The Chronicles Of Digital Marketing
W hat is the first thing that pops up into your mind when you hear the word Marketing? Okay!Let me ask you in different terms. You go to a store to get supplies, you need a toothpaste so you wander through the toiletries section, You get your hands on a particular brand of toothpaste.Now what is the reason for picking out that particular toothpaste? Well this is Marketing! You don’t spend much time in picking out your toothpaste, you pick a brand that has been registered in your mind or the one you are familiar with.Our hand automatically picks out that toothpaste. Its because of the strong Marketing that has been done for it, that the brand has become familiar to you.
The best Marketing doesn’t feel like Marketing -Tom Fishburne
Now when you look around, all you could see are new technology, ideas and innovations. This awareness was created to you through a strong medium. Digital Marketing is a media through which we could advertise to people digitally. It Leverages different channels like Search Engines, Websites, Social Media platforms, E-mails and Mobile Applications.It would give marketers an opportunity to interact with and understand their audience better, and to increase the trust in their brand.
FUNDAMENTALS OF MARKETING:
First lets focus on the 4 P’s of Marketing-Product, Price, Place, Promotion. They are important elements of Marketing while we are considering to create a market.
Let me quote you a small example. You are in your office with tons of work. You try to take a break in between,so you go out with your Colleague for a cup of coffee located outside your office. Now lets Jump into the 4 P’s.
Product -It just means the thing they are selling.This includes the Quality, Packaging, Design and Brand.
Price-It includes Retail plans, any Discounts, Payment plans, credit terms. In short anything remotely related to Money- The amount you pay for your food in terms of credit or cash
Place -Its where the Coffee vendor decides to put up his stall. He chooses the place were there is more crowd, usually near a busy place, IT parks, Public gatherings. This focuses on — how do your clients find your products and get what they have paid for ?Is it delivered to their door or in a Retail location, can they download it(in case of online software)?
Promotion — A medium through which our website is known to customers. Deals with Advertising, Personal selling, Public Relations, Emails, Brochures and Sales Calls. Here the Vendor puts up Banners, gives out Fliers and does other promotional activities
LAWS OF MARKETING:
To run a Business, you need to know how to Market yourself and your brand. Many think that if your Product is good then people will come for it. Its not true! Companies are successful because of their Unique Marketing strategies. Using Effective Marketing you could make the products reach customers and turn them into Fans.
These are some of the Laws of Marketing that helps you to create a better Marketing strategy
- Leadership -Being first in the Market is better than having a better Product and a competitor. When you become the first to be in the market you get to set the rules rather than playing by someone else’s rules
- Category- Try creating a product on new category rather than attacking an existing category. Try to be Unique
- Focus-The most powerful concept of Marketing is Owning the word in the prospects. Ex. If you want to Search anything in the internet , what is the word that comes into your mind? Google Ofcourse!
- Duality -Don’t worry if you are not number 1, people are always going to be looking for options. (McDonlands, Burger King or Pepsi,Coke Cola.)
- Candor -Admit your Negatives, that prospect will give you a positive result.This makes your company more human and more reliable.
- Success -Success often leads to arrogance, and arrogance leads to failure, don’t be arrogant drop the ego and be objective.Your ego can blind you and prevent you from seeing the things the way they are. Companies fail because of this all the time, they think they are too big to be defeated and someone comes along and eventually beats them.
- Failure- Its to be expected and accepted, drop things that do not work instead of trying to fix them, don’t punish people who work for you for failures, if you do this people will stop taking risk. Its just a part of growing a business, learn to expect it and manage it effectively.
DIGITAL MARKETING
To understand Digital Marketing better let us think of a scenario- Your friend Sam runs DressUp an E-Commerce Website for Clothing , so to increase the traffic to the website you are planning to create a Campaign.
Content Marketing — You create Blogs on different Dressing styles, Catchy Videos, Infographic and Case studies so that you could create audience interest in the brands product and services.
Content is the reason search began in the first place -Lee Odden
SEO — You need your audience to actually see the Blogs and Videos (Content). So the first step is to focus on Keywords that are relevant to the target audience. Optimization on the website is to be made that are linked back to those contents. Then the Website starts to slowly appear on the first page of the search. By continuing the Optimization you could continue to improve the ranking and ultimately making it to appear in the first position of the search.
Pay per click- You can now divert traffic to DressUp through advertisement, but for this you have to pay certain amount of money each time the ads were clicked. Creating text ads, Image and video ads to show up in websites and much more. This is possible by PPC (Pay Per Click)
Social Media Marketing- To reach a larger audeince, you need to use the Social Media platform like Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Linkedln, Twitter with contents, tags, images and video . Create tags like #ootd#Dressfortheday#DressUp#fun and so on.
Email Marketing- In-order to make the customers visit the website again, keep them engaged and nurture them.To make them buy the products you have to send Emails to customers for better understanding of the products, new Discounts, new arrivals and many more.
Affiliate Marketing- For driving more traffic from third party websites Affiliate Marketing could be used. Affiliates would promote DressUp or product to audiences for a fee with the help of Email signups, Registrations, Subscriptions and so on.
DIGITAL MARKETING Vs TRADITIONAL MARKETING
When we talk about the difference between the two we talk about the tools rather than the strategy behind it.
Traditional Marketing relies on tools and some mediums like Newspaper,Tv, Magazine, radio, Billboard and so on.Traditional Marketing can provide good results when its well done and strategically designed and executed on.
Digital is made up of tools like Search Engine, Social Media, Blogging, Articles Video, Email Marketing and so on. Digital Marketing on an average is cost efficient and effective.It analyses, monitors,tests and measures much better and in a much faster rate.
The key to maximize the marketing Budget and results is to first leverage all available digital Options, and then start looking for alternate traditional Opportunities.
INTEGRATED DIGITAL MARKETING
Now after you have done all the Fundamentals of Marketing you still wonder why sales are not up to the mark. It is because you do not understand the importance of Integrated Marketing. Sam’s Social Media Marketing -post, videos,campaigns and so on was done but it was irregular and not consistent. So now you have to adapt Integrated Digital Marketing. You need to understand how they are linked together.
— Publish Blogs with Clothing Fashion, Ideas and Tips
— Promote these posts through Social Media and send a Monthly Email Newsletter
— The newsletter should also features contents from Sam’s Youtube Channel, where customers are encouraged to upload their own Clothing Styles.
— In the Festive seasons , DressUp could give ads in online and Tv, and in other seasons it could provides offers and promotions
— Once a year you need to publish surveys and reports that could get free media coverage.
— The customers become Fans on Facebook, Follows on Instagram and Twitter, Subscribes to Youtube Channels and becomes a commentator to the blogs and posts.
You can’t sell anything if you can’t tell anything -Beth Comstock
Communicate with people who want to receive your Message. They are Neophiliacs (Early adapters). Early Adapters are the ones who spread the word to the rest of the people.Now the Early Adopters (Neophiliacs) act like a tribe echoing DressUp’s message to a wider Audience.
CATT MARKETING FUNNEL
Now all the things that we have done so far has the ultimate aim of creating Wealth
Wealth = n^CATT
n- Niche
Being Famous for Everyone is Impossible. We have to find a niche of people who share values and a clear Vision of the world. To find the Niche you need to know about your -Talent,Passion, Market
C- Content- Once we figure out the Niche Market you have to create Content that attracts our Niche
A- Attention -Driving our Niche Attention by using SEO Social media,ads and so on
T- Trust -Once we have gained the attention of our audience we have to build their trust.
T-Transaction -This is where we transfer Leads to Customers. When a person Trusts our products and services they get converted into our Customer
PERSONAL BRANDING
A brand always begins with your values. What do you stand for Quality, Excellence, Responsiveness, Team work, innovation, leadership. When you are clear about this you create a tremendous Personal brand .You need to Create an identity for yourself. People should have the trust that when they do business with you , you will always fulfill the promises.
Have you ever Googled your name? Well of course you have! Did the pop up represent what you want to be known for or did an old man pop up for your google search. So you may ask Why Personal Branding, is my Brand not enough? Well Personal Branding allows you to highlight your strength and Passion, it helps people to feel like they know you better which means they trust you more ,even if they have never met you.
The best way to Build Personal Brand is on Social Media nowadays. You need to be were your target market spend most spend their time and create open accounts for them to follow and engage.
To Evolve in Personal branding these 5 are the essential steps
- Learn-You have learn a new skill and practice for excellence
- Work- Implementing the learning's in the real world. Understand the Market and use your skills in real Time.
- Blog- Once you have implemented you get the experience you required you are now ready to blog about it. Without Proper experience there is no use in Blogging as it will just appear as words to your customer . The blog should be a medium through which you gain your audiences trust. It should represent you!
- Consult- Now you have gained trust you have the knowledge and experience. People will start to reach out to you, so you could start consulting others
- Mentor -Mentoring others will help you grow more, you put effort in mentoring and you learn more from it too
- Startup- Start your service and gain your market.
COMMUNICATION
“Thousand True Fans are all you need to Succeed”- Seth Godin
Only with proper communication the Contents will be able to reach the audience. A common Language is important for understanding what the buyer needs and what the seller is trying to sell.
With the help of Communication the following could be achieved.
- Building Awareness -People need to know that the product exists, they need to know that the sale is happening
- Building a Positive Image- For your brand, service, product. So we need to train our staff to be more friendly, Communicate and figure out what the customers need and so on
- Attracting Potential Customers-Its inspiring to actually make the customers to buy. How to attract your customers to come by.
- Building Channel Relationships- We create a relationship with the clients and understand their need of unique marketing,to build channel relationship
- Retaining Customers-The Customer has to come back for our services. So a constant communication with customers regarding our updates and news is to be given
SUMMARY
- Understanding the Laws and Fundamentals of Marketing
- Using Contents, Social Media and Communication for reaching the Customers
- Getting to know the connection between each aspect in Digital Marketing through Integrated Digital Marketing
- Understanding the CATT Marketing Funnel
- Building your Personal Brand
Books Referred
- 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing- Al Ries & Jack Trout
- Purple Cow — Seth Godin
- This is Marketing — Seth Godin
-This Article is for my Digital Deepak Internship Assignment