha!” moment with some of your audience. The rest of the crowd won’t immediately see it because they don’t know your product is the key to solving their problems. 

It’s tough to break through the crowd’s buying habits as well since most American consumers repeatedly buy the same 150 items that fill more than 85% of their needs.

To get on your target customer’s radar, trying out some creative marketing techniques could be your best bet. Here are seven great ways to generate buzz and address the audience’s most pressing needs with the product you’ve created.

1. Product Scarcity

Scarcity is often used to bolster sales, but it can also be used to create massive brand lift. It plays on the customer’s fear of missing out. Marketers use limited-time offers like daily deals, limitations on quantities, or one-time-only promotions to create a sense of urgency and leverage scarcity.

You could shrug it off as a supply and demand issue, but these companies certainly didn’t refuse the heightened media coverage and consumer demand that resulted from supply shortages.

2. Information Scarcity

If you really understand your target audience, then you already know what will get their attention. If you leak just enough information before launch, you can generate tremendous buzz as your audience searches everywhere for more information.

3. Leverage User-Generated Content

Sometimes creating demand for a product is as simple as letting your customers sell the experience for you. There’s no better example than GoPro. The company doesn’t have to put in much effort to market the brand other than leveraging content created by customers actively using their products. 

4. Make It Exclusive

People generally want something more when they can’t have it. They demand to know why they can’t have it, what factor excludes them, and how they can possibly get access to it. Exclusivity plays on the scarcity mindset and fears of missing out, except there are plenty of products to go around.

In an article for Forbes, Siimon Reynolds shared a story about a friend’s trip to Paris, where he visited a luxury watch dealer, Patek Philippe. In the store, his friend discovered a single watch in a glass display case with the price tag of $1 million.

5. Focus on the Biggest Problem

Once you’ve identified a major issue facing an audience and you know your product is the perfect fit, you can then take the market by storm with a comprehensive content marketing strategy. Find how they’re currently searching for solutions and develop your strategy based on those searches.

This is something we do for clients at my content marketing agency. We research the audience’s biggest issues, create a ton of useful content, then distribute and promote it extensively across every channel where the audience might be.

To ramp up your strategy, create a high-value offer that is completely free for anyone interested in it. This offer should consist of your best work that gives away information that is both relevant and helpful for your audience. While it might initially seem counterintuitive, educating your audience with high-value content can help you generate a lot of buzz around your brand and featured product.

6. Partner with Rockstars

Influencers hold a lot of sway over their followers. Their audience respects them, trusts their ideas and opinions, and are willingly persuaded by their interactions and content. When you’re launching a new product, incorporating influencers into your marketing strategy can really give your product the boost it needs to get off the ground.

7. Constantly Innovate

The first version of your product might’ve been revolutionary for your industry or market, but don’t stop there. That first launch was just a first strike on the indifference of the market. After launching the original version of your product, immediately switch your focus to improving on it with the help of customer feedback. Figure out how you can make it better and complete it faster, then launch a new version to capture more of your audience.

Best Marketing channel

What Is Word-of-Mouth Marketing?

Word-of-mouth marketing (WOM marketing) is when a consumer's interest in a company's product or service is reflected in their daily dialogues. Essentially, is it is free advertising triggered by customer experiences—and usually, something that goes beyond what they expected. 

Word-of-mouth marketing can be encouraged through different publicity activities set up by companies, or by having opportunities to encourage consumer-to-consumer and consumer-to-marketer communications. 

Also called referred to as "WOMM" or "word-of-mouth advertising," WOM marketing includes buzz, viral, blog, emotional, and social media marketing.

"There cannot be a better definition than this in simple English." You thought this is a quote.😀

Word of mouth is very powerful and cheap. Have you ever witnessed or experienced people saying this:

Hey, Machi, you should try this!! Awesome mobile.

Hey babe! You should try this lipstick.

Dude! Honda sure delivers a smooth engine 

That particular moment is Word of mouth Marketing. You yourself would have experienced the results of the performance of the product delivers. It is cheap.

Every other form of marketing needs some sort of trust. This sure don't.

FUN FACT: People sometimes even not aware that they are doing marketing for a multi-billion company.😂

Building a strong brand

The terms "brand" and logo" are often used interchangeably. But though a logo can be the symbol of a business, it is not the entirety of a brand. In fact, creating a logo is just one small step toward developing a strong brand identity.

With millions, if not billions, of businesses trying to make a name for themselves, having a strong brand has become crucial for businesses to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

If you're working to develop your first brand identity for a client, or you're doing this for your own business, it's important to first understand what a brand is and what it takes to create one. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as giving the business a name and plastering it on everything.

As I first heard this from my mentor, Mr Deepak Kanagaraju, No.1 Digital Marketer in India,

I previously did know something about branding. But after learning in my internship, my understanding went from intermediate to advanced level.

Have you ever asked someone to,

Search what you want to know on google. No.

You would have said, "Google it". I'm damn sure. 

Xerox isn't a verb, it's a brand. Look how deep it has penetrated in the minds of people.

The latest one: "Attend the Video Conference" has turned nowadays to "Attend the Zoom Call."

These are what I learned from the internship. Let us see some more examples. It will be very interesting.

We stopped saying "This picture is an edited one". We started saying "Hey dude, it's photoshopped".

Send me a message in WhatsApp has turned into "WhatsApp me".

Click here to see more examples

You can see how these brand names have changed into verbs. That is surely the power of branding. 

Here are a few tips to create a strong and powerful brand.

Deciding where you want to compete is half your success. If you cannot be a leader in the category, be a leader in the sub-category. Enter a competitive market and create a unique angle.

I came across this very fascinating book which is a masterpiece of marketing. And if you have aspirations to become a great marketer, you must have read this book at least once in a lifetime.

I cannot stress this enough if you want to become a marketer, read. Else don't. Life is full of choices. Better choices make a better personality.

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them At Your Own Risk! (Key points of the book)

Click this link to purchase this book(Amazon Link)

I know what you are thinking. This is not an affiliate link. But will be soon😂

Traditional Vs. Digital Marketing

Traditional marketing refers to any type of marketing that isn’t online. This means print, broadcast, direct mail, phone, and outdoor advertising like billboards. From newspapers to radio, this method of marketing helps reach targeted audiences.

Digital marketing is any marketing a company conducts online, such as paid social media ads, email marketing, and PPC advertising. Digital marketing has become wildly popular due to the cultural, technological, and societal shifts around us.

Promoted tweets, influencer trips, and Tasty videos are all examples of digital marketing and how expansive it’s become. Even Googling “What is TikTok?” is evidence of effective digital marketing.

Advantages of Traditional Marketing:

• Easy to reach the local audience
• Promotional materials can be kept and recycled
• Its familiarity makes it easy to understand
• Studies suggest that hard copy marketing are easier to process and recall
• It has a high and proven success rate.

Disadvantages of Traditional Marketing:

• Expensive
• Time-consuming
• Tough to measure
• Cannot do deep Marketing
• Personalize
• Low conversion rate
• Tough to get feedbacks

 Advantages of Digital Marketing:

• Global reach
• Low cost
• Measurable
• Deep Marketing
• Improved Conversion
• Customer engagement
• Easy to obtain feedback

Disadvantages:

• Highly dynamic
• High competition
• Complaints and feedback
• Information Security
• Time-Consuming for Initial Breakthrough

Can They Work Together?

How to choose the right niche?

• Evaluate your passions and skills
• Figure out if there's a market for your niche
• Narrow down your niche
• Check out the competition for yourself
• Test your niche
• Final thoughts

Click here to know more about how to choose a niche.

CATT Marketing funnel

 

Role of Communication in Marketing:

Many skills are vital to the company’s success in the business world. One of them is knowing how to communicate with clients and employees properly. 

Effective communication in marketing is all about delivering the message efficiently. Given its many benefits, it is no wonder communication has found its application in the industry. 

To convince people to buy goods or soliciting services, a good marketing strategy has to make use of communication skills and interact with clients. Still, this is not the only role of communication in marketing. 

Its importance can be felt in many different aspects of advertising. For a marketing strategy to work, the selected marketers have to display excellent communication skills. This skillset is needed to create a unique emotional bond with the clients. 

When trying to convince them to buy the company’s products or use services, showing how valuable and important they are will help establish this connection more efficiently. 

Once the relationship is established, the company has got itself some new loyal and trusting customers. 

However, for this relationship to be a long-lasting one, the employees have to cultivate it regularly. For example, sending weekly or monthly newsletters, information about sales, discounts, and promotions are some of the ways to keep this relationship alive. 

While promoting products and services is an integral part of any marketing strategy, listening to customers is equally important as well. 

Responding to their emails and messages promptly makes a difference in their whole customer experience. 

Being in constant contact with customers has a double function. 

Firstly, it helps you understand their needs better. 

Secondly, it enables the employees or customer support to anticipate any problems that may ensue. This way, they will be able to offer adequate solutions to their questions and show that the company is always there to help them.  

Therefore, the brand-consumer bond will be further strengthened. 

Good Marketing is all about good communication''.

Tips to improve your communication:

1)Become an International Customer:

When you were a child, you observe everything keenly. Because everything around you is new. Children observe everything. The way one talks walks. That is why we are often asked to behave ourselves in front of children.

Likewise, we should observe and consume international content. Back then, it was difficult to consume international content.  Now we have plenty of content out there.

You can watch English movies. You should keenly observe how they talk. It will enable you to become fluent.

2)Good communication doesn't mean you should talk sophisticated English. Good communication doesn't care about vocabulary or grammar. All you need to do is you should be able to transfer your thoughts effectively to the receiving party.

"Even English people won't be able to understand SHASHI THAROOR completely"

3) Practice Practice Practice

In a day, you think more than you talk in a day. So you should start to think in English. It will transform yourself into a better communicator. 

You must write a lot. Writing gives you a clarity of what you are writing. Talk and write as if you are talking to a person sitting next to you.

4)Train your tongue

You might be able to frame sentences in English. But you won't be able to deliver it properly. For that, you must train your tongue. Your tongue should get accustomed to your English. You should start singing English songs.

5)Human interaction

You should practice English with another person. If you feel your friends will make fun of you, TRY CAMBLY. It is a bit expensive. But nothing comes free in this world. 

If you want it, Go get it".

You can also try using indirect speech. Try to convert everything you hear in a direct speech into indirect speech. Try this method, if you cannot afford cambly.

Remember it doesn't matter which method you use, Consistency, interest and dedication is the key"

Global economics and Marketing

 Every entrepreneur should learn about global economics and make decisions in our business based on economics. 

A country's economy goes up as the average age of the country goes up.

"You cannot swim against the current. Likewise, you should flow with the economics"

Entrepreneurs should understand where most of the country's wealth is concentrated and try to target that sector.

That really makes a lot of sense.

4 Economic Concepts Consumers Need to Know

Scarcity

Everyone has an understanding of scarcity whether they are aware of it or not because everyone has experienced the effects of scarcity. Scarcity explains the basic economic problem that the world has limited—or scarce—resources to meet seemingly unlimited wants. This reality forces people to make decisions about how to allocate resources in the most efficient way possible so that as many needs as possible are met.

For example, there is only so much wheat grown every year. Some people want bread and some would prefer beer. Only so much of a given good can be made because of the scarcity of wheat. How do we decide how much flour should be made for bread and beer? One way to solve this problem is a market system driven by supply and demand.

Supply and Demand

A market system is driven by supply and demand. Taking the example of beer, if many people want to buy beer, the demand for beer is considered high. As a result, you can charge more for beer and make more money on average by using wheat to make beer than by using wheat to make flour.

Hypothetically, this could lead to a situation where more people start making beer and, after a few production cycles, there is so much beer on the market—the supply of beer increases—that the price of beer drops.

Although this is an extreme and overly simplified example, on a basic level, the concept of supply and demand helps to explain why last year's popular product is half the price the following year.

Costs and Benefits

The concept of costs and benefits is related to the rational expectations and rational choices of consumers. In every situation, people try to maximize their benefits while minimizing their costs.

If demand for beer is high, breweries will hire more employees to make more beer, but only if the price of beer and the amount of beer they are selling justify the additional costs of their salary and the materials needed to brew more beer. Similarly, the consumer will buy the best beer they can afford to purchase, but not, perhaps, the best-tasting beer in the store.

The concept of costs and benefits is applicable to other decisions that are not related to financial transactions. University students perform cost-benefit analyses on a daily basis by choosing to focus on certain courses that they've deemed more important for their success. Sometimes this even means cutting the time they spend studying for courses that they see as less necessary.

Although economics assumes that people are generally rational, many of the decisions that humans make are actually very emotional and do not maximize our own benefit. For example, the field of advertising preys on the tendency of humans to act non-rationally. Commercials try to activate the emotional centres of our brain and fool us into overestimating the benefits of a given item.

Everything Is in the Incentives

If you are a parent, a boss, a teacher, or anyone with the responsibility of oversight, you've probably been in the situation of offering a reward—or incentive—in order to increase the likelihood of a particular outcome.

In the example of a brewery, the owner wants to increase production so he decides to offer an incentive–a bonus–to the shift that produces the most bottles of beer in a day. The brewery has two sizes of bottles: one 500 millilitre bottle and a one-litre bottle. Within a couple of days, he sees production numbers shoot up from 10,000 to 15,000 bottles per day. The problem is that the incentive he provided focused on the wrong thing—the number of bottles rather than the volume of beer. He begins receiving calls from suppliers wondering when orders of the one-litre bottles are going to come. By offering a bonus for the number of bottles produced, the owner made it beneficial for the competing shifts to gain an advantage by only bottling the smaller bottles.

Power of Personal Branding:

Business-level branding has been a key part of the economy since the Industrial Revolution. Today, children who are not yet old enough to read can recognize popular brands like McDonald’s and Nike.

That said, brands used to be only for businesses. Employees were expected to uphold and support the principles of the brand. Some of us in marketing were even lucky enough to help our businesses build their brands. But as trust has eroded away from corporations and government institutions, we are seeing the ushering in of a new era: the personal brand.

Those of us who understand how to yield the power of our networks will achieve greater levels of professional success. And those who know how to use social channels to deliver helpful messages will ride the wave of this new era in personal branding.

Now, more than ever is your time to shine as a positive voice in the crowded media marketplace.

The rise of branding on a personal level has been more recent. For a long time, personal branding was better left to athletes, models, and Hollywood celebrities. Today, personal branding is key to succeeding in many different parts of life.

What is Personal Branding?

"Think of a celebrity that everyone knows: let’s use Lionel Messi, one of the most widely known athletes of the modern era. His personal brand for some might be as a dominant athlete and a person known for giving back to his community. For others, it might something else, but most people know something about Lionel Messi."

Now, think about someone less notable, say, your friend Diwahar. Diwahar might be a pretty good guy, but it takes a while to get to know him. A stranger isn’t going to come to Diwa for help, even if Diwa is the kind of person who would help a stranger. Basically, Diwa’s reputation doesn’t precede him. His personal brand isn’t an asset, but it can be.

The best known will always beat the best.

People want to hear from People. Not from Brands.

Elon musk has a bigger following than SpaceX and Tesla. A personal brand becomes an influencer and a brand ambassador for the companies that they run.

"More people know Warren Buffet. Fewer people know Berkshire Hathaway"

CATT Marketing Funnel

What is a Marketing funnel?

A marketing funnel describes your customer’s journey with you.

From the initial stages when someone learns about your business, to the purchasing stage, marketing funnels map routes to conversion and beyond.

With careful analysis, a marketing funnel lets you know what your company must do to influence consumers at certain stages. By evaluating your funnels, you can potentially drive greater sales, more loyalty and stronger brand awareness.

Choosing a Niche:

Niche - Choose a Niche which is a combination of your passion, Talent, and the Market.(Passion+Talent+Market)

And also look at a group of people with a common problem. Problem-solving niche will never let you down.

Mass Trust System

Previously, Sales was done on 1:1 based on AIDA Model. But using the mass trust system, with the help of a powerful personal brand we can scale at sales using the same AIDA Model. This is very similar to 1:1 sales because communication is from an individual(Personal Brand). With this system, we try to build trust at scale. Unlike 1:1 sales, it helps to do sales more.

CATT Framework

Content[C] - Create useful content that attracts people from your niche. put your expertise and publish for people to consume the content.

• Blog posts
• Youtube channel
• Social Media
• Bool/e-books
• Webinar

Attention[A] -Drive traffic to your content using SEO, Social Media, Paid ads, Referrals

• SEO Blog posts
• Youtube SEO
• Paid Ads
• Google Ads
• Facebook Ads
• Quora Ads
• Linkedin Ads
• Any method of Marketing

Trust[T] - Build Trust with your audience and hook the user in.

• Repetitive engagement
• Subscribe to e-mail letters
• Social Media Following
• Retargeting your niche

Transaction[T] - Convert your leads into sales by natural sales methods. Persuade them.

• Sales pages
• Webinars
• Sales Videos

Evolution of a Personal Brand:(Mass Trust Blue Print)

Learn

Learn a new skill through concepts, facts and Procedures. You should understand the concepts, remember the facts and practice the procedures.

without a skill, how do you expect to grow?

Work

Put your new-found skills to work. Become a full-time employee in an organisation and try to implement your skills in the real world. It will give you better understanding.

The work can be a Job/Freelancing/own projects)

Blog

As you learn digital Marketing and implement the same. You can start blogging. Write about what you have learned and experienced through your work. When you write, you understand it better and also you will start building your brand.

Blogging is the best way to build a community.

Consult

Now that you have knowledge about digital marketing and with the help of your own personal brand you can start consulting other business instead of working as a full-time employee. This is also the best time for freelancing

Mentor

Mentoring others who want to become like you will help you to scale your understanding to a whole new level. It is like a group coaching. It will help you to grow your brand's credibility.

Group Coaching

Live calls

Q&A sessions

Webinars

Startup

At this stage, you can scale your services and products. You can leverage your expertise. You should hire team members. Now you can start selling your products which you have developed with the understanding of the market, problem and relying on your own skills.

Teach

You can create content and sell online. Your involvement should become low as you try to scale your business.

Integrated Digital Marketing:

Integrated digital marketing is, as it sounds, the integration of multiple marketing strategies to form a cohesive online approach for your business. Here’s what it typically entails:

• web development and design
• search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM)
• content marketing
• social media marketing
• local listings management
• paid advertising (or pay-per-click advertising) campaigns
• E-mail Marketing

The idea behind integrated digital marketing is that, while each individual strategy doesn’t have a huge impact on its own, when used in conjunction, you can create a more influential online presence.

And it’s not just some passing fad. It’s pretty much the status quo when it comes to tackling the digital realm. Of course, there are still one-off campaigns out there, but most agencies are moving toward integrated solutions, as a well-rounded marketing strategy provides better visibility and ROI for businesses online.

Summary and Conclusion

As a conclusion, the marketing concept is the philosophy where each and every firm should analyze the needs of their customers and makes good decisions in order to satisfy their needs. This also can enhance a good relationship between the customers. 

Besides, the marketing concept developed as an alternative to the selling concept as the way business firms fundamentally approach the market. The guiding theme for marketing practice under the selling concept insists that given enough selling and advertising, customers can be convinced to buy the product. Marketing is not just flogging product and putting a spin on everything but It’s about the serious organization and business planning.

All business strategy is a marketing strategy. Your ability to think clearly and well about the very best marketing strategies, and to continually change and upgrade your activities, is the key to the future of your business.

Fortunately, like all business skills, marketing can be learned by practice, experimentation, and continually making mistakes. The key is to test, test, test.

Thanks for reading this article. I hope this was useful to you.

GRAZIE RAGAZZI... FORZA DDChamps.