Is it worth investing time, energy, and money in acquiring the knowledge of Digital Marketing?

Shashirekha K S
8 min readMay 20, 2021

After certain point in a job , you would like to become an enterpreneur so that you can help and serve the people in your own way.

You can be in any profession like chartered Accountant, Lawyer, Doctor, Teacher or an Architect etc.

you will definitely require marketing skills to attract people into your service to create an awareness of your existence.

Next question comes to our mind is it worth in investing time, energy and money in acquiring the knowledge of Digital Marketing?

Any time the answer is yes because it adds on to your existing skill.

But lets analyze how acquiring the knowledge of the Digital Marketing will be helpful.

Marketing is rooted in the minds of human psychology.

  • Marketing is an evergreen area as this skill is required to buy and sell any product.
  • Marketing starts before creating the product.
  • It starts with understanding the customer and customer’s need that leads to creating the product that fits.
  • Develop a product based on customer needs the product will sell itself without marketing.
  • Marketing is about sending the right message to the right person at the right time.
  • Marketing is not just selling. It is also about keeping an existing customer happy by communicating with them so that they can remain a customer for life.
  • The purpose of marketing is to build a brand and capture a position in the minds of the consumers.
  • Marketing aims to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.
  • Marketing aims to make selling superfluous — Peter Drucker
  • Marketing not just helps people discover the product but also has a good perception of the product.
  • Marketing is a game of trust with a lot of people.
  • Marketing education has a long shelf life because it is rooted in human psychology and is required in understanding the market.
  • Marketing can’t be outsourced completely to a marketing agency. The founder should be a marketer.

Marketing is the most valuable investment in a business .because it gives direct returns in business. Everything else like production,Manufacturing, HR, Accounting, Administration is an expense that doesn’t give immediate ROI (Return of Investment).

Building a strong Brand :

  • Don’t be the number one, be the only one.
  • Choose a category and become a leader in that category. Deciding where to compete is half your success.
  • Google and Zoom are brand names that have become verbs.
  • If you cannot be a leader in a category then be a leader in a sub-category:

people remember the first person who landed on the moon. But people remembering the second person is only 40%.

People remember who was the first PM of the country but they hardly remember the second or third. But they remember the first Women PM of the country.

Hence the conclusion is People remember the number 1 player or number 1 player in a subcategory.

Importance of Communication Skills

  • Good Marketing is all about good communication
  • Good communication doesn’t mean sophisticated English.
  • Good communication doesn’t care about vocabulary or Grammar.
  • Good communication is to transfer my thoughts to the consumer effectively.
  • Write as you talk to people. People don’t want a very complicated English
  • Join a conversation in people’s minds. It should be simple and very touching.
  • Always ask a question about a topic like

Aren’t we all getting house arrest due to lockdown ( situation due to coronavirus)?

So it shows that people interact with the same state of mind (whether pain, happiness, etc) as they are undergoing and will respond where you can take the conversation further and build trust.

  • Write a lot. Writing slows down your thought process and gives you clarity and organizes them.
  • Watch stand-up comedy shows and sitcoms so that you can think in English.

Global Economics and Marketing :

Every Entrepreneur should learn about Global Economics to make decisions in their business based on Economics.

A country’s economy goes up as the average age of the country goes up.

Developing countries are better to try new businesses.

India’s average age is 28 years. Hence the business which satisfies the customer needs will grow in young India.

The young people will require a car, house, groceries, insurance, fitness equipment, mobiles, laptops, computers, etc to their standard of living. More and more people will take loans from the bank and repay them with interest which will add to the growth of the economy.

When there is a recession i.e when most of the customers repay the entire loan with interest before the timeline then the central bank reduces the interest rates on the loan so that the people take the loan again. This process helps in reviving the economy.

Recession keeps the strong companies in the market and drives out the weak companies from the market.

India’s wealth is having target customers of around 30–50 million with buying power.

Target customers have credit cards, have a laptop/desktop, have a car, make more than 5 lakhs per year in income.

Target customers are concentrated in the top 10 cities of India. They speak English

Traditional Marketing :

Traditional marketing uses traditional media like magazines and newspapers

Pros

  • TV has a reach of 800 million to 1 billion people.
  • Radio has a reach 65% of the Indian population
  • Newspapers have a reach of 465 Million.
  • They are impactful (visualizing effect) and easy to understand.
  • Printing marketing materials are more permanent
  • They are more Memorable

Cons

  • Hard to measure
  • It is Expensive
  • No direct interaction

Digital Marketing

. Digital marketing uses digital media, such as social media or websites.

Pros

  • The reach of Digital Marketing is nowhere close to TV based on numbers alone.
  • It is the best medium to reach the affluent English-speaking population in India with approximately 100 Million Users.
  • They are potentially annoying.
  • They are less permanent.
  • They are constantly evolving.
  • Measurable.
  • They have targeted and engaging customers.

CATT Marketing Funnel :

· It means Content, Attention, Trust, and Transaction

· Wealth= n^ CATT

· Where ^ denotes power. Where your niche (n) will be successful and power It means Content, Attention, Trust, and Transaction

· Wealth= n^ CATT

· Where ^ denotes power. Where your niche (n) will be successful and powerful with the CATT that you will apply

· [N] — — stand for Niche. It is that area in which you have the passion to do work in depth without getting bored.

· You have to choose Niche to the hungry market. Helping them to solve their problems with products and services.

· [C] stands for Content. Create useful content that attracts people from your niche, Blog posts, videos, lead Magnets, live webinars, etc

· [A] Attention: Drive Attention to your content using SEO, Social Media, paid Ads, and Referrals

· [T] Trust: Build trust with your audience with Tripwires, marketing automation, and retargeting

· [T] Transaction: Convert your leads into customers with natural sales methods.

You should have passion, Talent, and Market for the Niche that you have selected.

While selecting the Niche you have to consider the following points

Is there a market for the Niche?

Can you make money with the skill that you have?

Ex: You love drawing different rangoli designs.

Do you think it can fetch money to run your house?

I guess the answer is no. So you have passion but no Market.

Hence it is necessary to have all the three that are Passion, Talent, and Market for the Niche. Then only marketing can fetch the desire ROI (Return of Investment).

The Integrated Digital Marketing Framework

Digital marketing consists of a lot of modules. Learning individual modules is very big in itself. Hence it is advisable to go for an integrated approach of learning them and implementing them which yields great results.

The integrated digital marketing consists of the following modules

1. Content: The quality and relevant content builds customer trust, engages the customer, builds a tribe. Hence builds a community of people.

2. Email: It is the most powerful tool in communicating with the customer about the product. You can send out new content and inform the customer about various offers.

3. Social Media: is like meeting focused people. They give genuine feedback and suggestions which helps in improving them. people may not be good at transactions in a social environment.

4. Search: Helps potential customers to find your content and helps the customer to find you and take actions. This works best when it is not tampered with.

5. Ads: The paid ads accelerate integrated digital marketing. It drives traffic to the content and helps the potential customer and the seller to get connected and hence the sales happen fast.

Power of Personal Branding:

The best known will always beat the best. Visibility is very important. Although you may be very good at the subject, if your visibility is not present then people can’t approach you.

Nobody will discover you are the best without you having to market yourself

People want to hear from people not from brands.

Elon musk has a bigger following than his companies SpaceX and Tesla.

A personal brand becomes an influencer and a brand ambassador for the companies that they run.

Mass Trust Blueprint :

Learn: learn a new skill through concepts, facts, and procedures. Understand the concepts. Remember the facts and practice the procedures.

Work: Put your new skill to work. Go from practice to implementation. Implementing it in the real world will give you a better understanding.

Blog: Write about what you have learned and experienced through your work. When you write, you understand it better . You will also start building your personal brand.

Consult: Now that you have a personal brand through your blog, you have work experience and have learned the fundamentals, start consulting other businesses instead of working for them.

Mentor: Mentor others who want to become like you. Mentoring will help you scale your understanding to a whole new level.

Startup: Start your own product or service business with the understanding that you have developed about the market, the problems, and your own skill.

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