Effective marketing hacks to cut through the market
Hello…hello… hello…..Are you struggling to market your product or service?
Do you want that people should know your product or
service?
Are you making a project report on effective
marketing?
Do marketing reviews make you sweat?
Chill! Take a
deep breath! Drink water! Smile!
Start reading the article and stick till the end.
You will find great tips for all your marketing quests!
How
do you see Marketing?
Do you think marketing is selling?
Marketing starts way before a product or service is launched. It starts
with the customer’s understanding. It starts with a need analysis.
Do you find it difficult to understand? Let me make it clear with an example!
When there were so many telecom players, Jio assessed customers’ needs.
It recognized that the customer needed an internet service that was affordable. This was
customer requirement. Jio was launched to provide people with low-cost internet access.
A product that catered to the customers’ needs worked miraculously, and the rest is
history.
Hope this makes the need analysis a little clear.
Of course, a good product is always required to take advantage of marketing efforts. A
good service or a product creates trust among people. This trust can create cascading
effect. If a product continues to deliver up to the expectation of customers, as Jio did,
the brand develops huge trust, referred as MassTrust by Deepak Kanakraju, the digital
marketing mentor, and this trust translates into mouth publicity. No other mode of
marketing is as effective as mouth publicity.
Remember when you wanted to purchase a microwave or a washing machine.
You asked your friend or family member about their product. Your decision of buying a
particular brand was largely influenced by the version of your friend or family member.
If they were satisfied with brand A, you inclined for brand A and if they were
not satisfied by brand A, you chose not to invest in that brand. It happens with almost
everything. Let me share with you my own experience. Recently, I enquired
about schools for my kid. I visited many schools, saw the infrastructure, met the
faculties, and was quite convinced with some options still I made an inquiry to my
peers for feedback. I got good reviews from my family and friends for school A and
therefore, I finally chose school A over many other options. This is a
general phenomenon. Therefore Masstrust converted into mouth publicity is the
best marketing tool.
How
the marketing is done:
Does your product/ service cater to a large set of customers?
Example: Washing powder, Toothpaste, A low-end car like Maruti Alto 800 or
Hyundai Santro, Pizza etc.
Is your product or service targeted to a particular
segment?
Example: Mercedes Benz, watches from Rolex, clothing
by Gucci etc.
Depending upon the target customers ( wide domain or narrow domain) you can select
your marketing mix. If the product caters to a large set of customers, then going for
more traditional channels is beneficial as the product reaches the maximum intended
audience.
E.g. Lot of people use washing powder. There are many areas of our country where
digital presence is almost nil but people of that area also need washing powder. For such
products, pumping marketing budget more into traditional marketing channel like TV,
print, hoardings, radio is beneficial. It does not mean that digital channel should be
ignored, but budget allocation in the digital medium should not be as high as that in
traditional medium.
On the contrary, a segment where the product is targeted to particular segment like
Mercedes Benz, taking a digital route is beneficial over traditional one. Putting lot of
marketing budget in digital channel supported by traditional ones will be a great
strategy.
Whether digital or traditional, no channel can work in isolation. No medium can
claim to cater 100% audience and therefore mix of both channels is a must. What needs
to be decided is the budget allocation and it depends upon the product type and the
range of people the product is catering to.
Also, each channel has advantage and disadvantages over the other and depending upon
the end result, we should select the marketing channel.
Decide
where to compete:
The choice of the playground is very important. Are you entering a category that is
already filled with players or you are carving a new category? If you try to be No1 in a
category that is already filed up, you will take a lot of time and you will have to put a lot
of effort to mark your presence, leave alone the dream of being No1 in that category. But
if you are entering a category where there is no competition, then you take the first-
mover advantage and become the category leader easily. Consumers recognize either
No1 or the
only 1.
Let me explain this with an example.
When ITC Bingo entered the Indian market, the market had already deep-rooted
players like Lays and Uncle Chips, being the two giants, besides local players.
Instead of competing for No1 slot in that space Bingo carved out a niche with the brand
Mad Angles and gave a new dimension to the Indian snack industry. Business Standard
Annual Brand Derby picked Bingo as the most successful launch of 2007. The brand
played with a new offering – a snack with various flavors to a new target group – 16 to
30 years of age.
This way Bingo Mad Angles became the only one in the segment and instantly
became a market leader.
A strong brand image is created by being No1 or by being the only1 in the category.
Xerox, Dalda, Maggie, Rin, Surf are few examples of strong brand image.
For many years, and even today in most part of the country a photocopy means Xerox.
People say, “bring two Xerox of this”. Similarly, instant noodles in India is Maggie.
You can notice that in the Indian context, people might be using any washing powder or
any washing bar but a generic term for washing powder is Surf and for a washing bar
it is Rin.
How
did it happen?
It happened because of a strong brand image. It happened because these brands
delivered consistently over a huge time span. It happened because of
Masstrust and mouth publicity.
Decide the communication of your brand:
When we say strong brand image, communication plays a vital role. As Steve Jobs said,
“Marketing is about values. It’s a complicated and noisy world, and we’re not going to
get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. So we have to
be really clear
about what we want them to know about us.”
Our communication with the world decides what people or consumers think and believe
of us.
Communication gives life to a product. In fact, the transition of a product into a
brand happens through communication.
Is
there any formula for success?
When we say success in terms of marketing, we generally mean a stage where the
product sells by itself. As Peter Drucker said, “ The aim of marketing is to make
selling superfluous”. According to many books and articles marketing is a science of
persuasion to the right person and at the right time. It is a psychological trigger. Since
human psychology is a wide domain therefore a concrete formula for success can not
be defined. Still with his experience, Deepak Kanakraju invented a formula of success
( wealth) that
is a below :
Wealth = N^ CATT
N=Niche
C= Content
A= Attention
T= Trust
T- Transaction
This is a marketing funnel.
He calls it CATT
marketing funnel.
As per the concept, you first have to deliver valuable Content in your niche that will
attract the probable customers to atleast look at you. When you have their Attention,
and you keep on delivering valuable content they develop Trust on you. Now on
the trampoline of trust, they can be brought in the stage of Transaction.
The transaction stage comes through persuasion, through offer and through other modes.
I think, this idea holds good in practical also. We don’t purchase or get influenced by
anything suddenly. The sale or the process of buying happens very slowly. Generally,
the sales transaction is the outcome of :
→ Features and usefulness
of the brand ( Content or call is USP)
→ Our knowledge and
recall of the brand ( Attention)
→ Trust developed on the brand over a period of time. We see it with our peers,
friends
and family and they recommend it (Trust)
When
going digital, don’t rely on just one channel:
They say today’s generation is Digital. If you are marketing on digital medium then use
of integrated digital marketing is a must. When I say integrated, it means that
all the marketing channels like content marketing, social media, paid advertising,
email marketing, SEO etc should work as a single machine. They can
work to benefit through their unique quality and should not be intended towards sales \
only.
Can
you talk to a logo?
A logo creates one-way communication. It says about the company but does not listen to
the consumers. That is where the word and philosophy of “Personal Brand” come
into the picture. I can not send an email to a logo or ask a question to a logo. We all
are humans and love to interact with humans. We love to do
business with humans. Our interaction develops, nurtures relationships, and
enhances trust. This is the reason why Baba Ramdev comes way before Patanjali,
Steve Jobs comes way before Apple.
One might be the best person for a job but someone who is well known will be preferred
to someone who is less known, irrespective of knowledge level and work skills. There
might impressive Yog guru than Baba Ramdev but people know Ramdev and therefore
trust him. Patanjali came into being because of the personal branding of Baba Ramdev.
Tomorrow if Baba Ramdev starts one more brand with any other name, that will also
become popular because of personal branding
of Ramdev.
Personal Branding is a process and it needs evolution. One must follow the proper
path to take it to the full circle and the process is continuous. It’s a process of building
Masstrust.
Conclusion:
I hope that this 10-12 min read gave you a fair picture of marketing. If you are a
marketing guy, then by now you can evaluate your marketing efforts better, use
marketing mix better and communicate with your customers in a more friendly and one-
to-one basis. This article might have given you a clear idea of how you can build wealth
for your brand by using the CATT funnel. I hope your next marketing move will be
more influential.
Do let me know about your thoughts, your takeaways, and your views on the
the usefulness of this article by commenting in the comment box.
If you want to know the whole process of how an ad is created then you can go here.
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