Learn. Do. Teach !! Isn’t it the most meaningful way to grow? If you feel there is a better way, do share in the comments section. I & all readers would love to hear. If you have a wonderful way to grow, I promise it would be my next feature blog!!

The week 2 session (as part of the Digital Internship program by Digital Deepak) has been nothing like a usual Digital Marketing learning session. The week took me to the core purpose of Digital Marketing (err…. Marketing in itself & it’s scope, size & role). It was a learning of sorts to come to know of the reach of TV [ TVs in 197 million households with a total reach of 800 million ], Radio [ 845 million reach ] Print [ 465 million people reachable ] vis a vis Digital [ over 500 million with smartphones of which around 100 million has good spending power ]. It helped me relate with the BIG picture when I saw the all-important statistics about our country population [ 1.3 billion STRONG ], the number of them having a feature phone [ around 500 million ] & the subset group which got access to smartphones [ around 500 million ].

Start wit the END in mind: some famous personality stated this. I am now much more confident & positive about my ability to make a Cr of Income and the plethora of possibilities of achieving this objective: Few offering a lot of money vs Many offering little each to help make my 1st Crore from Digital engagements.

Peter Drucker said: The aim of Marketing is to make selling superfluous, stood out for me to get my marketing lens calibrated. That the product is of paramount importance & the wise advice to not let Marketing become more important than the product humbled me into getting the yardsticks right.

Customer’s place in the big picture; understanding the customer & customer needs in creating a product, selling to the right person (the other two being @ right time with right message) & keeping existing customers with timely communication made me relate & fall in love with the customer all over again. Why? Because I can see the customer start appreciating my product/service and start coming back for it !! Not just that, the customer has become a Brand advocate!!

In the parallel universe of Digital Marketing, it is not a surprise that #MassTrust became the single most powerful/resourceful attribute in clan building exercise.

Why would you not learn something that you love, comes with longer shelf life, is difficult to be disrupted by automation/robots & offers you the freedom to serve from any part of the world?? Welcome to the world of Digital Marketing !!

Speaking of STRONG Brands, I would cite the latest sensation: Zoom !!

Credit : https://www.visualcapitalist.com/zoom-boom-biggest-airlines/

Who could have expected that the pandemic will make this brand a superstar overnight. Now we all say : “Let’s get on Zoom” & not “Lets get on video call or video meeting”. Why? This is because they made themselves available as the best alterative to meeting in person. We all are aware of Skype and no one said: Lets Skype !! The POWERFUL message to me here: There can always be a next superstar brand even in an existing space served by multiple brands.

Current (Apr 2021) valuation of Zoom is $100 billion vs $32 billion pre-pandemic!!

Communication Skills is all about being able to express with the right choice of words & expressions, so the recipient gets the same message as what was intended. This becomes extra important in the space of Marketing as the most important thing we are trying to do in marketing is “Communicate”. By virtue of most of the customers being familiar with engaging with English, “Thinking in English” became the recommended way to get to improve communication.

Proof >> Yes, it is an ongoing process: How we communicated a year ago will look a shade of how we communicate today. When we seek improvement daily, this becomes distinct.

The 3 topics that appealed to me the most are:

1. Digital marketing vs. Traditional marketing.

– Traditional Marketing at its heart had Marketing as the CORE. Make no mistake of seeing Digital Marketing as a separate aspect or subset. Digital Marketing is just another efficient way of conveying the message. Digital Marketers need to realize a marketer at heart is likely to do a better job @ digital marketer who enters the industry or brand as a Digital marketer. Unless you have a marketer inside you (i.e. skin in the game) you may not be able to be the Best Digital Marketer in town for that industry. E.g.: A Consultant/Celebrity Chef has to be a Chef in the first place, right?

2. CATT Marketing Funnel

– As a Six Sigma professional, numbers mean a lot to me. The formula of CATT indeed made me sit up right & pay attention to the benefits it hods for all of us. If you have experience, ROI is the single most topic of interest to clients. CATT model is successful at answering this question:

Wealth=n^CATT

Whether it is a product or a service, one who finds the niche, hits the bull eye. Take example of Paperboat as a brand. They saw their strengths in offering nostalgic memories through carefully crafted beverages & weaving a story & Ad communication around it. Not surprising that their tagline is: drinks & memories. Checkout: http://www.paperboatdrinks.com/

To support this niche, a distinctly powerful & differentiate Content is key. The mix makes the difference: Static/Video/Print/Audit/Bogs & all other available channels together can unleash the power of content to the brand’s advantage.

Whose Attention are we seeking? Tune the content & activity in line with the preferences of these target audience and see the results flow.

Trust, one quality that goes a long way is building brands FAST and sustain the competitive advantage. A great marketing campaign will fail miserably if the brand does not invoke trust, a level of TRUST that towers above the heads & shoulders of competition.

Once a brand gets the previous parameters right, it is but necessary to translate the good work & effort into results for the brand. The customers in fact would line up [ to support such brands as they firmly believe in them & admire their success & growth. Dis it remind of Apple as a brand? To me, Yes!! Do share what brand came to your mind in the comments section.

3. Integrated Digital Marketing

– Have you ever seen a Movie release activity done the respective activity teams in isolation? Let us take a simpler one: A wedding!! Do those involved in the wedding work as separate entities or do they collaborate, plan & execute.

You will say, is it not obvious!! Yes, same is with Digital Marketing. All successful brands have one thing in common: whether it is a new Car Launch or a Brand Push or a multi-year program, they al have an “Integrated Effort” in common. By that I mean: Print/ Press Release/ TV Ads/ Localized PUSH/ Offline activity/ Influencer activity & Digital Marketing go hand in hand. Try it to experience the beauty of “The Sum being more than the total of the pieces in isolation”.

I would end with my learnings on 2 of my favorite topics from week 2: 1) Niche Selection & 2) personal experience with marketing / sales & branding!!

Niche Selection is just like having a Plan A & choosing to not have a Plan B. It comes from the space of conviction that I will choose to put all my might into mastering on one area and doing it so well that the results are a mere by product. I came across an Insta Star [ IG Strategist ]: _socialsam_ who for 3 years ONLY focused on mastering Instagram marketing and today, she is a legend in that space. While I am personally still attending to multiple areas of mastery, I am positive that gradually I will move towards my Niche within marketing/ digital marketing space.