Marketing , a universal skill you must know!
By: Asly Menezes
Tags: Branding, Marketing, Brand Strategy, Digital Marketing, Personal Branding

Yes, you read it right; marketing is an everlasting skill you must know about. You trying to land a particular job is also a part of marketing.

Hold on, right before you close your device and jump out of the chair by saying, “this is nuts”, let me clarify. Presenting yourself as an eligible candidate through your portfolio/resume, LinkedIn, is advertising, a fragment of marketing.

I believe you have come across the non-stop ads surfacing on Google, YouTube, Facebook and many such social platforms, provided you have no ad blockers. You might also have come across ads in newspapers, radio, television, hoardings, etc.

No wonder your inbox is flooded with promotional emails. These are a few of the marketing strategies, but it’s just a fraction of marketing. By some means, any of these could compel you to make purchases. This is sales, a tiny portion of marketing again.

Now that I have your attention. Let me take it further by explaining marketing from a wholesome perspective. When you finish reading this article, it will fill you with an understanding of the following concepts.

Importance of Marketing

Fundamental Law of Marketing

Role of Communication Skills

Digital vs. Traditional Marketing

Relationship between Economics and Marketing

Building a Powerful Brand

Personal Branding

CATT Marketing Funnel and Framework

Niche Selection

Integrated Digital Marketing

Importance of marketing:

Your mind may have thoughts making you question yourself;

“Why learn to market?”

“Can I build my career in marketing?”

“Why bother studying marketing when I can outsource it?”

“Is marketing job secured, or will it become obsolete with Artificial Intelligence taking over?”

Well, bootstrap yourself and follow me as I take you through an insightful journey. You might be a manager, company owner, entrepreneur, or just a student. Knowledge of marketing is important for everyone.

Marketing is such a topic that has existed since the dawn of civilization, will exist as long as there is human civilization. Marketing just boils down to human psychology. From my experience, it is a mindset, a talent, a capacity to see and detect what others cannot understand.

Marketing education has a long shelf life because that is rooted in human psychology. It is the most valuable investment in a business as it gives direct returns on the investments when done right. It has kept growing and strengthening along with the up-gradation of technology.

If you know to market and sell, you got a safe career. In the marketplace, one of the role models is; Steve Jobs, he did not have to graduate from a prestigious university to understand people’s desires and change the way we live.

Artificial Intelligence and automation technologies can help marketers find more information about their customers while decreasing the time spent on redundant tasks. But they can never replace the human touch that effective marketing requires.

You can partially outsource marketing, but not completely. The founder/CEO must be a marketer themselves. Marketing begins before creating and serving every product. And completely depending on a marketing agency can devastate a company.

How devastating? well, Nike had to make the shift from being a production-oriented company to being a marketing-oriented company after it hit the $1 billion revenue mark. You can read the interview of Nike’s co-founder Phil Knight from here.

Fundamental Law of Marketing:

I define marketing as “a process that an organization undertakes to engage its target audience, build strong relationships to create and capture value.”

So what is marketing? Is it all about creative posters, images, ads and slogans? Absolutely not. Marketing is science more than art. Marketing involves understanding humans, their needs, wants, impulses and psychological behaviour and using this knowledge to serve them with the right product.

Marketing starts with understanding the customer and their needs that lead to the creation of products and services which suit their needs. Marketing is not just about selling; it’s about keeping the existing customers happy and communicating with them so that they remain customers for life.

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customers so well the product or the service fits them and sells itself.” — Peter Drucker.

Marketing is a game of perception. It’s about the value proposition for customers. In case the product is not on par, manipulation skills help you land customers. For example, follow up and promotional emails by e-commerce sites.

If marketing becomes more emphasised than the product, it degrades the value of the product. The fall of Ray-Ban is an example. You can find more about it by clicking here.

Marketing aims to help people discover the product, have a good perception of it, thus making selling superfluous.

Communication in Marketing:

Communication isn’t about the use of extremely sophisticated and complex terminology. Effective communication does not care about vocabulary or grammar. It’s about sending the right message to the right person at the right time.

You might have sound knowledge of the product and terminologies revolving around it. But that really doesn’t matter to the consumer. Consumers never bother to hold complex information, all they grab is the sound functioning of the product.

“Don’t push people to where you want to be; meet them where they are.” — Meghan Keaney Anderson

If you cannot convey the value of your product/service, then it holds no value. You add value to the product/service when you join the conversation in the minds of the consumers.

A profound marketer is an excellent communicator who eases the ambiguity in the customer’s mind.

Digital vs. Traditional Marketing:

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

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

“Marketing’s job is never done. It’s about perpetual motion. We must continue to innovate every day.” — Beth Comstock

So which one to choose. Well, that depends on your target audience.

To reach a larger audience, an older audience or a local audience, traditional marketing methods are more productive and stand out better than digital marketing methods. Though these methods may seem “old,” they’ve stuck around because they work!

Digital marketing is the best option for most. It allows reaching a particular group of people, wherever they may be while keeping costs low. Doing so will also allow you to collect valuable information on your audience so that you can create even more effective and personalised marketing campaigns.

Relationship between Economics and Marketing:

Every individual who aims to build wealth should know how does the economy work. And so does the entrepreneur, because business decisions taken without considering economics can prove catastrophic.

As a marketer, one needs to assess the market demand for the products and services. That’s where economics comes to help.

“A countries economy is the inverse function of the average age of it’s population.” — Asly Menezes

A country with a low average age has more young people who consume more than older ones. Thus, a “young” country (as you may call it) will have higher Aggregate Demand and higher potential for your products and services.

Developing countries have lower average age as compared with developed countries. India has a median age of around 29 years, while UK’s median age is 40.5 years. As ironic as it may sound, developing countries have higher growth potential than developed countries.

Building a Powerful Brand:

It’s not about being the top player; it’s about being the only player. Building a powerful brand lies in deciding where to compete because this determines half of your success.

A powerful brand has the potential of becoming a verb. Google and zoom are the best examples. If you cannot be the leader in the category, be the leader in the subcategory. For example, we know Volvo for safety; we know BMW for driver comfort; we know Mercedes Benz for executive comfort.

“A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories, and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” — Seth Godin

It’s a human tendency to remember the pioneers, the first and the second. Every market becomes a game of two players in the long run. Hence, a brand needs to be distinct or pioneer in the category or both.

A great product sells itself by converting customers into loyal brand ambassadors. Word of mouth is the best channel of marketing ever; it’s free and organic.

Personal Branding and its Evolution:

Personal branding is the conscious and intentional effort to create and influence public perception of an individual by positioning them as an authority in their industry, elevating their credibility, and differentiating themselves from the competition, to advance their career, increase their circle of influence, and have a larger impact.

Personal branding is used to differentiate self from other people. If done well, you can tie your personal branding with your business in ways no corporate branding might succeed.

Your personal brand is a promise to your clients… a promise of quality, consistency, competency, and reliability. — Jason Hartman

Personal Branding is the “great differentiator” in the job search. It helps you to stand apart and above others competing for the same jobs. Your Personal brand generates interest and likely lands you the job interview.

Personal Branding is equally important, if not more. People love hearing from people, not from corporates. People form relations with their fellow beings, not with corporates.

Mr Elon Musk is a great personal brand and, through his influence, has been entering newer ventures. The essence of his personality is clear even in the companies that he runs.

“If people like you they will listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.” — Zig Ziglar

Personal Brand Establishment is carried out by the process of evolution. The plan underlying the process is the Mass Trust Blueprint.

Learn: Individuals learn and understand the facts, concepts and procedures of the new skill during the primary stages of personal branding.

Work: In this stage, individuals work to implement. Freelancing or a job is where they use the newly learned skills.

Blog: Individuals can build a personal brand through blogging. One can share the work experience as a blog. The blog helps to grab people’s attention, which helps in building the brand.

“Don’t be scared to present the real you to the world, authenticity is at the heart of success.” — Anonymous

Consult: With consistent writing, one develops a sound experience and a personal brand. An individual can then start consulting other people or businesses instead of working for them. Thus helping them to market their product or service and reach target customers in a better way. With consulting services, an individual will know their value as well as what the market wants.

Mentor: Mentoring others who want to follow in your footsteps to become like you. Mentoring scales up your overall knowledge and level of understanding of a specific topic.

Startup: Mentoring and consulting will help to set you as the authority in your niche category. You will get the confidence to build a startup out of it with your product or Services.

CATT Marketing Funnel and Framework:

The secret formula for wealth is n^[CATT]. Let’s understand what these abbreviations stand for:

(n) Niche: Niche is a specialized segment of the market for a particular product or service. A niche should comprise talent, market, and passion. Success depends on the chosen niche.

C (Content): Engaging and innovative content attracts people from your niche, thus adding value to your brand.

A (Attention): SEO, social media, paid ads, etc. are different techniques that can drive traffic to your content.

T (Trust): Build trust with your audience with tripwires, marketing automation and re-targeting.

T (Transaction): With natural sales, convert your leads into customers.

Selecting Appropriate Niche:

The process of discovering your niche can be overwhelming.

Some people get lost trying to figure out what the best niche would be and end up quitting on the project.

Few make a hasty decision and choose a niche that is not fit for them.

Your niche must be a combination of three essential components: Talent, Passion, and Market.

Talent: You know you are talented in a particular niche if you know and do it better than many people around you. Talent is not gifted to a selected few. Everybody has some talent, which is enhanced by practice passionately. This brings us to the next component of your niche, Passion.

Passion: Passion is easier to identify than talent. You know that you are passionate about a topic if you are constantly thinking about it and like to discuss it with your friends or family.

Market: This is the only technical part of your niche selection process. You need to identify if there is a market for your passion and talent or not. Assess the market demand and competition and see if there is an opportunity for you in that market.

Are there people who are searching for articles on that topic? If yes, what is the search volume? How many competitors are there in your niche? What type of content are they creating? Can you make different and better content than them?

The sweet spot (the triangle in the picture) where Passion, Talent and Market Opportunity meet is your niche.

Integrated Digital Marketing:

Integrated digital marketing is, as it sounds, integrating multiple marketing mediums/channels to form a tenacious online approach for the business.

Integrated Digital Marketing is the art and craft of using all the digital marketing methods available today in such a way that each digital marketing channel complements the other by playing its strengths.

Integrated Digital Marketing is like a team with content as the leader and the various other digital marketing methods are like its team members. Instead of asking each member to achieve the goal of increasing the company’s customer base on its own, Integrated Digital Marketing will make use of each member’s strengths and produce a result that is more than the sum of the individual achievements of each member.

Investment of time, energy and money in building an integrated digital marketing process for your business is like investing in machinery which multiplies the effectiveness of each component in it.

In fact, all digital marketing agencies have realized the exponential power of this integration in digital marketing campaigns. This has lead to skyrocketing demand for such integrated services.

Token of Appreciation:

Before we part our ways, I would like to ease out your struggle in attaining financial freedom. All I am offering here is a channel to attain your financial goal, develop a plan to accomplish it, and put your skills to work.

To attain revenue of ₹1,00,00,000.00, we need to create a product such that by selling a specific quantity of it you attain the anticipated revenue.

And how do we do that?

Say that every time we sell a product, we retain 10% of our clients, and turn them into our brand ambassadors through the marketing strategies discussed above.

Then, if

We serve 1,00,000 clients with a product worth ₹100.00, we earn a revenue of ₹1,00,00,000. 10,000 get back for our second product which we serve at ₹1,000.00, earning us ₹1,00,00,000. 1,000 satisfied clients collect third product costing ₹10,000.00, fetching us ₹1,00,00,000.00. Similarly, 100 clients come to us and ask for a product more personalised as per their desire and requirements which we serve at ₹1,00,000.00, which brings us ₹1,00,00,000.00.

The system gets automated when marketing is done right and product quality is maintained. Remember, “no goals are difficult to achieve when approached with discipline.” I hope this helps and wish you the very best in your marketing endeavours.

Key Takeaway:

This is a long article, but these are just the basics of marketing. I hope you’ve adopted renewed perception about marketing after reading it.

I expect you to go deeper into the concepts of marketing explore the field and observe how marketing is everywhere around you.

If you found this article noteworthy, kindly leave a comment, like and follow for more updates.

This article was a part of an internship programme, under the guidance of my mentor Digital Deepak; a.k.a Deepak Kanakaraju. Enrol for his digital marketing internship programme at https://deepak.me/internapply to upgrade your digital marketing skills.