Why Marketing Is More Than Just Selling? — DDIP Week 2 Assignment
Getting people to shell money out of the pocket and to buy your product is not marketing. Solving their issues “profitably” and developing a long-term relationship with them is the purpose of marketing.
This week in the DDIP Internship program was filled with the basic foundations of marketing. From the scientific laws of marketing to learning new concepts like customer funnels, I learned many new things that I was unaware of initially!
Here are some of the most important concepts I learned in week 2 —
1. Road To ₹1 Crore
If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at will change.
One of the primary things I learned this week was the ability to look at “Getting ₹1 Crore” from different lenses. The amount of money you make online is largely dependent on —
- What do you sell?
- How many do you want to sell?
The upward ladder in the image above taught me that you can have multiple ways to reach your goal. Personally, I loved the fact that when you sell ₹100 products and build an audience who’ve bought from you, selling them something else is easier. The customer acquisition cost goes down to zero and your profits then begin to increase from there onwards.
Furthermore, I feel that out of all the choices, selling a high ticket product to fewer people seemed more attractive. However, a big issue in this method is having the right reputation and the skills to convince people to shell out a lot of money. A potential solution, as suggested by Deepak, seems like building up your revenue by slowly starting from the bottom of the chart i.e selling “₹100 product” to over 100,000 people. That should help me build a good funnel for success in the longer run.
2. Communication Skills
Marketing is nothing without communication. If you think about it, every single part of marketing activity involves communicating something to the customer. I realized that in order to be successful in this domain, mastering communication skills are highly important. A particular dialogue that Deepak said stood out in my mind —
“If you have to improve your communication skills, you have to write like you talk.”
A big part of communication is writing skills as well. A great thing has been the fact that Deepak constantly makes all of us interns write something every week. This habit has been keeping my brain on my toes to come up with new content to write, which will turn me into an effective writer by the end of 4 months hopefully!
Fortunately, I believe that I’ve worked very hard over the past few years to build up my communication skills. Having seen my parents communicate effectively in large networking events, I have always had their influence on this life-changing skill.
3. Direct Response Marketing
I was actually stunned to hear that most companies run marketing campaigns but don’t have proper metrics to measure their marketing efforts! In this section, I learned about direct response marketing which gets people to take some action that can later be used to measure the marketing effectiveness.
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In fact, prior to seeing the video, I knew terms like Vanity metrics but never really understood the proper meaning of it. Now when I put it in reference to direct response marketing, I realize why vanity metrics are useless and don’t mean anything in the world of marketing.
4. CATT Marketing Funnel
At first, when I saw the CATT formula, I was kind of intimidated. My mind started wondering why I was learning mathematics in this course. However, it was nothing like I imagined.
The CATT Funnel is a great way to convert cold users into paid customers through a series of strategic steps. I learned how we can use content to drive customers to our products/services, build a good trust with them and eventually capitalize on them. Looking forward to learning more about this in detail in the coming weeks!
In order to make anything profitable, selecting the right niche is very important. I learned that finding the perfect niche for myself involves finding the right combination of a field where I have talent and passion for the topic along with a strong market that can help me earn revenue as well.
5. Integrated Digital Marketing
Running only email marketing campaigns or simply doing Search Engine Optimization will never give the dream marketing results. In a modern-day world where we have multiple ways to reach customers, why should we settle only for one channel? That’s what Deepak talks about in week 2
People are cluttered with huge media noise around, so why will they even take action if you have one touchpoint between your brand and the customers?
The best way to resolve this issue is to create an integrated marketing plan, one that connects multiple channels. For instance, in the diagram below, we can picture how multiple digital marketing channels can be connected together to drive conversions for us.
Conclusion
To sum it up, I think what I truly learned this week was the importance and depth of marketing. The biggest takeaway from this week is that reaching the ideal customer at the right time with the right message at the right place is extremely powerful. It can completely shape the way people perceive the brand and its positioning in their minds.
Well, I guess that brings us to a wrap! In the next week, the plan is to learn how to discover a niche. I am super excited about that one because I am truly confused with multiple ideas to go after. I guess next week might bring clarity on the same!
Until then take care, everyone!
Pradnyesh 🙌
This blogpost exercise was the second assignment and part of the 4-month Digital Deepak Internship Program. If you are curious about my experience with the entire program, do feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn.
