The Zen Marketeer

Introduction

Marketing goods has been a basic phenomenon of every society. Marketing and sales domains has been in practice for many decades in human society. The objective of marketing is to instill the interest of people in the goods and services while sales refer to actual transaction being carried out. However, one should remember that marketing starts before the products/service comes in to existence and continues to be relevant post-sales as well. However, marketing has not remained a simple phenomenon anymore. For many years, especially at the wake of internet revolution, marketing has undergone tremendous changes in the way it’s carried out. At the same time, now, consumer has become wise, thanks to the varied information platforms available to them. Hence, it has become pertinent to a marketer to find innovative ways to market.

Marketing can be looked at as an creative expression of a marketeer that can be expressed in text or other visual forms. In a world where technologies go obsolete sometimes within months, marketing and sales are the probably only domains which is deeply rooted in human psychology. Though marketing cannot overcome the importance of the ‘quality of the product or service’,  it definitely finds its place when they are created. Investment in marketing activities also gives individuals and organizations a measurable and reliable ROI.

This article brings about the science involved in marketing and ways through which it crosses the path with creative expressions of a marketeer. The article will also lay down the understanding of economics and importance of communication skills for a marketeer. Further, this article will address the important differences in traditional and digital marketing techniques, introduce a CATT marketing funnel model and integrated marketing approach. At last, we will discuss the power of personal branding briefly.

The Rise of the Internet and Indian Demography

India has already been ranked as the second largest online market worldwide in 2019 after China. It has been estimated that, in next five years India will add 300 million¹ more internet users taking the projected tally to over 974 million people i.e. we are looking at an estimated growth of ~39% in coming five years. Growth of internet users is also the result of corresponding penetration of mobile phones that makes internet access easy. It’s estimated that almost 64% of the internet users access it using mobile phones². The growth of internet has been dynamic in nature, in urban as well as rural areas. 

Internet Users in India

It would also be pertinent to look at the demographics of people who are fueling the rise in internet usage. Indian demographics can be divided in to 3 sub-parts viz. India 1, India 2 and India 3 as depicted in the following Picture³.  

Indian Demographic Sub-categories by Mr. Sujith Pai ³

This sub-categorization is very important from marketer’s perspective, as it depicts the nature of their target market. Success in marketing is defined mainly by defining the target audience. This is the first step followed by which all other activities entail such as designing communication strategies, writing content that will connect with the target audience and selecting the platform where these target audience will be present. Hence, a Zen marketeer will always have eyes and ears open to the changes in the economics and demographics of the market in which (s)he is active. A wise marketeer would make use of such statistic in order to decide ‘where’ to compete.

Traditional Vs Digital Marketing

In a world of digital marketing, one often forgets that it’s more about marketing than digital tool usage. Traditional marketing entails media like television, radio, billboards, face-to-face, physical print and placement/POP (point of purchase). There have been various literature available that stress importance of such media when we have to address mass. This also means the product or service being marketed has mass and widespread applications. However, traditional media comes with some disadvantages. First of all, marketer cannot personalize his/her message to the target audience. Secondly, measuring the effectiveness of marketing activities using traditional media channels poses an unique challenge. Third important aspect of the traditional marketing approach is its ‘static’ nature. Marketer cannot update his/her approach once activities are executed.

On the other hand, digital marketing has empowered marketers to craft personalize message to their audience. Digital marketing also allows a much deeper insights into the personalities of the target audience and using the tools digital marketer is in better position to understand what kind of content is getting consumed by whom and when. This also gives an opportunity to ‘measure’ the ROI of digital marketing activities directly in terms of “sale” or indirectly in terms of the “engagement”. In addition, digital marketing is ‘dynamic’ in nature where marketer can update his/her approach based on the ‘live’ feedback that can be obtained often via various tools.

‘it is not about doing digital marketing, it is about marketing effectively in a digital world’

                                                                                                 Menezes, CEO, Diageo

The CATT Formula for Success

The digital world also brings unique challenges more importantly the ‘noise’. It’s all external pieces of communication that may interfere or disrupt the intended message. We have abundance of noise that leads to clutter, lack of credibility and eventually dilution of the intended message, giving way to spam. Hence, in order to succeed in a market perforated by ‘noise’, the Zen marketeer can rely upon CATT formula for achieving success. This model is proposed by Digital Deepak. The model states that

Wealth=n^CATT

Where,

Wealth= success/ROI                     N= niche category selected                         C= content         

A= attention                      T= trust                T= transaction

So as per this model, marketing success is mainly dependent upon the good quality content which can attract audience’s attention. Quality content, which addresses concerns of the target audience and gives solution to them, is also the key to build trust. Trust later is leveraged to generate transaction. However, wealth creation or say ROI generation is mainly dependent upon the niche that has been selected by an individual or organization. You can recall our previous discussion where marketer can make use of all the data (economic and demographic alike) in order to choose such a domain where (s)he is capable of defining the ‘persona’ of target market to be able to offer personalized content and solution.

Holistic Marketing: Traditional plus Digital

Digital marketing entails various activities like email marketing, content marketing, social media marketing (SMM), SEO, paid advertising that can lead the target audience to transact for the offering. However, today the consumers use multiple channels to seek information. This is also referred to as the ‘media fragmentation’. It can be observed that the audience interacts and engages differently on different media. Hence, singular approach of using only one method of digital marketing may not yield good result. For example, when we talk about social media, a person is present on different platforms and the level of engagement on these platforms may not be same. Also, consumers can choose when, how to interact with brands. Hence, an integrated digital marketing approach will yield far better results as the chances of engaging audience increases as number of interaction increase with multiple digital activities. 

Integrated Digital Marketing Approach

A holistic view towards marketing will include the use of traditional marketing medial along with integrated digital marketing activities. It has been proven that, in some of the domains, traditional marketing has equal importance if not more when designing marketing activities. For example, in B2B market, print media still has weightage where people may prefer reading a printed magazine. Hence, depending upon the product and industry, one may have to go for holistic approach.

Personal Branding: Boon or Bane?

Many organizations term their employees as their brand ambassador. Similarly, once’s digital footprints define one’s image and can also create a brand out of it. It’s the image or a perception that people have about you. Personal branding is mostly a self-promotion to showcase the kind of person you’re and your strengths. Personal brand is not created over-night. It’s a process, which is also termed as Mass-Trust Blueprint by Digital Deepak. It involves following steps:

1. Learning and unlearning
2. Work to implement your learnings
3. Content creation through blogs/websites etc.
4. Become consultant to others seeking solution
5. Mentoring the other like-minded individuals
6. Become an entrepreneur to offer own product/service to the existing problem

   

   MassTrust Blueprint by Digital Deepak
   

However, personal branding or say self-promotion is a double edged sword. Personal branding definitely helps people understand your knowledge level and which problem you’re able to solve for them. It also helps in giving personal touch to the offering. You as an influencer can enjoy authority, your content can be consumed by many and trust building can be easier compared to a novel person. In short, as a personal brand you can achieve most of the aspects mentioned in CATT model.

However, there’s downside to personal branding. Personal branding may not always help your brand. You as an influencer can be stereotyped and overselling can create negative mind-set among the audience. Hence, caution has to be exercised while self-promoting.

Conclusion:

The internet revolution and penetration has given new avenues to marketers, which are different that the usual traditional methods of marketing. The digital marketing has become norm this new world. The digital marketing has many positives and its dynamic nature helps marketers to control marketing activities and change/adapt as per the situation. However, this also pose some unique challenges to marketers. It has also empowered consumers and they, in turn, often opt for multiple channels to seek information or engage. This multiplicity of channels make it an imperative for a marketer to opt for integrated digital marketing approach or, many-a-times, an holistic approach to combine traditional and integrated digital marketing methods. A Zen marketeer is the one who can create ROI by choosing a right niche, with a right content for the right audience on the right platform at the right time. The Zen marketeer is also the one who can make use of power of personal branding appropriately to become a distinguished brand in the clutter of digital world as he understands that digital marketing is more about marketing than digital.

References:

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/255146/number-of-internet-users-in-india/ accessed on 15^th August 2020
2. https://www.statista.com/statistics/558610/number-of-mobile-internet-user-in-india/ accessed on 15^th August 2020
3. https://blog.usejournal.com/india2-english-tax-and-building-for-the-next-billion-users-198701f0a7a6 accessed on 16th August 2020