MARKETING FUNDAMENTALS EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW

Hello Guys, It's me Saurabh, I am here to explain why marketing has become an essential aspect of everyone’s life and why everyone needs to know about the fundamentals of marketing, and how it works.

Now you might be thinking,

Why everyone needs to know about marketing?

What is the purpose behind knowing it?

How will I benefit from learning marketing?

Relax.

If you think that marketing is not for everyone then you are wrong. Let me take you to the world of marketing where you will get a brief idea and a better understanding of marketing fundamentals you have ever known So that you will never think that marketing is not for you. Below is the list of contents you will get to know in this article.

THINGS YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS ARTICLE:

• The Law of Marketing.
• Why learn and master marketing?
• Traditional Vs. Digital marketing.
• Importance of communication skills in marketing.
• Global economics and marketing.
• Direct response marketing.
• The CATTR funnel.
• How to choose the right niche.
• Integrated digital marketing.
• Building a strong brand.
• Why personal branding is important?
• The evolution of a personal brand.

Okay, now you have an overview of what I will share with you in this article, So Just be with me throughout the article to know everything in detail.

1. LAW OF MARKETING

What is marketing?

Marketing means creating, communicating, understanding customer needs, building relationships with the customer, and maintaining the relationship by adding value to the customer and creating a product that fits well for them at the right price. Let's understand marketing from different perspectives.

• ART AND SCIENCE: Marketing is an art as well as science. It does not mean actual science and creativity, but it has properties of science and attributes of arts that make some marketing principles to achieve desired results.

• CUSTOMER NEEDS: Marketing starts before creating the product. It starts with understanding the customer and customer’s needs that lead to creating a product that fits. Amazing things happen when you listen to your customers. It will help to create a good relationship with the customer.

• COMMUNICATION: Marketing is not only about selling. Marketing is sending the right message to the right person at the right time. It is also about keeping an existing customer happy by communicating and maintain a good relationship. Communication is the key.

• INNOVATION: Marketing is based on innovation as creating and coming up with new ideas lead to product differentiation. As the customer may get bored of using the same type of product over time than some sort of improvement in the product or something new which will add value to them.

• PERCEPTION: Marketing is a game of perceptions. Suppose if you design a product for hair fall control which gives promising results to the customers facing hair fall problems then even if one customer gets satisfied and gets tangible results, it creates a perception in his/her mind and further he/she recommends the product to other person facing the same problems and that's how it creates an impact just spreading a word of mouth which leads to brand perception.

• DEVELOP TRUST: Developing trust is a must when it comes to marketing as trust is scarce. And trust is built over time when you add value to the customers and maintain an engaging relationship with them. Trust is gained by providing quality and reliability to the customers whether it is a high-priced product or a low-priced product.

“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” — Peter Drucker

So now you got a basic idea of what is marketing from different perspectives. Let's dive deep into the principles of marketing. But before that, you should understand why to invest your time and energy in marketing.

2. WHY LEARN AND MASTER MARKETING?

Marketing education has existed since the dawn of civilization. The term ‘Marketing’ first appeared in dictionaries in the sixteenth century where it referred to the process of buying and selling at a market. And now it has evolved as it is not only about buying or selling but has many ways of doing it in the right way.

Here are some of the key points you should know why marketing education is important.

• HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY: Marketing education has a long shelf life because it is rooted in human psychology and understanding the market. As marketing is a game of perceptions, it has more to do with human psychology than technicalities. It anticipates customer behavior by creating liking, scarcity, awareness, commitment, popularity, etc. By doing this the human mind gets influenced by these situations and buys the product.

• CANNOT BE REPLACED BY ROBOTS: As we know that technology plays a vital role in human life. It has also evolved marketing in such a way that it saves and has saved lots of time and effort of humans. But marketing cannot be replaced by robots as those skills exist in humans only. You can automate your marketing strategies using automation but you cannot replace it by putting a robot to do marketing as it will require some skills which are only there in humans.

• VALUABLE INVESTMENT: Marketing is the most valuable investment as it gives direct ROI (Return on Investment). Other expenses such as Admin, Accounting, HR, Production, and Manufacturing don’t give direct ROI. It is based on revenue generated by the company. After spending everything possible then marketing is the last expense you will spend.

• CANNOT BE OUTSOURCED COMPLETELY: You cannot outsource an agency if you don’t know the fundamentals of marketing. It’s not like you hire an agency that will do everything for you even it promises to do so. Everything has its own loopholes wherein you cannot move further. Just like this you cannot sit back and relax and expect your agency to get your work done. You should be able to create a roadmap for your business right from conceptualizing the product to the feedback from the customers. The founder should be a marketer. If you know how to market and sell, you have a safe career. Sell yourself, other’s product or own product.

“The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time”. -Thomas Jefferson

3. TRADITIONAL MARKETING VS. DIGITAL MARKETING

What is Traditional Marketing?

Traditional marketing is the method in which it focuses on marketing without the internet. These methods have existed around for decades and typically they are used less often now.

Common traditional market methods include:

• Postcards, coupons, and informational packets
• Television or radio commercials
• Newspaper or magazine ads
• Billboards and flyers
• Telephone calls and text notifications

India has TVs in 197 million homes out of 4–5 members per household, TV has a reach of 800 million to 1 billion people. The reach of Digital Marketing is nowhere close to TV based on numbers alone.

We see and hear many of these ads every day just by listening to the radio on the way to work or even looking out the window at the billboards as we go by. They have become a part of daily life. Radio has a reach of 65% of the Indian population. The newspaper has a reach of 465 million people.

Pros and Cons of Traditional Marketing

As the word itself tells that it is traditional which means outdated or irrelevant. But it depends on the target audience you are targeting to achieve your goal. So there are some pros and cons.

PROS

• If you want to attract people of older age like 50+ then you should opt for traditional marketing which will be very effective as most of them watch TV as compared to the youth who ages between 21–40.
• This type of strategy works best when you have to target a larger local audience. A small business can use this method to compete for attention through billboards, flyers, and events rather than trying to compete in the digital space which has a huge competition.
• Whenever you are using a low-priced product then you can use traditional marketing. As the TV or radio, commercials will play multiple times and remind the audience about the product or service, whereas digital marketing items may be skipped or blocked by the users using the skip ads options before playing youtube videos or by clicking on “I don't want to see this ad” option on social media ads.

CONS

• Sometimes printing postcards and billboards to reach out to an audience can be expensive, and there is no guarantee that your target audience will be interested in your business services or offers.
• Traditional marketing can be time-consuming at it may take weeks or months to yield the results and data. You can’t tell when someone has read your newspaper ad unless they decide to follow up. And it is not even sure that the ad was the reason for the follow-up.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing has become the game-changer of the marketing world because of the internet and technology. Digital marketing strategies yield results quickly due to technology and the use of the internet or smartphones. Digital strategies have not been around as long as traditional methods.

Common digital marketing methods include:

• Website content
• Email campaigns
• Content marketing
• Social media posts
• Clickable ads
• Affiliate marketing
• Search engine optimization (SEO)

These strategies are very popular today because of customer's frequent usage of the internet and mobile devices. According to Statista, there are 4.54 billion active users in the world and 3.8 billion active social media users. With these high numbers, marketing online through social media makes a lot of sense.

Pros and Cons of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing strategies are always evolving with new technology and trends like voice search, analytics, and social media usage. These strategies are based on modern tactics. Just like traditional marketing, it has some pros and cons.

PROS

• Data and audience can be tracked easily and instantly. Suppose if someone clicks on a link of your website, reads and follows you on social media then you get that information immediately. You can see insights of your most liked picture on Instagram in terms of likes, views, and how many people it has reached.
• Digital marketing strategies are much cheaper compared to traditional marketing methods. Creating an email campaign to reach out to the audience saves a lot of money compared to printing billboards and postcards.
• Digital marketing is the best medium to reach the affluent English-speaking population in India with the spending power of approx 100 million users.

CONS

• Some of the internet users have ad blockers that block the ads and due to this you are not able to reach your audience. Suppose if a user pays a premium subscription for youtube, Spotify to watch videos and listen to music without any interruption.
• As digital marketing trends are constantly evolving in nature, they may need to be evaluated and reevaluated when needed for effectiveness. This can be overcome by building a strong foundation in digital marketing basics.

Which one is better?

It totally depends on which audience you are focusing on and what type of strategy you are going to use. But most probably digital marketing is the safest and cheapest medium of marketing through which you can target millions of people just with the help of the internet and technology by creating effective marketing campaigns.

4. IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS IN MARKETING

As you know that communication plays an important role in marketing. It has various benefits and once you master these skills then no one can stop you from being a good communicator as well as a marketer. Good marketing is all about communication. It is not to influence the people to buy the product. This is true in the case of low-quality products. If you communicate well, you will be able to sell well. Good communication doesn’t mean sophisticated English. It doesn’t care about your vocabulary or grammar. If I am able to transfer my thoughts effectively is the only question to ask. If you are a good communicator then you are a good marketer. Here are some key points to improve your communication skills as below.

TIPS TO IMPROVE COMMUNICATION SKILLS

• Write as you talk. Join a conversation which is going on in people’s mind, so that people will feel connected while talking to you. And you will be able to target your audience very well.
• Start a conversation with a question.
• Question to other people’s question.
• Write a lot. The more you write, the better you can write, and also speak. Writing slows down your thought process and gives you clarity.
• Watch stand-up comedy shows and sitcoms.
• Watch English shows.
• Think in English.

“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said”- Peter Drucker

(Hey, are you still with me? If yes, then just stick with me for a while as I am moving on to the next section which is a little bit technical, but I have tried my best to make it understandable as simple as possible.)

Here we go…

5. GLOBAL ECONOMICS AND MARKETING

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

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

For example, as a student grows up he starts earning, and based on his needs and wants he starts to spend more in the future. when he gets married, he spends on his family and children, Child’s education, clothes, then buying a house and all other luxurious goods. In this case, the spending power of the household is high due to which the economy grows.

When household expense goes down then people tend to spend lesser. For example, a country like Japan has an age group of many old people which directly lessens down the household expense and spending power further resulting in the decline of the economy.

The next generation of billionaires is in developing countries. As long as there are young people in the country they will spend more.

Debt creates money.

Now you are wondering how debt creates money in the market? Let me explain to you with help of an interesting example.

If you take a loan of 10 lakhs from a bank and deposit it in another bank, then that bank can loan that money again at 10% less i.e 9 lakhs. That 10% is cash reserve ratio (CRR) kept aside by all the banks. More debt in the economy = more cash (inflation). When people start repaying the debt, the money supply shrinks and the central bank reduces the interest rates to encourage debt.

Suppose there are multiple banks named as Bank A, B, C, D,….. and so on.

If you deposit 10 lakhs in bank A and after keeping aside the 10% CRR that bank A is giving out a 9 lakhs loan to a person to buy a car. In which the car dealer gets the 9 lakhs and further he deposits in his bank which is bank B. And this bank B gets 9 lakhs from the car dealer from which it can loan out Rs.810000 to another person and so on.

When everybody isn’t dead, then this 10 lakhs becomes 1 crore in the economy. If CRR is 10%, then the total money circulation will be 10x which is 1 crore. And if the CRR is 5% due to which banks will be able to give more, then the money circulation will 20x i.e 2 crores.

When people are not taking debts or repaying the debts, then the circulation of the money goes down. This is when the central bank reduces interest rates to encourage debts.

If the interest rate goes down to zero, then the government goes into debt. It issues bonds and gives money to the central bank and the central bank gives money to the government against the collateral.

Recession creates strong companies and drives out the weak companies out of the market.

Therefore, you must survive the recession to come out strong.

6. DIRECT RESPONSE MARKETING

“Direct response is a type of marketing designed to elicit an instant response by encouraging prospects to take specific action”.-Marketingevolution.com

Most people who run ads do not know if the ad works or not. Marketing executives in big companies (and in ad agencies) run branding campaigns that do not give specific and measurable results. An increase in brand awareness is not measurable.

You can track the response. You will be able to track the ads are working or not.

For example,

• An ad in the newspaper with a phone number to call.
• A late-night infomercial with a phone number to call and order.
• An ad leading to a landing page with a lead form.
• A sales page with a product and a purchase link to buy the product.

7. THE CATTR MARKETING FUNNEL

Wealth= n^CATTR

[N] Niche: Your success and wealth depend on the niche you choose. You need to find your niche with a hungry market. And choose your niche which you are good at and in that you are able to deliver well. If you try to be everything to everyone then you will be a nobody to everyone

[C] Content: Create useful content that attracts people from your niche. Content can be blog posts, videos, lead magnets, live webinars, etc. Content is your asset that attracts your audience to your tribe and your business.

[A] Attention: You need to drive attention or traffic to your content using SEO, Social media, Paid Ads, and referrals. As attention is more important to attract your targeted audience.

[T] Trust: Once you have the attention of your audience, then you need to build trust with your audience with tripwires, marketing automation, and retargeting. Without building trust with your audience you cannot go ahead in marketing. One of the methods used to build trust is deep marketing. In this method, you communicate to your audience by personalizing communication according to their needs so that they feel connected.

[T] Transaction: Once you have built trust with your audience, then you cannot leave it there. Then you have to get the transaction done. You have to convert your leads into customers with natural sales methods. Natural sales mean that you are not just getting a bunch of leads and cold calling people and trying to get them. Natural sales mean that you have a target customer, they have selected your niche, you have got their attention as they are interested in your offering, and then they also have trusted you. This creates natural sales.

[R] Reputation: Once you have sold the product, you have to create your reputation by providing quality, consistency, excellent customer experience, engaging with the audience often, improving your content, listening to the audience, and acting accordingly. And don't offer repeated solutions. This will create a good reputation, but it will take time to build the reputation of your brand and less time to destroy it.

So, the CATTR funnel will create wealth for you. which is wealth = n^ CATTR. It determines how much wealth you will create, You will need to choose a profitable niche and then multiply it by using CATTR.

8. HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT NICHE

You need to be very careful while selecting the right niche as it will open doors to success. So basically you will need a combination of three things i.e. Talent, Market, and Passion.

If you just have talent and passion then you will become a struggling artist. Nobody will buy your stuff because there will be no market for it. For example, If I am interested in painting shoes and designing them, but nobody wants to buy that shoes then nobody will buy them.

If you just have passion and market but no talent. Suppose you are passionate about teaching digital marketing and there is a huge demand for digital marketing skills but you don't have any experience in this field then you won't be able to sell the courses you make.

If you just have talent and there is a market for it, but you are not passionate about it then you will get tired, and eventually, someone with talent, passion, and the market opportunity will beat you in that niche. Suppose you are a bodybuilder, you are passionate about bodybuilding and there is a huge demand for bodybuilding coaching then surely you will bloom in that niche as you are having these three things.

9. INTEGRATED DIGITAL MARKETING

A lot of people approach digital marketing in a way that in each and every segment they try to get results from that separately.

• let's say people do content marketing and expect sales, but nothing happens.
• A lot of people do SEO and expect sales to happen, but nothing happens.
• A lot of people do social media but nothing happens and complain that social media people don't buy.
• And then people do email marketing, they just collect a bunch of emails and try to send emails and complain that people are not buying.
• And then they run Facebook ads and Google ads but again no result.

Doing all this doesn't get your desired result. So there is something you can do to increase sales.

Instead of running paid ads directly what you can do is go ahead and market your free content in paid advertising. Get the people to your email list first. By doing this you are asking for attention rather than asking for payment.

So content is the content that you have in your blog, youtube channel, and other places. Once they subscribe to your newsletter then you can send your newly published content to the entire list.

From your email list, people will come back to your content. And then you will get your content listed on the search engines. People might come to your site using the search but the content that you have also sends the signals to the search engines and the search engine sends the traffic back.

Then we have social media, So if you share your content on social media then New people will come from social media back to your content, if they like your content, then they will share your content on social media. So what happens is that paid advertising boosts the entire momentum of email marketing, SEO, Social media, and everything. Since the entire momentum is boosted, then people end up building trust with you.

This is what creates content, attention, trust, and transaction. So we have content in the center then you drive attention to it using paid ads, SEO, and Social media. And then you build trust using email marketing and you go ahead and transact with them which is sales and conversion.

When you put CATTR funnel in this, which is linear and works with an integrated digital marketing framework.

I know this is more technical but if you keep thinking about it then you will get more clarity about it.

10. BUILDING A STRONG BRAND

Branding means actively shaping your brand. It means to transform your business by standing out and making an impact in the market. This is the basic definition, but there is much more in it as below.

Here are some key points for building a brand:

• Many of the businesses fail to build a brand as they focus on being the №1. So instead of being the number 1, be the only one.
• Choose a category and become a leader in that category. Deciding where to compete is half your success.
• Xerox, google, and Zoom is brand names that have become verbs.
• If you cannot be a leader in a category then be a leader in a sub-category. (for example, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo)
• Digital Deepak- №1 Digital marketer in India. (Here sub-category is the country).
• People remember only the number 1 or maximum 2. Every market becomes a two-player market in the long run. (ex. 1st person to land on the moon, 1st Prime minister of India)
• So just focus on the Sub-category and become popular in a particular niche and then expand the category.
• Enter a competitive market but have a unique angle.

11. WHY PERSONAL BRANDING IS IMPORTANT?

A personal brand is the unique combination of skills and experiences that make you who you are. It is how you present yourself to the world. Effective personal branding will differentiate you from the competition and allow you to build trust with prospective clients and employers. (source-forbes.com)

• The best known will always beat the best.
• People want to hear from people, not from brands.
• Digital Deepak is a bigger brand today than many digital marketing companies because it's personal and deep.
• Elon Musk has a bigger following than SpaceX and Tesla.
• DOWNSIDE- A personal brand cannot be invested in and it cannot be sold.
• UPSIDE- A personal brand can give rise to many brands from his/her influence.
• A personal brand becomes an influencer and a brand ambassador for the companies that they run.

12. THE EVOLUTION OF A PERSONAL BRAND

Let’s talk about the evolution of a personal brand. If you want to succeed in this highly competitive market then you need to know the correct approach towards a personal brand. As it has evolved over time. Let us understand this MassTrust Blueprint designed by Digital Deepak in detail.

• LEARN: Learning is a never-ending process. Learn a new skill through concepts, facts, and procedures. Understand the concepts, remember the facts and practice the procedures.
• WORK: Put your newfound skills to work. Go from practice to implementation. Implementing it in the real world will give you a better understanding. You can work on a Job, Freelancing, or Own projects.
• BLOG: Write about what you have learned and experienced through your work. When you write, you understand it better. But you will also start building your personal brand by blogging.
• CONSULT: Now that you have a personal brand through your blog, have work experience, and have learned the fundamentals start consulting other businesses instead of working for them.
• MENTOR: Mentor others who want to become like you. Mentoring will add value to other’s life. It will also help you scale your understanding to a whole new level.
• STARTUP: Start your own product or services business with the understanding that you have developed about the market, the problem, and your own skills.

“Sell the problem you solve, not the product”.

CONCLUSION: Marketing is a never-ending process and we should update our marketing skills on daily basis. Just like you look after your fitness by doing exercise, you should look after your skills up-gradation on daily basis. If having the chance to help someone then add value to his/her life by helping them. You never know which opportunities will lock your door.

Phew! It was long enough though. But tried to explain you in detail.

If you wish to know How to get started with Digital Marketing? Click here.

Thank you for being with me till here. If you want to give any feedback for this article then any feedback is welcome. Please share your thoughts if you feel it was worth reading this.

Cheers,

SAURABH BORKAR