Key ‘Gyan’/’Essence’/’Gist’ points which represents CORE of marketing.
Many a times, I have been asked this question by team members, colleagues, founders etc. that what are some of the key ‘Mantras’ of Marketing which I have learnt in my entire career. In other words key ‘Gyan’ points which represent like a gist (core essence) for marketing.
This made me think to evaluate in deep & then came up with these top 10 mantras. First let’s understand this
There are lots of definitions in books, journals, internet etc. As per me
“Marketing is one of growth lever for a company which comprises of different ways/methods/strategies to make organisation’s target customers AWARE, ACQUIRE, ENGAGE, RETAIN and build a robust brand salience in consumers’ conscious & sub conscious mind”.
Remember Marketing is not advertisement. Advertisement is a way (form) of Marketing i.e. to showcase your messaging. e.g. English is a language to communicate thoughts between two persons. English in itself is not communication. One can also use Hindi as a means of communication. Similarly in Marketing WOM (which doesn’t qualify as an advertisement) is also a form of marketing.
Top 10 ‘Mantras’
To make this more structure, I have devised a framework which is called as 10C’s framework. Each ‘C’ is a mantra for marketeers
1) Consumer (Understand, converse & connect it)
Undoubtedly, Customer is the KING. This stays true forever. Marketeers have not only to understand their customers well but they have to converse (personal touch) & connect with them. Brands should know the entire lifecycle of your customers. They should know all the touch points where a customer visits & interacts. An awesome CX experience can make you win the game.
2) Character (Prepare & present it)
When you think to start a company, the ‘CHARACTER’ (or the personality) of the brand should be devised with utmost care. Character comprises of many small things like, story, brand guidelines, colors, logos, identity, personas etc. Some people call this a ‘Brand Bible’. This is like a paper representation of your vision of your company.
It is said that thoughts on paper is better than in your mind. The vision of the company should be materialised & properly drafted to create a document which can be refereed later on. Founders should spend a good amount of time and make a proper document for this.
3) Content (Plan & publish it)
A perfect content strategy is a plan in which you use content (audio, visual, and/or written) to achieve your business goals. Content helps your users to engage and develop a solid brand equity. A successful content strategy will attract your target audience at every stage of the funnel and keep them engaged even after a purchase. Content helps in SEO, it helps in commerce (content to commerce), it helps in engagement & it helps in building brand equity
4) Communication (Strategise & develop it)
Communication is showcase of brand’s message or in other words it is a meaningful ‘meaning’ to the content of any form e.g. ‘Upto 20% off on products’ is a content but when it starts to give a meaning/perception, it becomes communication. In this case a user might feel that upto 20% off means for some products it will be 20% and for some less than 20%. If we change the content to “Flat 20% off on product” , the communication or the meaning to this content also changes. Now the user feels more confident & will convert better
5) Channel (Select, measure & command it)
An experienced marketeer knows what channel/platform to select for what objective. It’s is a very important skill, that marketers should know the pros & cons of each channel. Channel selection depends on multiple things like stage of company, budget, objective etc. One should be very clear in his/her approach (thought process) while making a marketing plan.
6) Campaign (Think, customize & control it)
Once you have above C’s in place, you need to think & build campaigns. Campaign consists of many things like content, communication, landing pages, ROI measurements etc. Selecting a right TG, right creative is very important as then only one can customize the campaign basis on TG, Geos and can do A/B testing etc. Campaign should be fully owned and controlled by marketing team. Also maintain a decent level of consistency in campaigns across channels.
7) Cutting edge (Introduce & experiment it)
It is said that need is the mother of innovation & innovation is need of hour for Marketing. Marketeers should constantly evolve themselves to think of new & innovative ways (cutting edge) to acquire, engage and retain customers. Also nowadays boundaries of channels are blurred and campaign are designed by keeping multiple channels in place to create a greater impact. E.g. a PR campaign can be combined with influencer marketing & social media amplification. Also PR articles can be used to boost SEO rankings also. So think fresh, new and innovative to create impact
8) Collaborative & Cross functional (Coordinate & build it)
For marketing campaigns to execute & perform well, tech & product integrations should be extremely intact and robust. Lousy integration stack will backfire you. So marketeers should cross collaborate with internal stakeholders to make the systems workable, scalable & robust. Also data analytics is backbone of any marketing campaign. Make the data seamlessly available for corrective actions.
9) Competition (Benchmark & view it)
In today’s era Competition is fierce. Customer have plethora of options to choose from, thereby diminishing the loyalty. Marketeers should keep an HAWK’s eye on the competition from all the angles like pricing, discounting, quantity of SKUs, innovations, costings, margins etc. One should be agile enough to adopt new modifications quickly & innovate. Never ever take your competition light, else they will make you light in future :)
10) Crew (Hire & nurture it)
Last but not the least is the right team with right skills and right attitude. This is applicable to all departments of an organization. Hire a team with utmost care and analysis. Nurture them to become micro leaders within organization.
Marketing is a very important function for your business as it makes the customers aware, engages them, and helps them make the buying decision.
Further, a strong and structured marketing plan helps in creating and maintaining demand, relevance, reputation etc.
So it is always advised to draft a proper & long term strategy for Marketing if one wants to grow the organisation to new heights.
Do comment in below & share your thoughts!
