The Evolution of Marketing in the 21st Century

Introduction

This quote says about how to sell our product to customers is marketing. We can sell whatever product we want to but what to sell, how to sell, and what products to produce all depend on marketing.

“It’s not what you sell that matters as much as how you sell it!” — Brian Halligan, CEO & Co-Founder, HubSpot

When we hear the word “Marketing”, it feels that this concept is very boring and difficult for us to read.

I will show you that now marketing has become easy to understand for all of us.

It means attracting, giving knowledge, and maintaining a strong and ever-lasting relationship with customers.

Everyone can use this technique now like artistically well as scientifically.

Let’s begin the journey of marketing.

Please check it out.

The Fundamentals of Marketing

The concept is based on science and not creativity. 

We have to first understand the needs, psychology, wants, likes, and dislikes of customers. Companies conduct surveys to sell products.

According to the customer’s needs, products are created for customers’ use.

McDonald’s frequently uses market research to make its customers happy.

They can gauge their customer base by asking a few questions and can change its strategy to satisfy its customers.

Examples

Their customers were concerned with the absence of healthy and organic food items on its menu.

So McDonald’s took that feedback into account and added healthy items on the menu, such as apple slices. It even launched an advertising campaign to prove that its chicken nuggets and patties contain real meat.

Concept of marketing starts before creating a product.

To make a business profitable, we need to sell the right product to the right customer at the right time so we need to make the marketing strategy also in that way.

Products like Air Conditioners sell more in the summer season lot. There is more demand for A/Cs during the hot season.

Companies start their ad campaign before their summer season. So, Customers can purchase the product at the right time.

It is about retaining existing customers by giving them good services and getting feedback from them from time to time.

They build a brand and create a position among customers.

Sometimes, Customers know a product very well that they do not need marketing. Customers recognize by their brand name, logo, popularity, etc.

Great Products like Apple, Nike, Mercedes-Benz, Maruti, etc. do not require marketing for their own products.

Customers know their products and purchase them directly from companies without marketing.

So, we saw that it has a lot to do with the business world. It has a larger impact than other functions of the business.

Traditional Marketing

Traditional does not use the internet for its ads campaigns.

They have been for decades now.

It has become old-fashioned but it is still in use widely all over the world now.

Advantages and Disadvantages

This traditional concept is easy to understand and very impactful and entertaining.

Traditional marketing uses to reach a larger audience. It reaches an older audience of 50+ age groups of people who read the newspaper and listen to TV and radio as compared to those of the age group of 21-50. Even customers who are illiterate use TV and radio to listen to ads.

This traditional concept is useful for products that want to show graphics and demos to use the products.

Small businesses also use these campaigns for getting the attention of customers by using billboards, flyers, and events rather than to compete in digital space with larger businesses.

TV and Radio ads are played multiple times and remind the customer of the business whereas digital world items are skipped or blocked.

Customers cannot ignore ads on TV whereas digital ads are skipped or ignored.

Traditional marketing lacks in terms of digital.

It is very expensive. To make ads, companies have to use a lot of money on ads.

It takes weeks or months to yield results or data. Companies do not get feedback for their ads on this marketing. There is no direct interaction with customers.

Online Marketing

Digital Marketing is marketing that uses the internet for marketing purposes.

It is a modern technique.

Due to the frequent use of the internet and mobile devices, digital marketing has become very popular today.

Digital methods are website content, email campaigns, content marketing, social media posts, clickable ads, affiliate marketing, and SEO.

This digital concept has a very lower cost and takes less time. Sending an email campaign saves a lot of money and time compared to printing postcards.

Companies can track their customer’s reactions with this marketing. When someone goes to a website or reads an article or follows us on social media, you can have that information immediately. Based on this information, companies can check which medium works best and which is more effective, and even what time of the day customer is more engaging in their ad campaign.

It works well for a global audience because of the broad scope of digital.

Digital lacks too in terms of traditional marketing.

Some internet users have ad blockers. So they never see pop-up ads or banner ads. Ads can be skipped or removed if users pay for premium services.

Due to new trends and new technology emerging day by day, digital techniques change frequently. Apps and Websites got updates frequently. Older data become irrelevant as new data changes from time to time.

English-knowing customers use Digital Marketing. It reaches a limited audience.

So, Both Traditional and Digital work well on their own platform. It depends on companies to decide to use the right type of technique for their products.

Marketing Funnel – CATT

As we know Marketing is based on science. We have to understand customer needs.

To understand customer needs, we need to plan a model or funnel (a funnel is a more common term used in the marketing world today) to retain the buyer of your products by giving them good service at a reasonable price.

CATT

One such funnel is the CATT funnel. It is a simple and effective model designed by Deepak Kanakaraju.

Now, what is this CATT?

Let’s get in brief about it.

The CATT abbreviations are like this:

1.  C – Content: In Digital Marketing, Content is the King. Content is built by analyzing customers’ needs. So, we need to create good content to attract people from your niche. Content can be of any type like Blogs, posts, videos, seminars, etc.
2. A – Attention: After making good content, we need to drive attention or built traffic to your content using SEO, social media, Paid Ads, and Referrals. We need to apply the right marketing technique to build a good amount of traffic.
3. T – Trust: When customers pay attention to good quality content, trust is built in the customer’s mind and the customer sticks to that provider who is answering his needs. Trust is an important factor and acts as an asset in business. Building trust is not easy for businesses, it needs a lot of effort to build trust.
4. T – Transaction: When the customer fully trusts his provider, he takes action to buy the product which we say is a sale. It must be a natural sales method. The customer gets satisfied with the provider after buying the product as his problem is solved.

 Now, these are the marketing steps that a target customer goes through while buying a product.

This is the secret of Wealth in Marketing which is generated by Deepak Kanakaraju in the way of a formula.

Wealth = n ^ (CATT)

Now (n) here is your niche: a specific segment of the population.

Integrated Digital Marketing

Integrated Digital Marketing is a plan used by businesses for their marketing strategies and integration to sell their product on market.

It uses all form of channels that is used by customers on the internet.

It uses mediums such as content marketing, email marketing, paid advertising, SEO, social media, etc.

You can email customers for their responses.

You post content on blogs.

You can use social media as a platform for posts and blogs

You can track your customer’s reactions on your website.

So. You have a broad range of marketing techniques to use in your marketing campaign.

I am sharing an example of mine:

I want to learn a writing course from a genuine mentor. I was searching for some writing institutes or for some well-known professional writers who teach writing.

After some time, I stop searching for them for a couple of months.

Then I got blogs, Facebook ads, Instagram ads, and email ads relating to writing courses everywhere and every time.

I waited till I got one good writing mentor to train me on writing.

Then I had enroll in good writing courses with a well-known writer.

So, The purpose of marketing is to reach the target audience and implement all the marketing strategies to attract the customers to purchase the product.

Personal Branding

Personal Branding means a person has to create his own identity for his target customers and position himself as an authority in their industry.

He becomes a brand after building trust with his customer and maintaining a steady relationship with them.

Customers know the person first and then they get to know their product.

Becoming a brand is not easy to process. It takes a lot of effort by entrepreneurs by planning a successful marketing strategy to build their own brand.

Customers will talk to a person and not to a corporation. They believe in the trust he creates among his customers.

The customer just purchases the product by knowing the name of popular people who have their own brands.

Elon Musk and Steve Jobs are more famous than Tesla and Apple

There are many more like Neil Patel, Harsh Aggrawal, and Deepak Kanakaraju who are famous in their own field of digital marketing.

Neil Patel is famous for building traffic like SEO.

Harsh Aggrawal is famous for website creation.

Deepak Kanakaraju is famous for mentoring in Digital Marketing.

So, each brand is best in its own category or field.

Conclusion

I hope that if you have read this conclusion then you have read the whole article and have understood the marketing fundamentals. Let’s just summarise what you have read so far.

1. Marketing is a science and not an art. It is done by understanding the customer’s need and producing the right product to the right customer at right time. Marketing retains the customer and builds a brand among customers.
2. Both Traditional and Digital Marketing are equally important in the business world.
3. A marketing funnel is used to understand the buyer’s needs
4. Integrated Digital Marketing is used to plan the marketing strategy to attract customers.
5. Personal Branding is important to influence the customers to directly contact the provider.

I hope you like my article so feel free to comment on it and wait for the next article soon.