able to create products/services that just fits in.
Marketing is rooted in human psychology and always gives immediate ROI (Return on Investment).
Philip Kotler defines marketing as “the science and art of exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit. Marketing identifies unfulfilled needs and desires. It defines, measures, and quantifies the size of the identified market and the profit potential.
I hope you are still with me until this point in learning the basics of digital marketing. You would have understood that marketing is not just about Advertising/Promotion, Sales, or Copywriting.
These are only the components of marketing.
It’s about building relations. There are many mediums that you can use to make your products/services reach your customer.
You can put it in the form of an ad, brochure, post, page, press release, or even a social media account, etc.
Purpose Of Marketing
If you want to learn the basics of digital marketing, You need to understand the purpose of marketing is to build a brand & to capture a position in the minds of the people.
Now how do you capture that position?
You will be able to do so by creating that great product that caters to the needs of your customer by really understanding them.
Once you are able to create a great product that fits your customer’s needs, it will sell itself.
These customers will become your brand ambassadors and share the word of mouth. This is the best channel of marketing ever.
Now you need to keep those customers happy by communicating with them so that they remain your customers for life.
You can use the power of communication to transfer your thoughts effectively. This will grow your business and turn it into a brand.
I hope you would have got a rough idea about what marketing really is and got some basics of digital marketing. Now let’s try to understand how can you build a brand.
We learned earlier that the purpose of marketing is to build a brand and create a position in the minds of your customer. Now let’s try to understand how we can build a brand and acquire that position.
Building a Brand
This requires you to understand and master marketing. You need to be a leader in your category or your niche.
We will talk about choosing your niche later in this article.
You need to understand that you will always have an edge if you are able to be the leader in your niche or category.
If you are unable to be the first in your category or niche, try to create a new category in which you can be the first.
The brands which maintain their leadership always become generic like Xerox, Scotch tape, or Coke.
Also it impacts the prospect’s mind and they always remember the first.
For example, who doesn’t know the first person to land on the moon was Neil Armstrong. However, we have no idea about the second person to land on the moon.
Honestly, it doesn’t matter to us.
Now before being first in the marketplace, You need to be first in the mind of your prospect.
Once your prospect has made their mind about some product or service, You can do nothing about changing it.
You have to be the first one to get into your prospect’s mind. Get that revolutionary idea into the mind of your prospect.
A War Of Perceptions
Marketing is also a war of perceptions, not products. Thus, the mind will always outweigh the market.
People will care less about how awesome your product or service is. They will rather care more about how awesome they are going to feel.
So if you are selling a great weight loss product, they will care less about your product. They will care more about the feeling of having a great slim body.
Remember that everything that exists in the world of marketing are perceptions created in the minds of the prospect’s or the customers.
So focus your marketing programs on perceptions and study how perceptions are formed.
Now, You need to Own a word in the prospect’s mind like IBM owns the word “computer”. Coke owns the word “Cola” and Mercedes owns “engineering”, and so on.
Once you are able to be a leader in a category, You will be easily able to own a word in the mind of the prospect.
You need to stand for something and not for everything and let all your focus on that one thing. The essence of marketing is narrowing the focus.
Do remember that the minds of a prospect are selective in nature and there is a hierarchy in the minds of prospects while making decisions.
So, while making your strategy, you need to know which rung you occupy on that ladder.
You can be on any spot like 1, 2 or 3, You should turn your position into an advantage. There’s a relationship between the market share and your position on the ladder in the prospect’s mind.
Now this ladder gradually becomes a two-horse race. Early on, a new category or niche is a ladder of many rungs and all compete with each other however every market becomes a two rung affair.
We have lots of examples in India as well to understand it better like Ola and Uber, Paytm and Gpay or Zomato and Swiggy.
You can get deeper into understanding the basics of digital marketing and learn concepts.
They are beautifully explained by Al Ries and Jack Trout in their book “The 22 immutable laws of marketing”.
You can also read this book here to get a better perspective on the basics of marketing and all the laws that govern it.
If you have reached this point and are still reading, I am sure your perception of marketing has already changed.
Now you can easily understand that marketing is rooted more in human psychology than anything else.
What is Digital Marketing?
In simple terms, Digital Marketing or online marketing is a process of doing marketing via electronic mediums. It uses different devices, Platforms, Digital media & digital technology to reach the audience and promote products/services.
You can utilize these mediums to achieve your marketing objectives and goals.
It’s all about utilizing the digital technology in an efficient manner to achieve your marketing goals. It uses the same fundamentals of marketing that you would use offline.
There are many components of Digital Marketing. In this guide to the basics of digital marketing, I will talk about a few of them.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
SEO is a process that helps you to rank at the top of the search engine results page(SERP). It can be achieved by optimizing your content and reach.
For example, whenever you search for anything on Google or other search engines, the best-optimized website will show on the top of the list.
This website will be ranking on top for this keyword or search query that you put in the search box.
There are different ways to do SEO like on-page, off-page, link building, etc for ranking higher on the search engine. This will help you to get a lot of organic traffic or visitors to your business website or blog.
PPC (Pay Per Click)
PPC is a process of paid advertisement on the search engine results page.
These ads appear on the top of the search engine and whenever someone clicks on these ads you will be charged for every click.
You can tailor your ads to appear for certain search terms. These ads can be very effective as they rely on data received from user’s online behavior and can be used to get lots of visitors to your business website by showing them the relevant ads for their search query.
Social Media Marketing
In social media marketing, You utilize social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Linkedin, etc to reach your audience.
You can create engaging content to attract more customers and at the same time communicate with your existing customers.
It will enable you to analyze your results and run social media advertisements to achieve your marketing goals.
It will help you in building your brand, increase conversion and drive website traffic.
Email Marketing
You can consider Email marketing as one of the most effective ways to get leads, nurture them and convert them into your customers.
It’s a process of sending emails to your prospects and customers. Here you will be able to connect with your prospect. You can share information, sell your products or just promote your brand.
You will be able to own this list of your prospects or leads rather than depending on social platforms that can ban your account anytime.
Content Marketing
It’s a form of marketing that usually focuses on creating relevant, consistent, and valuable content to attract your target audience.
Content Marketing is a long term strategy that helps you to build a relationship with your audience. You need to make sure that the content you create is of high quality.
You can use different types of content formats for your content marketing like Ebooks, case studies, Webinars, Infographics, etc. This will help you to attract more customers and grow your business.
Apart from all these listed above, there are also other components of digital marketing like Mobile marketing, Automation marketing, etc.
If you are still with me until this point, I hope you got a good idea about the basics of online marketing and its fundamentals.
Now, let’s try to focus on digital marketing vs traditional marketing.
I will talk about the pros and cons of both forms of marketing and you can decide which one would you like to use for your marketing goals.
Basics of Digital Vs Traditional Marketing
We know that Digital or online marketing is the process of utilizing digital channels for our marketing goals.
Traditional marketing is a process that involves traditional channels like printed media, billboards, Television, etc.
Traditional Marketing can be very impactful and memorable. If you use broadcasting channels like Tv and radio, it can reach millions of people and can prove really beneficial.
However, the traditional form of marketing can be very expensive and difficult to measure. As, there is no direct interaction with your audience or customer.
Whereas the digital form of marketing is a targeted form of marketing. You can easily measure, track and engage with your audience or customer.
But, this form of marketing keeps on evolving and can also be easily ignored by your target audience.
If you are looking to reach the entire country and can afford a traditional marketing approach, You can integrate it into your marketing strategy.
Whereas, if you are looking to reach a targeted audience at an economical price, you can take advantage of digital or online marketing.
I hope you got the difference.
Direct Response Marketing.
Whenever you see an ad in the newspaper with a phone number to call that’s an example of direct response marketing.
Similarly, It can also be an ad on the internet that is leading to a website with a lead form
It’s designed to prompt the prospect to give instant response and take action.
All those late-night infomercials on Tv or a sales page with a product link to purchase their products are also examples of direct response marketing.
We have covered the basics of digital marketing, its fundamentals, and its types. I hope you have been following me till here.
As I said earlier in this guide to the basics of digital marketing, I will now show you a proven 5 step formula.
I have implemented the same basics of digital marketing and was able to successfully start a blog.
This formula if implemented correctly will help you to start a new blog/business or grow your existing one.
The CATT Marketing Funnel
Wealth = n^CATT
Where n = niche
When you start a new business or a blog, You first need to choose your niche and this will determine your success and wealth.
You need 3 things to choose the perfect niche for yourself.
Talent: You should have the skill or you should acquire the skill.
Passion: You need to be passionate about the skill you have or the skill you choose to master.
Market: There has to be a market for that skill. Else, it all will go down the drain.
C= Content
Now you go ahead and create high-quality original content like blog posts, lead magnets, live webinars, videos, etc in your niche. You need to attract the audience from your niche to read your content.
A= Attention
Once you create high-quality content and are ready to provide value to your audience. You need to showcase it by driving attention (traffic) to your content.
You can use techniques like Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media, Paid advertisement, and Referrals to achieve this goal.
T= Trust
Now when you have the attention of the people and they are also sharing your content on different platforms. All you need to do is to build trust with your audience. There are a few ways to do so.
You can do Marketing Automation, Tripwires & Retargeting to build this trust.
T= Transaction
You have created quality content, grabbed attention from people, and also built trust. All this is going to help you to get leads. Now it’s time to convert those leads into your customers with natural sales methods.
Now we will also learn about a framework that is used to actually drive the CATT funnel.
Integrated Digital Marketing
Here, you need to understand that you are required to utilize all the channels to get the wheel rolling.
You have to integrate different components of digital marketing together to achieve great results.
If you are able to implement all these steps correctly, You will achieve success. This approach can help you to start your own blog/ business or grow your existing business.
If you are still with me unit this point, I hope that you have got the basics of digital marketing. Also, you are looking to learn more about this.
I will also help you to understand and learn personal branding and why it plays a vital role to achieve greater results.
The Power of Personal Branding
We know many great people with their names rather than the companies they run. They make good use of personal branding to achieve that.
Everyone knows Elon musk but do you also know the names of the companies he runs?
There are a majority of people who would have no idea about Space X or Tesla however they would be familiar with the name Elon Musk. That’s the power of personal branding.
Remember this, “ The best known will always beat the best”.
So you need to market your own self and be known to people. It will help you to become an influencer in your niche and you will become a brand ambassador for the companies that you run.
We all like to hear from people rather than some brands, Don’t we?
Evolution of Personal Brand
Now, We will look at the 6 steps that can help you to start and grow your personal brand using the basics of digital marketing.
Here’s the mass trust blueprint that you can use to evolve as a personal brand.
Step 1 : Learn
You can start your journey by learning a new skill or nurturing your existing skill. It can be done through concepts, facts, and procedures.
Ensure that you understand all the concepts well and also remember the facts. It will help you when you progress to step 3.
Now we need to put them into practice. As they say, practice makes a man perfect. So you will follow this and keep learning and practicing.
Step 2 : Work
Here you will put all that practice into action with some real projects. There are many ways to do so.
You can get an internship or start a job. You can also try freelancing or start your own project. Whatever you choose, just make sure to do it efficiently.
Step 3: Blog
This is something where you will give yourself an edge and be better than the rest. You need to put down all those learnings and experiences that you have gained over time.
In addition to this, It will make you understand things better and also help in building your personal brand.
Step 4: Consult
By now you will have learned all that you could and gained real-time experience. You will have also built your personal brand through your blog.
And If you have done all the 3 steps perfectly you can move into consulting other businesses rather than working for them. You can even do it without charging them for it.
Step 5: Mentor
This step will take you to a whole new level, You will be able to transform yourself from here. You would have got the expertise to mentor people.
It will also help you to get deeper into your niche and master it. You can create courses, webinars, etc, and guide a lot of people who wish to become like you.
Step 6: Start-Up
People want to directly jump to this step but unless you don’t follow each step, You might not be able to create a successful Startup.
If you have followed all the above steps, It’s time to start your own product/service business.
By now you will be well versed with your market and the problems it faces. You will be able to create the solutions for those problems.
The experiences that you would have gained will help you to understand the needs of your customers and you will be able to create that great product/service that I have been emphasizing on.
You will be able to create a successful business using all the skills that you would have developed.
Conclusion
I hope that you are still reading and have gained some insights into the basics of digital marketing.
It has always been essential for all businesses from startups to unicorns. Big businesses have always leveraged marketing for achieving their goals.
With the invention of the Internet, Marketing took a different approach. It went online and transformed from traditional to digital with time.
With this transformation of marketing from expensive traditional to economical digital or internet marketing, all types of businesses and individuals did benefit from it.
I hope that after reading this guide on the basics of digital marketing, You would have changed your perception of marketing. This article is inspired by the teachings of my digital mentor Mr. Deepak Kanakaraju through his Internship program.
I have also tried to put forward my learnings and experiences about marketing. That I have gained over the past 5 years of working in different domains and running small businesses.
If you follow this ultimate guide to the basics of digital marketing, I can assure you that you will be able to kickstart your online marketing journey and build your personal brand.
I hope you liked this guide. I will also be updating an in-depth article on Market research and Niche Selection soon. It will help you to identify and choose your niche.
You can subscribe to the newsletter to get it directly in your email inbox. Thank you for reading, please feel free to drop anysuggestions, feedback, or valuable thoughts in the comment box.
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