Marketing Concepts Explained | 7 ‘P’s of Marketing | Marketing Fundamentals

Introduction:

Hey business owners, do you want to learn Marketing concept? This is the right place to understand this. Every industry wants to increase their brand awareness and reputation as well as they want to spread brand messages to boost business sales. Even though the quality of products or services are good (sometimes better than their competitors)  they fail to sell. Why this happens is only because of poor Marketing ideas or bad implementation or both. In this article I am going to teach you Concepts of Marketing in which you will find all your answers. This article will be useful for business owners and professionals.

1. Fundamentals of Marketing:

The very very first question will arrive in your mind is What is marketing? It is nothing but showing your company’s product/services to customers in the best possible way. Let’s start with marketing principles.

The 7 ‘P’s of Marketing

• Price: How much your product should cost?
• Place: From where customers purchase your product. (Online/Visit store) ?
• Product: What are you selling?
• Promotion: You have many channels through which you can promote products/services.
• People: Who you are selling?
• Process: Standardization, Service delivery. Specifically related to the service industry.
• Physical Evidence: Customer wants to receive something physical to validate their purchase.

2. Digital marketing vs. Traditional marketing:

You can refer my mind map to understand marketing concept.

Technology has changed the marketing medium. When you start marketing your business through social media channels then the audience becomes familiar with your content which helps you to build trust with them. You might be wondering as a businessman, why do I need to gain trust? Trust is the foundation for your business. In the next section I will discuss more about this.

CATT Marketing Funnel:

I will explain to you first what a funnel is. A funnel is the set of steps a visitor needs to go through before they can reach the conversion. A funnel will filter out the high quality leads (a lead is an individual or organization with an interest in what you are selling). You cannot sell your product/service to every one. So you need to identify them first.

1. Content– To gain trust & attention of your audience you need high quality content. Through content you can tell your audience how your product/service can solve their problem. Examples of content are: blog post/a social media post/video. YouTube content is more trending and you can engage viewers or subsribers with doodle videos.
2. Attention – You can grab the attention of the audience towards content through social media marketing, email,etc.
3. Trust-Trust building is an important part of sales. Without trust, sales cannot happen. Trust grows slowly, sometimes very slowly(it may take many years). The best way to gain trust is by providing value to your leads.
4. Transaction– It is the final stage where the actual transaction happens i.e lead becomes customer.

3. Integrated Digital Marketing:

Integrated Digital Marketing uses all available digital marketing channels such as Search Engine Marketing (paid advertising), Search Engine Optimization(SEO), Email Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Digital Display Marketing and Content Marketing. Different types of content suit different channels better e.g: Twitter is good for short messages whereas inspirational content works best on Instagram. Nowadays consumers collect information about products/services from facebook, youtube, Instagram which will help them make a buying decision.

1. Search Engine Marketing(SEM): Many people commonly mistake SEM for SEO, although there is a crucial distinction between the two abbreviations. SEM involves the online promotion of a business through its website, by increasing its visibility on the search engines. Usually, this is done through paid advertising. The ads will be only be shown to users and charged only when users click on it. This helped marketers save a ton of money because no money was wasted in untargeted ads.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Because of the competition and higher bidding of keywords, marketers focused more on search engine organic traffic (SEO). If you rank in the top 5 of a search engine then you would get more traffic. Do on-page optimization for your website according to the guidelines set by the search engines.
3. Email Marketing: You can send marketing messages to leads and subscribers. You can publish that content on the blog and email your subscribers a link to that page.
4. Social Media Marketing (SMM): Social media marketing is a powerful way for businesses of all sizes to reach prospects and customers. Social media, when used in a proper manner can bring huge success that other channels never can. It can be used to for Increasing website traffic, Building conversions, Raising brand awareness, Creating a brand identity and positive brand association, Improving communication and interaction with key audiences.
5. Digital Display Marketing: It is graphic advertising on Internet websites, apps or social media through banners or other advertising formats made of text, images, video and audio advertisements that encourage the user to click-through to a landing page and take action (e.g. make a purchase).
6. Content Marketing: content marketing is all about storytelling. With content marketing, you can build trust with your audience, improve conversions, connect with your customers, and generate leads. It does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services. Map the content to the pain point. Then use the right type of content for that problem. Finally, map the content to the buying cycle of the people who have that problem. You can create a social media content calendar so you can promote and manage your content.

Integrated Digital Marketing is like a team with content as the leader and the various other digital marketing methods are like its team members.

Further reading:

Why Businesses Need Digital Marketing?

Digital Marketing

Conclusion:

Marketing is not only just selling but also it’s about fulfilling the needs of customers and also building trust with them. CATT framework can help you to achieve this.

Let me know your thoughts.

Ajay Yelegaonkar