Online marketing has become an important part of public outreach, mainly because today’s tech world encourages people to buy online goods and services. No matter whether yours is a small business or a non-profit sector, or an organization under Fortune 100, without advertising connecting to your consumers is a tedious task.
Everything from connecting with new customers to serving the existing ones happens electronically. Only by planning out a reliable strategy can yield exceptional returns. The Internet is not only a hub of communication but commerce as well. As such, it is required to understand the fundamentals of Social Media Marketing and Google optimizing techniques.
So without wasting much time… Let’s dig into the Basics of Marketing.
The Marketing Mix
If you are a newbie, then for you marketing is just advertising and involves copywriting, graphics, and campaigns. But in reality, advertising is the last piece of the marketing puzzle.
The Seven Ps of Physical product marketing
Product- Price
- Promotion
- Place
- Process
- Physical Evidence
- People
Product1. PRODUCT
Product is the first thing you plan about before publicizing your business. By Product I mean, any type of merchandise or service you are providing. It can even include software applications, version updates, or product design advancements.
So, the branding concept starts from here as your products include things such as labels and packages.
2. PRICE
I Hope this is pretty much explanatory. This is the value you fix for your product or services. The established price points, discounts, and pricing variations everything comes under this category.
3. PROMOTION
I understand, to a newbie, promotions are nothing but marketing. Adding on, promotions is actually a way of reaching out to your target audience. So, you need to know when is the best time to promote, is there any seasonality linked to your business, and also keep an eye on how your competitors’ promotions look like.
4. PLACE
The place is where you make products available to the customers; whether it is online or an offline store. If you are selling online, then which are the different channels you are active on so that customers can reach out to you.
So, these are the four main Ps of marketing. However, the remaining three Ps were recently added by Dave Chaffey to increase the prevalence of services.
5. PROCESS
This explains how you deliver your product and services to your customer base. Also, it indicates how your business team performs in handling customers, their issues, and complaints. Additionally, it includes response times for emails and calls.
6. PHYSICAL EVIDENCE
This represents the sensorial experience you offer to your customers when they begin interacting with your brand. From packaging and in-store displays to physical space, it includes everything.
Stories and recommendations also come under this. Customers are the best advocates. Both good and bad reviews are fairly given by them. Customer’s opinion matters the most for both earning a new customer base and also to improve your product quality-wise.
7. PEOPLE
This definitely does not talk about the people you are targeting. But this P applies to people who actually interact with your target audience in any way. This includes the culture you have incorporated into your organization and can be weaved in every strategy of your marketing efforts.
Now that you are aware of these 7 Ps, you may ask now, whether these are really relevant in Marketing. So here is your answer…
These 7 Ps determine whether your promotion phase will be successful or not. Most of them actually focus on the things which does not fetch them any result and forget things that are holding them back.
That is why Foundation is important in any kind of business.
Let us move further and learn how to develop a Market Strategy
- Market Strategy Development
- Analyzing Your Target Market
- Generating a Buyer Persona
- SWOT Analysis+
1. MARKET STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT
Why do you have to develop a Marketing Strategy?
- To understand your messaging
- To identify the right audience
- And to select the right place to promote your products and services.
Before developing a strategy, just ask these questions for yourself
- Who is your target audience?
- What are you expecting them to do?
- How will you motivate them to perform an action?
2. ANALYSING YOUR TARGET MARKET
So, if your business is an established one, then by now, you will have a fair idea of who your target audience is.
Or if yours is a new business and you don’t know who your audience is and how to start with. Worry not, in the coming sections you will understand how to research your target market.
3. GENERATING A BUYER PERSONA
Buying persona changes from time to time and is completely normal. However, today I am not focusing on getting the best buyer persona on the first go but just helping to get started with classifying your target audience.
Firstly, try to get answers to these questions:
- Who is the audience?
- What are their expectations?
- Which places do they hang out? Both online and offline.
- When do they decide to buy your products and services?
- Why are they looking for your products?
Though these are just the fundamentals, customer personas help plan your promotions and create a marketing mix that fits them.
Also, consider the below questions to get a better understanding of the customer base?
- Identify their gender.
- Understand their personality; like what they are into and what they like.
- Know their marital status; like are they single, married, and do they have children, and so on.
- Try to determine their professional life.
- Get their job role.
- See if you can grab their employer’s info.
- Identify their location.
- Get their income information.
- Understand their basic and specific requirements.
- Analyze the pain points. What leads them to buy your product?
- List out the challenges. Like reasons why they do not choose your product? What can make them hesitant to make a purchase from you and so on
It is not that all of these points are applicable to every one of you reading this, as every business is unique. But trying to get answers to as many questions as these will help you determine and understand your target quickly.
4. SWOT ANALYSIS
SWOT stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats. So, SWOT analysis will tell you both the positive and negative sides of your marketing strategy.
It is a kind of self-evaluation tool that helps you identify ways to make your business stand out from others. Without stopping at that, SWOT analysis also helps you identify the weakness in your offerings.
SWOT Analysis helps your figure out…
- Specific needs of your customers.
- How your business can or cannot assist with the need.
With the help of SWOT Analysis, you will be able to spot a huge gap in your service which is a good thing. Incorporating this will help you improve your services, and that affects your campaigns too
Related Post:
- How to choose the best digital agency for your business?
- How does branding increase the value of the business?
- Content marketing pointers for small businesses
TYPES OF PROMOTIONS
Now promotions are of two types; Digital Marketing and Traditional Marketing.
Speaking of Traditional Marketing, Television ads, Magazine ads, mailers, and billboards are some of the things that pop up on your mind.
But Digital Marketing is a whole new different thing. And today, Digital Marketing is a new Traditional Marketing. It is much less expensive than giving Television ads or buying billboards.
Not every time your marketing strategies work but that is completely fine. You always have room to explore and see what works for you. If something does not process for you, then re-evaluate, remodel, and readjust until it fetches you something.
A FEW WAYS TO PROMOTE YOUR BUSINESS
- Social Media Marketing
- Content Marketing
- Search Engine Marketing
- Influencer Marketing
- Email Marketing
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Come on, who does not know about this? Yes, marketing your products on social media platforms refers to social media marketing. And Yes, it works for small businesses as well.
Most people spend their leisure time on social media platforms, and hence it is a great place to build business relationships.
Share valuable content and keep yourself available for interactions. On social media platforms, you can reach billions of people from across the globe.
You have an option to choose both organic and paid options, so you can make it work even if you do not have enough budget.
Even spending around $500 can work wonders for your business. Don’t always focus on fun stuff but focus on getting attention from the right people too.
Whenever you are making promotions online, make sure:
- To drive traffic back to your website
- When you have an in-app shopping option, then upload your product catalog
- Use Social media tools to collect email addresses to help your email marketing
Most importantly, never lose your patience… Coz Good Things Take Time. Besides, consider Jootoor Designs to assist your Social Media Marketing.
CONTENT MARKETING
In simple words, Content Marketing is marketing using content. You can craft your content for free by offering tutorials, resources, and tools, or even in the form of entertainment. With this, you establish yourself online and can become a trusted resource.
Content is an important category of digital marketing. By drafting useful content, you can make the audience think of your brand first. You can always contact Jootoor Designs for content marketing services.
Now, you may be wondering if this works even for small businesses. Yes, and on a positive note, it even costs around 62% less than outbound marketing. Adding on, it generates three times more leads, but it takes some genuine time and effort.
Some ways to maximize content production:
- Draft blogs, articles, essays, and video scripts. Do not forget to focus on the accuracy and quality of the content.
- Include statements, quotes, and bullet points in the long articles or blogs, making way for the audience for better understanding.
- Include Infographics, Short Reels, Carousel, and Long Videos in your content.
Of course, this takes lots of time, as already said, if you want to concentrate mainly on your business, then Jootoor Designs can do it for you.
SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING
This type of marketing involves promoting your products on Search Engines like Google. Content Marketing also plays a role here.
Whenever you come across Search Engine Marketing, remember directly or indirectly it refers to Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This involves adding keywords to your website to earn better search rankings.
Like Social Media, here also, there are both organic and paid options. Paid options here are often referred to as Pay-per-Click (PPC).
Hope, now you are clear where to do Search Engine Marketing. Yes, on Google. But just be aware that Pinterest is a search engine too. It is a Visual Search engine and another great platform to apply marketing strategies.
INFLUENCER MARKETING
As the name suggests, Influencer Marketing involves earning business through recommendations. So the next question is from whom? Experts, celebrities, and common people who have dedicated knowledge of your products.
Yes, it works for any kind of business, but it may cost heavily. Especially, if you want to promote your business through celebrities and influencers with millions of followers.
If you focus on micro-influencers who have 1000 to 1 million followers, it may cost you much less and also yield better returns.
EMAIL MARKETING
Marketing via mails is Email Marketing. So making an email list should be one of the to-do lists in marketing. Most of you may be thinking that email marketing is dead now, but no.
Email Marketing is one of the strategies that is overpowering even social media networks and is still expected to grow.
Again… Yes, it works for start-ups as well. Approximately, you can earn $42 for every $1 spent. Isn’t it a good return? Experienced marketers opine that email marketing is one of the best tools to grab higher ROI.
If you still haven’t started with it, then it is high time you begin with. For your reference, I have listed some of the email marketing platforms, hope it helps!
Summing Up….
Hope all these marketing techniques help you in one or another way and making some great ideas about your small business as well. Don’t lose your patience, when you get annoyed, stop and look back at how far you have come. This motivates you to move further.
Focus on Progress, Not on Perfection. Rome was not built in a day, and neither is any business. You will learn as you gain experiences and things get better with time.
If you are looking for Digital Marketing Agency Bangalore, you can always rely on Jootoor Designs, just a call away! We can help you along the way.
Keep Learning, Keep Trying and Keep Evolving!
