MARKETING – A traditional means to an end or pushing the boundaries through artificial realities? What’s your evolving story?
“Many companies have forgotten they sell to actual people. Humans care about the entire experience, not just the marketing or sales or service. To really win in the modern age, you must solve for humans.” — Dharmesh Shah, CTO & Co-Founder, HubSpot
Has the COVID 19 Pandemic erased the boundaries of the traditional notion of marketing? Has it compelled the usage of artificial realities to a successful closure? Marketing indeed is an ocean which stands out in a unique way among the various functions of management. But this ever evolving and dynamic field does not let people and organisations take things for granted. Being a people driven system, marketing has a unique charm of combining the science of traditional methods and involvement of rapidly evolving technologies. The article discusses the underlying issues in the traditional and digital marketing scenarios which would help one understand the intricacies of the world of marketing and take steps toward becoming an experienced digital marketer and mentor.
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF MARKETING:
Marketing is science and not creativity. Why do we have to conclude it in this fashion and not the reverse cause the non-static rules of marketing and technology are centered around one common factor – PEOPLE. Understand their needs and design a product and market it to the people and they would be eager to buy the product or service rather than the need to sell them the product. The essence is to keep the existing customer happy and let his bonding experiences retain him as a customer for a lifetime. Marketing is a desirable means to an end. It surely prompts the creator or seller to develop a strong brand and once the place is confirmed in the minds of the customer or consumer, the need to do marketing again and again does not arise.
Even though the technological advancements help companies to deal with multiple products, consumers have their own choice of buying a particular product. One may see various marketing attempts or advertisements for toothpaste but when it comes to buying toothpaste, the very first name which clicks in the mind is COLGATE. People feel special being associated with the toothpaste and consider the brand name synonymous with the toothpaste itself. With its informative marketing, Colgate company has been able to capture a place in the minds of the consumers through understanding the needs of the consumer and by marketing a message of strong and white teeth fighting and preventing cavities. It does not have to advertise as often as its competitors. It has to make very less efforts to sell its product. It surely does only to remind people at times, especially when innovative changes have taken place in the product or it has been modified for the betterment of the customers. Colgate has understood that marketing is a game how people would perceive its product. It never allows marketing to impose itself on the product and become more important than the product itself. The mothers or the homemakers spread the word of mouth and Colgate benefits from it.
As Peter Drucker has rightly put in: “…The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself. The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous.”
Marketing has many sub components like advertising, branding, copywriting and various other components which together complete the Marketing umbrella. Each in its own existence play a vital role in selling the product or service.
Personal Branding – An opportunity of transforming yourself by showcasing yourself to the world.
“Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room” – Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.
What’s the good deed when it is kept to oneself? In this gig economy, it is highly essential to move towards personal branding as a vital part of modern world existence. One’s skills may be top notch, but what would be the use unless it is showcased to the world. The world can appreciate a product or a skill and show desire to buy it only if the product or the skill is brought it to the awareness of the public. Humans crave for a sound from other humans and not noise from brands. In a clustered market place where the brands compete to be sold, It is a false perception that brands communicate. The reality is that people communicate with people through emails and messages. It is a creation of a story about yourself in order to help people recognise and recall you in their minds. It is a means of identifying oneself and portraying the image to the world. Where you start your journey may be different from where you establish yourself as a personal brand. Business world has witnessed a lot of CEOs who have become a bigger brand than the companies founded by them. For example, Neil Patel is one of the respected names who has been successful in creating his personal brand. He is remembered as a ruler of the blogging world and is keenly revered in the internet/online marketing space. The digital space also adores his reels on Instagram providing people the truly needed clarity regarding the Digital Marketing world. He has been attributed to being a founder and co-founder of multiple companies. He undoubtedly, retains the title of being a strong personal brand influencer.
Personal branding even though has its merit of giving birth to multiple brands through a person’s influence, on the flip side, a personal brand can never be sold. However, it surely becomes an influencer for the companies founded and run by the particular person.
Personal brand eventually should shift to a company brand and it can be profitable. However, a journey of a personal brand evolution is by learning a new skill through concepts, facts and procedures. A practical implementation is desirable or compulsory in order to receive the experience and gain stronger understanding. The experience leads to being in a commanding position in a particular subject. This may lead to a unique output through blogs or other means and one starts gaining adoration. All this adds up to the journey of becoming a mentor and influencing the lives of others by selling training problems. Once the understanding sinks in, a start-up can be the next logical step.
As Deepak Kanakaraju or as he is well known in the digital world as Digital Deepak, has beautifully laid down the frame work or six steps to the evolution of a personal branding in the Mass Trust Blueprint.
LEARN: Once a student always a student. Learning is a lifelong process and it should continue by learning skills through Concepts, Facts and Procedure. The learning of concepts and understanding them thoroughly will lead to implementation in a real world.
WORK: Just understanding and learning a skill will not suffice. It’s the practical exposure which leads to stronger understanding and does not erase it from memory or the skill knowledge bank resting within one’s self.
BLOG: Writing is equally important in personal brand building. The more one writes, the more one starts building a personal brand. This happens with the combination of work and experiences. This unique content put forward to the world becomes more credible. People start learning and respecting the content writer.
CONSULT: This step leads to work independence. Instead of being an employee, one becomes an freelancer, since one has understood, learned, worked experienced, written and built credibility in the minds of people. The once order seeker will become truly independent.
MENTOR: The next step guides one to take up the role of a mentor. What is leaned, experienced and practically implemented can now be passed on to other people through the role of mentoring on the particular subject. The group of people will receive information and the mentor can scale up his/her understanding and his advice is polished with each content mentored. The mentor becomes the foundation for his methodology being implemented by the learners.
START-UP: With a complete understanding of the external and internal factors like market, problems, experiences, one’s own skills, the risk-taking capacity, the financial quagmire, one can become an entrepreneur and have one’s own start-up.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRADITIONAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING
Shattering the age old practices, the combination of technology and human brain has constantly created new paths for marketing. While traditional marketing seems to be losing its stripes and digital marketing taking the new steps in the world, it cannot be definitely said which is better. Some people may prefer to stick to the traditional marketing, some may choose Digital Marketing, while others may prefer a combination of both. But a human standing at a confluence of the old and new, cannot predict with surety which is better since both have their advantages as well as drawbacks.
| TRADITIONAL MARKETING | DIGITAL MARKETING |
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Ø Consists of Print Media, Outdoor publicity, Broadcasting, Telemarketing and some other functions. Ø Something real can feel the connect wit a live 3 dimension hoarding. One finds it lively entertaining and an easy connect. Ø A printed medium (news paper, magazine etc) can be recalled pretty often and can bring the joy of being associated with the product for long. Ø The traditional way of advertising gives one the feeling to being connected for longer. A person delivering the glossy print leaflet can stay for much long than a broadcasting or social media advertisement which vanish soon. Ø They are not measurable. Ø They are much more expensive specially for the small businessmen who cannot afford the advertising costs of national and international magazines or getting the expensive brochures printed to be distributed. Ø Very less interaction with the customer or the consumer. Cause one never knows whether the customer has accepted or rejected the product on the basis of the marketing campaign.
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Ø Website, Blogs, Social Media, Inbound Marketing, Affiliate marketing and other functions. Ø Easy to measure the marketing campaigns with various tools available in Digital Marketing. This helps one to understand and prepare better for the upcoming campaigns. Ø Targeting the particular customer becomes easy with varied options available. DM provides the flexibility to design tailor-made strategic campaigns and hence the rate of success is more. Ø Digital Marketing provides more options for engaging into marketing campaigns. While traditional marketing has limited options so in limited budget one may not have the option to have a multi aspect marketing strategy. While Digital Marketing provides more options and is budget friendly with various packages available which leads to application of more than one method and achieve success. |
India consumer sentiment Index (CSI) report published by Axis My India in June 2022, has reported that from the people surveyed, in comparison to the previous year, 59% people spent more time on digital medium than on television. Youtube, facebook, Instagram and Sharechat were the most visited video focused social networking applications. Scenario is changing, times are changing but it doesn’t mean that one system of marketing is superior to the other. Blending of both can work wonders or even if applied individually. It truly depends on the strategy.
CATT Marketing Funnel and Framework – the touch points of a marketing world in the modern times.
Wealth= n ^ CATT (Where n = niche)
NICHE: It is highly desired and required to find a niche and focus on the core skills. It surely leads to success. The initial niche can be different from the later niche as and when one progresses in implementation of the initial niche. Be yourself and be number one in a particular category.
The CATT Funnel and framework can be understood as follows:
CONTENT: The premises of a content is to attract the audience. For making people come to you, one needs a solid content which is not only attractive, but also suffices the needs of the people. It becomes useful for them and if not useful, it creates a need in the customers life which the customer would then love to try out or focus on making it a part of his or her lifestyle requirement. Content can be spread across various channels like Blogs, Videos and Posts to name a few.
ATTENTION: In other words, a Marketing person or a company needs to drive the traffic to the content created with the help of various tools and methods. Unless and until the methods are implemented, sales would not be possible. Creative, consistent and regularly uploaded and updated contents drive the most attention or traffic towards the content. It all depends on what you wish the customer to be attracted towards.
TRUST: Any source of longterm business is Trust. This one aspect of the funnel makes or breaks the business. In the world of innumerable options, why would a customer wish to trust the product or the company? It is only by the genuine efforts of the company or a person that trust is built over a period of time. Short term goal-oriented companies fail to register themselves in the hearts of the people. They are definitely successful in securing a place in the minds of the people but in a negative manner. When the features of security in automobiles is concerned, the Indian brand name which comes to the mind is TATA Automobiles. It produces durable life saving vehicles and informs the customers about the almost 5 star safety ratings as certified by international organisations. This infuses trust for TATA in the minds of the customers.
TRANSACTION: Trust creates a platform for natural sales conversion. It leads to the efforts of making the transaction happen with a cautious nudge utilising the trust in a right manner. The transaction occurs between the company and the customer and it leads to the sales of the product. Each transaction needs to be honoured and not be taken for granted. One flaw and the customer might not want to trust again and it will lead to the stoppage of future transactions. This is the final stage of niche creation which completes the circle.
INTEGRATED DIGITAL MARKETING: – United we succeed, divided we are less effective
Marketing strategies can be applied in many ways. The digital platform gives the flexibility to choose various methods of marketing. However, at times, the individual methods applied may not fetch the desired result. So instead of applying direct methods of marketing, an integrated approach of keeping the methods with content at the centre. In an integrated Marketing approach, Paid Marketing starts the process and leads to various marketing methods, approaches and mechanism which may include, Email marketing, Social Media, SEO etc.
However, the laws of marketing are way deep and beyond the purview of a single article. In addition to the above aspects of the laws of marketing, one needs to be aware of Global and country specific economics and finance which will help in understanding and implementing the laws of marketing better.
In conclusion, It all boils down to your marketing objective. Whether you wish to stick to the traditional methods of marketing or jump into the technological advancements and withstand the passage of time, the laws of marketing would strengthen your evolvement as a future Digital Marketer and finally a mentor. So, what’s your evolving story?