All you know about marketing is wrong
Have you watched “Mythbusters”, a popular TV show in which two scientists debunk popular myths?
Well, in this article, we shall not only debunk some prevalent myths about marketing but also build our understanding of some of its basic principles.
Marketing is part of our daily lives and its importance cannot be overstated. Whatever field you are working in, you would have to apply some principles of marketing in order to be successful.
So let’s get cracking.
Myth: Marketing is all creativity and no science
You could not be further from the truth as marketing is based more on science and less on creativity. Science is based on a set of established principles and steps that you need to follow to get a specific result. Same is true with marketing also. If you follow basic marketing principles, you can get the results and also measure them accordingly.
For e.g. CATT framework. If you follow this framework then you will be successful in wealth creation from marketing.
Wealth= n^CATT
Here, n = niche, C = Content, A = Attention, T = Trust, T = Transaction
But, What does CATT mean?
Not that one obviously ☻. CATT is a type of marketing funnel through which you can lead your customers to get a sale. It contains 4 steps:
Content ©: Create content in your niche. Content generation is an inherent part of marketing. Content is that foundation on which your business stands as it is your content which attracts potential leads into your business.
Attention (A): Once you have created your content, then its time to generate traffic or attention towards that content. Content without traffic is obviously of no use. Capacity to hold a user’s attention is the new currency of marketing today as there are so many things vying for customers attention at the same time.
Trust (T): Simply generating Content and Attention would not be enough without trust. Just as in real life we do not trust a stranger, a user won’t trust us just by seeing our content. We need to implement strategies so that a user feels calm and trusts us upon visiting our website or landing page.
Transaction (T): The last stage is when the actual sales takes place. But we need to follow all the above steps in order for a user to arrive at this stage.
So as you can see that similar to science, marketing also involves certain steps/principles which if followed can generate positive results for anyone.
Myth: Traditional Marketing is dead
Have you stopped watching TV or stopped listening to radio?. I guess you haven’t. So how can traditional channels of marketing be dead. Radio, TV, billboards displays will never go out of fashion in marketing because they have their own uses which depends on the product that you are going to market.
If your product is a generic product then you can use TV or radio as their reach is really high compared to Digital marketing channels. But these channels of marketing do have the downsides of not being personalized. All the audiences are shown the same ad irrespective of their requirements or needs.
Myth: Digital marketing is all about digital
If you remove all the technology from this world, would the marketing be dead? No. So marketing is not dependent on the tools that you use to execute it. The tools can be digital or traditional. You need to focus on learning the skill of marketing. If you know marketing deeply then you can use any channel to your advantage. Master the knowledge, and you can use the tools to accomplish any task related to marketing.
Myth: You can market a bad product
“The bitterness of poor quality is remembered long after the sweetness of low price has faded from memory.” ~ Aldo Gucci
Wrong. Yes, marketing is a game of perception. You decide how people view your product. You decide people’s expectations of your product. But if your product is of bad quality then that whole perception will come crumbling to the ground one day.
The success of your product in the market is based first and foremost on its quality. If you create a bad quality product you will not be able to save it with any amount of marketing to make people perceive it as a good product. Sure initially you will be able to deceive a lot of people but over time bad word of mouth will catch up.
You can never compromise on quality. Marketing comes later to quality always. First focus your attention on creating a quality product then you need to think about marketing.
Myth: Marketing is same as sales and advertising
Sales and advertising are subsets of marketing. They are one of its various components but not the entirety of it. Other components of marketing include, branding, pricing, positioning, market research, niche selection etc.
Myth: You need to be number 1 in your niche to be a successful marketer
The competition in marketing just like any other field is continuously increasing. More and more people are entering the market and adding to what is already a competitive field. But you need to be number 1 to be successful is a lie.
You need not be number 1 but you have to try to be the only one in your niche. Meaning you have to differentiate yourself from the herd in any way that you can. You cannot be the number 1 graphic designer in the world but you can be the number 1 graphic designer in your city or state or country.
Being a leader in your own category will make you successful because that is achievable as the niche would be narrow. Start with a small niche and then create something unique about yourself so that you appear separate from most other in your field.
The market can be competitive but if you differentiate yourself well then you can stand out and be successful in a competitive market.
Myth: Marketing is all about selling
The aim of marketing is not just to sell. Marketing aids in selling but the ultimate aim of marketing is to build a brand by building trust with the customers .
If we are successful in doing that then the need of marketing is reduced significantly. In fact, a product should sell itself without the need of high pressure convincing strategies. For e.g. consider any big brands of the world, like apple, samsung, coke, pepsi etc. they all sell themselves now without any huge investment needed to convince the customers. That is the ultimate goal of marketing.
Myth: You can outsource marketing
Learning marketing is essential for all the entrepreneurs, freelancers & business owners.
The founders of any business must be marketers.
They should have knowledge of marketing so that they are able to create a product which fits the market.
Marketing involves market research, niche finding etc. which are required before creating any product, and if a founder doesn’t do all that then he runs the risk of creating a product that will have no demand. You can definitely outsource the actual execution of the marketing strategies but those strategies would have to be figure out by you as you know your product the best.
Myth: Implementing different types of marketing in silos is enough
Just implementing various types of marketing like, Social media marketing, Email marketing, content marketing, SEO, paid ads in silos will not work. You need to follow an integrated digital marketing plan where every type of marketing is connected and feeds into each other.
They all should work in cohesion just like a machine.
You need to look at marketing as a holistic activity rather than focusing on just its various types. Just implementing social media marketing won’t help, it should be integrated with your blog, which then should be connected with your email marketing/lists which should be used for content marketing and so on and so forth.
Honorable mention: You can start mentoring after learning a skill
Now-a-days our smartphones are flooded with ads of 16 year olds projecting themselves as gurus and mentors. That is just laughable. There is a proven method and system called as the MassTrust blueprint which you need to follow to reach the level of a mentor and it sure doesn’t come that early in life.
The following blueprint is called as mass trust blueprint because it is a proven system to generate trust in large number of people and thus create our personal brand. It contains 6 stages which must be followed in order:
Learn: This is the first stage in which you acquire any new skill. This is the beginning of your journey and the focus here is to learn as much as you can via understanding the concepts, remembering the facts and practicing the procedures.
Work: After learning stage comes the stage where you need to actually implement what you have learnt in the field. Apply the skill that you learned and gain experience in real life. That will enable you to gain new perspectives and your learning will evolve as you apply different stratgies in your work. Your skill level will increase. Work here can be a job, freelance work or a business also.
Blog: After you have learnt a new skill and applied it in the field, time comes to write about it. So you need to create a blog containing all your experiences that you have gained while applying your skill in the field. If you directly begin writing without first working and implementing the skill in the field then you will not understand various nuances of its application. You will have just gained superficial/bookish knowledge. Writing stage always comes after you have applied your skill in the field.
Consult: After you have created a blog and wrote for some time, you can start one-on-one consulting and selling your services. You can start small and eventually charge more.
Mentor: After you have consulted for a while and gained some experience in that, you can scale your consulting operations to mentorship level. Mentorship is usuallly costly and so to reach this level you must have a lot of experience.
Startup: After you have passed through all of the above stages and you have gained enough brand value then you can start your own company.
Summary
- Marketing is based on science and its not all art or creativity.
- CATT (Content, Attention, Trust, Transaction) framework can be used to generate wealth from digital marketing.
- Traditional marketing is not dead. The marketing channel depends on the product that you want to market.
- Digital marketing is not all about digital. Learning Marketing is always important than the tools that we use to execute it.
- Even though marketing is a game of perception, you cannot market a bad product successfully for a long time.
- Marketing is not all about sales and advertising. They are just one of its few components.
- You need not be the number 1 marketer in your niche to be successful. You just have to be the only one in your niche. Differentiate yourself and set yourself apart from the competition.
- Marketing is not all about selling, its ultimate aim is to build a brand value so that its need is decreased gradually. A good product marketed well often sells itself later on.
- You cannot outsource marketing. Every founder, busines owner and freelancer needs to learn the basics of marketing. Outsource the execution but not the strategy building.
- Implementing marketing strategies in silos doesn’t work. You need to follow an integrated marketing approach where one type of marketing strategy works in cohesion with the other type as a well oiled machine.
- You cannot start mentoring directly after learning a skill. You need to follow the MassTrust blueprint which has 6 stages needed to be followed in order: Learn, Write, Blog ,Consult, Mentor and Startup.
Whew! that was a long one but we debunked a lot of myths & learnt a lot about marketing.
Thanks for reading. I hope you liked the article and if it provided any value to you please do leave a like ♥ or comment ✒, would mean the world to me ☻☻.
