Marketing concepts for the aspiring new-age digital millionaire
In this article, I am explaining few concepts of Marketing, Finding Niche, and building wealth using few frameworks. If you are an aspiring millionaire, this is something you should definitely not miss!
What is Marketing?
Have you ever wondered how a certain group of people are too good in their business? For a given business domain, there are people who make a killing while there are people who hardly make their ends meet. This is because the people who perform best are the ones who have the highest level of Product-Market Fit (PMF). It all boils down to “THE PRODUCT”. Catering the right product to the right market is Marketing. A good marketer is someone who communicates the benefits and features of the product to the market in such a way that a successful financial transaction happens. Bad marketing can result in poor sales performance even if there is a right product that’s made for the right market.
Good Marketing makes the company look smart. Great Marketing makes the customer feel smart. — Joe Chernov.
Let’s take the example of TATA Nano. This is a really great product suiting the aspirations of Middle class and lower-middle-class consumer, who doesn’t want to own a second-hand car. Leaving aside the technical glitches, TATA had positioned the car as “cheapest”, which hurt the feelings of an Indian consumer. Even though it would have been a luxury for families who just owned a scooter or any two-wheeler for years, studies suggest that owning the cheapest car would also hurt their social status.
Importance of Communication in Marketing
Alright, we learned that the basic necessity itself is having the right product. This is a fact as true as Sun rises in the east and sets in the west. You cannot have a product that is 99.9% good. A great business is something that has a 100% good product that fits the needs of the target customer. Let’s consider that you have the 100% good product ready. Although “we” are convinced about the goodness of the product, the end customer doesn’t have to be necessarily convinced. Here comes the most important aspect of communication. Beth Comstock says,
“You can’t sell anything if you can’t tell anything”.
The product has to be communicated in the most simple yet understandable manner for the end customer.
The Power of Word of Mouth Marketing
The goal of any business is to make higher sales at a lesser advertising cost. The only way for it to be achieved is to have the customers sell your product i.e., “WORD OF THE MOUTH”. They say, “A satisfied customer is the best salesman a company could ever have”. Seth Godin says,
“The secret to marketing success is no secret at all: Word of mouth is all that matters”.
However, to get there, we need an initial set of customers. As Digital Deepak says, to have a snowball effect, you need to have the initial base of customers. So that’s where the marketing does the real work.
What is “Digital” Marketing?
Marketing is a superset of advertising, sales, and copyrighting. It comprises all. If we look around and observe things around us. Every single thing is some form of marketing. A new candidate selling himself and communicating about all the ways he/she can add value to the company is nothing but marketing. A mother convincing her kid to eat by telling stories of how Popeye gets stronger by eating spinach is another form of marketing. All the advertisements in the newspapers, billboards, online channels such as Facebook, Instagram, etc., are marketing again. So marketing forms the base. It is just the medium that differs. In the same way, “Digital Marketing” is still the otherwise marketing, only in a different medium. The best thing about Digital Marketing is that you can target the ad to a particular persona using tools such as Facebook Ad Manager. These are best suited for ads where you want to reach a particular audience to sell your product or service. On the other hand, there are other tools such as Google Ads where you show your ad to a particular audience who are already searching for that particular product or service.
When it comes to Digital Marketing there are a lot of facets to it. Digital Marketing is not only about creating an Ad on Facebook or Instagram and promoting it. It is not only Search Engine Optimisation to rank the website at the top of Google search. It is not about generating hundreds of thousands of leads and promoting your products or services through email marketing. Digital Marketing is the entirety of it. If you have a closer look, everything is connected. Although everything that we do must translate to money through sales at the end of the process, no stone must be left unturned in undergoing every part of the digital marketing process. Here is a framework by Digital Deepak, that clearly explains the entire framework of Integrated digital marketing.
Riches are in the niches
Matt Cheuvrant once said,
“You can’t be everything to everyone. But you can be something great for someone”.
In similar lines when it comes to business, one has to be rock solid in a particular domain, and the business has to be known for that. If you take up a particular segment of the industry and think of a brand that serves it, then that’s the best according to you. That means that the brand is unique and has a niche value proposition and that’s the reason you are remembering the brand. Let’s take an example of
- OTT — you could think of Netflix.
2. Best phone maker — perhaps Apple.
3. Best audio Book company — may be Audible
4. Best song streaming company — may be Spotify.
So, if you consider each segment, there are many more competitors, but it’s important to have your own unique angle to it. Let’s take the example of Netflix. They bring the best of the world’s TV series right in front of you. Apple — No one can beat their user interface and security. Audible — vast collection of audiobooks. Spotify — has the best algorithm that suggests your Music discovery.
How to find your niche
If you have ever read about the Japanese concept of Ikigai (meaning, the reason to exist), you can adapt the method of finding your niche. I have a friend by the name Swarajit Alakananda who is based out of Coimbatore. He has a unique startup by the name, “Fix Your Gadget”. Since childhood, his passion was in electronics. Since his childhood, he was fascinated by electronics and would keep working with them. In due course of time, he developed a talent to fix any gadget that is not working. As the word spread, many customers started to bring old gadgets to him to fix it. He realized that there is a market for fixing electronic gadgets and as of now, he keeps getting gadgets from all over India and even abroad. Customers are extremely happy that they are able to fix their favorite old gadgets.
Creating Wealth with your niche
While everyone is moving digital these days, it is imperative that any marketer must be equipped with the tactics of digital marketing. The amount of wealth that any person can create with their product or service is determined by this simple formula,
Wealth = n^ CATT
I’m quoting an example of how this works from our clothing brand, Anveshana. One of our niche(n) products is customized Family twinning outfits. Our target audience is Male or females who are aged 25+, married, and having children. The first step for us is to tell the world what we do. So naturally, we need to build the product base and fill our social media accounts with pictures of various products that we do. That’s what we have done here on Instagram. The other things ways we are also planning to do are posting videos, doing live webinars, etc., This is nothing but building content ( C ). Now, we need to make people aware of our product and services. This is done by grabbing their attention (A) by driving traffic to your social media pages and website using tools such as SEO, Social Media Paid ads, etc., However, it is not necessary that people shall buy once they immediately visit the page. They need to believe in the brand. This is done by creating Trust (T). One way to go about it is to create a product at a lower price to get an entry. Once they see your quality, then perhaps they shall order the main product. So we have come up with entry-level priced “Western Kurtas”. The other way is to collaborate with influencers who are well known and this builds social trust. The next step is the transaction (T), where using natural sales methods, a prospective lead is converted to a customer.
In this way, we intend to build wealth by focusing on our niche following the process of CATT for every niche product of ours.
Getting numbers right to make your desired money
Understanding the numbers behind building wealth makes helps you strategize. Let’s say you want to make Rs. 1 Crore in a span of one year. We need to understand what will be the net profit after all the expenses in selling a product. Let’s say if your net profit is 10%, then you need to sell products worth Rs. 10 Crore to make a 1 crore profit. If you operate at 50% net profit, then we need to sell products for Rs. 2 crores. While this may hold good for a product-based business where you sell a physical product like for e.g., selling electronic gadgets, selling consumer products, etc., it is not so in Service based business. Let’s take the example of Lawyers, Doctors, or business consultants. If they charge Rs. 50,000 per client consultation, then they have to serve 200 clients to make Rs. 1 Crore. Or if they charge Rs. 1,00,000 per client then they have to consult 100 clients to make Rs. 1 Crore.
Importance of Personal Branding
These days, more often it is the people behind the brand that gets the face value. Let’s take the example of Elon Musk. He has become so powerful that his tweets influence the markets. Their personal brand is valued very high. Let’s say if someone like me is coming up with a startup idea. Then it is a whole lot of work for me in raising money, reaching out to customers, etc., It is not the same case with Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. A single tweet from them will do the work. So that’s the power of personal branding. Although these people have gained image value through their years of work, there is a blueprint that everyone must follow. This framework is coined by Digital Deepak as Mass Trust Blueprint for personal branding.
MASS TRUST Blue Print for Personal Branding
For any individual, it is the skill set that matters and defines the person. I love a line from this very famous song, “Mattram ondru than maarathathu” (Change is the only that doesn’t change)from the movie, Kochadaiiyan by Rajinikant. It says,
நீ என்பது உடலா? உயிரா? பெயரா?
மூன்றும் இல்லை — செயல்.
The meaning is that “You are neither defined by your body, nor your life, nor your name. It is your action and what you are capable of achieving is what defines you” So it is imperative for anyone to build the core skill set and what you are able to achieve with that.
This is achieved through Learning. Once the skills are learned, it has to be implemented through any real-world work or personal projects. Once you start documenting your learnings, that’s when it gets ingrained deep in the brains. This is done through blogging and this also helps you to reach out to more people who will get to know more about you. This will result in more opportunities such as consulting. People start to pay for your knowledge, which otherwise will take a lot of time to figure out how to do it. Once you become a consultant, it also means you have the authority over your subject and now you can start mentoring other people to get trained. At this level, your subject knowledge is at the expert level and you can put this to use by creating products or services(Startup) which people will start to buy that will generate recurring revenue. While this completes one cycle of MASS Trust Blueprint, however, please note that learning is a continuous process.
As the saying goes by,
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot Learn, Unlearn and Relearn”. — Alvin Toffler.
“Think Big, Start Small, Act Now”. Great people never shied away from trying. If you have been thinking of starting a new project, this is the time. All the above tips on Marketing, Digital Marketing, Finding Niche, nCATT, MASS Trust would be an eye-opener for you. If you think this article truly added value to you, please leave a comment on what you thought and I would appreciate a true and honest comment.
This article has been written as a part of the second assignment of the Digital Deepak Internship Program.
