“Marketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make. Marketing is the art of creating genuine customer value. It is the art of helping your customer become better off.” — Phillip Kotler

So how do we learn this art?

Let’s start with some basic principles of marketing. The channels or ways of marketing may change but the principles behind it essentially remain the same.

4 P’s of Marketing

1. PRODUCT

What are you selling? Homemade cakes? An android application? A luxurious car?

• How many different product variations or lines should be sold? For example, a car manufacturer might strategize on which vehicle categories to build (such as family cars, SUVs, crossovers, or pickup trucks
• How should they be packaged or presented? For example, if you are selling lunch boxes, would you sell it in disposable boxes, foil papers or what? Would you package it in a customised paper with the name of your business on it?
• How will you service it? Is there a membership? For example, if you are selling a car, is the first service free, what about other subsequent services? If you are offering yoga classes, are there any membership charges for advanced students, what does it cover?

2. PRICE

Position your product effectively on the price curve. Do market research in the segment you are offering products

Should discounts be timed and applied?

Understand how your competitors price their offerings and understand how much consumers are willing to pay

3. PROMOTION

Which channel will you use to promote your product? Will it be online, offline, through TV or radio advertisements, social media channels, at stores, at events?

What message needs to be communicated while promoting the product? This message could talk about how your product is solving a customers need, why is it better than others?

4. PLACE

The right product needs to be in the right place for the right people to buy it.

Where is the product going to be distributed?

Will it be in online stores or offline stores?

So how are these principles put into action?

Lets first talk about various ways in which traditional marketing works

1. Through Direct Mail

The awareness of different products is created using different direct-mail marketing sources like brochures, letters, postcards, catalogs, flyers and other printed material delivered directly to customers using mail as the delivery system.

2. Print media marketing: Newspapers and Magazines

On the one hand, it’s considered a mass-marketing strategy as businesses can reach lots of different people irrespective of their interest in the product or service.

On the other hand, it is also viewed as a niche-marketing strategy where the specific category of customers can be reached or targeted like magazines related to fashion or women category, magazines about luxury cars etc.

3. Broadcast Marketing: Radio and TV channels

By using these broadcast marketing mediums businesses can reach a large number of audiences in short span of time. Also the visual demonstration of products makes a much better impact

4. OOH ( Out of the house) Marketing

Bus Shelters

Billboards

Shopping Complex and Supermarkets

Transits: Buses, Trains, Airplanes

5. Marketing through sales staff in following ways:

5.1 Event marketing is considered as a promotional tool that requires face-to-face interaction between the company’s representatives and customers at specific events, i.e., fairs, exhibitions, concerts, roadshows, sporting events, etc . Brands use event marketing campaigns and tactics like contests, shows, celebrations, etc., to reach potential customers using interactive displays.

5.2 Telemarketing

Different companies or businesses appoint sales staff for calling purposes for promotional or marketing activities over phone calls, which is referred to as telemarketing. Businesses can use it for promoting their products and services, collecting information, lead generation or carrying different surveys, etc.

So far so good, it seems all the channels and mediums are covered and we can pretty much market any product using this.

But here enters Digital marketing, which beats traditional marketing because of the following reasons:

• Results are easier to measure
• Digital marketing campaigns can reach a lot of people
• One can tailor their campaign as per the audience
• Engaging way of reaching your audience
• There is direct contact between the business and its audience
• Two-way communication

Digital marketing refers to advertising delivered through digital channels such as search engines, websites, social media, email, and mobile apps.

Various ways of Digital Marketing are as follows:

1. Content Marketing

2. Email Marketing

3. Social Media Marketing

4. Pay per click advertising

5. Influencer Marketing

So now as we know why digital marketing is better than traditional marketing and what are the various ways of digital marketing , how do we sell our product from there?

For that welcome to CATT marketing funnel!

Content(C) : Create content in the form of blog, videos, emails, webinars which connects with your audience. Jump on in the conversation they are already having in their head.

Attention (A): Grab a customer's attention using unique and innovative strategies, SEO, social media, paid ads, and referral. You have split seconds to grab a potential customers attention because in today's digital world the attention span of the human is very less.

Trust (T): Build trust with your customers, your tribe. This will happen when they see that your product works, it solves the problem present and all this takes time. Gather their feedbacks, ask for their suggestions, show them that you care! Use deep marketing, tripwires, and marketing automation to build up and scale your trust with your customers.

Transaction (T): After building trust it becomes easy to convert customers through natural sales. The customers themselves become the marketeers.

And in due time the product sells itself!

Integrated Digital Marketing

Integrated Digital Marketing encompasses the idea of creating a unique form of expression that’s easy to identify in all of the channels your customer uses.

It’s like using a single language to speak in different situations.

That means it’s a strategy that blends all your marketing tactics.

What are the channels of an integrated Digital Marketing strategy?

SEO

Position a website on top of Google SERPs must be a top priority when you work with digital strategies, such as Content Marketing. Organic search should lead prospects to pages that represent clearly who you are and what you’re offering.

That means your content must be relevant to the audience, engaging them to take the next step in the buyer’s journey.

And you can do that by applying SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques, like link building, proper use of keywords, and optimization of your website’s loading speed.

Social Media

Social Media is a term that encompasses many channels of communication.

We’re talking about a variety of options: Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, or Twitter, just to name a few. Each one has its style and requires different approaches.

Nevertheless, you have to make sure your brand is essentially the same, conveying the same image.

Content Marketing

It’s essential to focus on creating useful, powerful, interactive content with the same language you’re speaking in all the other channels.

Take into account the user experience as well, producing content that addresses the buyers needs, and it’s engaging to read.

Paid Advertising

It doesn’t matter if your working with one of these:

• paid search: pages that show up on top of Google results page;
• display ads: banners that communicate through visual and text on sites/blogs;
• social media ads: visual pieces created to spread on social networks.

You have to make sure you’re using segmentation the proper way to talk to the right people at the right time.

Personal Branding: Mass Trust Blueprint

People trust a person more than a brand. Hence personal brands are bigger and more impactful than various brands by a company

Although personal brands cant be sold or invested in , they can start their companies.These companies will have the credibility and trust from people because of the personal brand associated with it.

So if personal branding is so important, how does one evolve as a personal brand? For that we can refer to MassTrust Blueprint

Learn: Understand the concepts,remember the facts, practice the procedure

Work: Implement what you learnt in the real world through a job, your own projects or freelancing.

Blog: Blog about what you learned and experienced through our work. Offer people insights which might help them in their journey

Consult: After gaining some experience in the field you can start consulting people instead of working for them

Mentor: Now you can mentor others who want to become like you. You can guide them and show various ways in which you did it, what hurdles you faced.

Startup: After mentoring, you can develop your own product and service understanding the market, your target audience and how you can use your skill set to solve the problem present in the society using your product.

So this is the story of Marketing from M to G !