Marketing Master guide- A complete guide to Niche Selection, Marketing Funnel, Personal Branding Tips, and Integrated Marketing.

In this article, we are going to discuss the following topics-

• The fundamentals of marketing
• Digital Marketing vs. Traditional marketing.
• CATT Marketing Funnel
• Integrated Digital Marketing
• Personal Branding

This article will help you to

• find your niche via a step-by-step process
• learn how to build your personal brand
• learn the stages and importance of marketing funnel

Let’s begin.

Marketing is not what you think, here is what marketing is.

Marketing is something that comes into play after the product is ready to sell.

If you think so, you are probably missing the trickiest part of marketing.

Would you like your product to be failed at launch?

Undoubtedly, the answer will be a big NO.

Marketing plays an important role in making the product launch a big success.

There is a good quote buzzing around. They say

“You cannot sell what you like, you need to sell what they like.”

Marketing is a great way to know what your target customers like. Marketing begins before creating the product. It begins with understanding the customer’s need that leads to creating a product that fits.

An Ads that requires your target customers to fill a questionnaire or survey form is one of the best examples of acquiring your customer's need or interest.

Gathering information from product reviews is another good example of your customer pain point. This will help you to create a product around their pain point which they would easily buy.

Once you are done with gathering information and the interest of your target customers, marketing acts as a channel to reach them. This stage is well known to all of us. We generally think marketing is all about selling products, which is like limiting its reach.

Marketing is not about selling only, it is important to keep your customer happy by communicating with them so that they can remain a customer for life.

So, here is the gist of the above discussion-

• Marketing begins before product creation to know the requirement of customers
• Marketing helps to connect with the target customer.
• Marketing helps your customer connected for life.

Is Traditional Marketing Dead?

· Outdoor media (Billboards, posters, etc)

· Broadcasting (TV, Radio, Ad announcement)

· Print media (Newspaper, Magazine, Pamphlets, etc)

· Telemarketing and window display

There are millions of consumers of traditional marketing channels, most of which are of older age group.

However, the traditional marketing channel is result-oriented for more generic types of products. (for example, Cell phones, cars, eatery products, etc)

On the contrary, Digital Marketing is well suited for e-commerce and online selling products. Compared to Traditional Marketing, the Digital Marketing user base is quite low on an overall basis. However, the users are higher in the younger age group category who mostly uses Digital media.

Digital Marketing channel includes:

· Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, etc)

· Websites

· Email Marketing

· PPC

· Search Engine Marketing

As compared to Traditional Marketing channels, Digital Marketing channels has the following benefits-

· Customer engagement

· Enabling targeting to the right audience

· Optimization to yield better results

· Measurement and Analysis of interactions and engagements

Both types of marketing have their benefits and downfalls, but the key is understanding your specific marketing needs, considering your budget, and understanding your target audience.

The CATT Marketing Funnel

The CATT Marketing Funnel guides how to convert your passion into wealth. Funnel activity areas include the following-

The first and foremost in the Funnel is “Niche”.

Niche selection is one of the most important and decisive stages in your professional journey.

Niche

Following is the step-by-step process to carve out your niche area-

Step1: Make a list of 5 interest and passion subjects, now. To do this, ask your mind

· How do you like to spend your free time?

· What’s the thing you will happily do while earning?

· What topics do you like to learn about?

(You can check your Google profile to find your preferences. Google use to keep records of sites you visit, your web searches, and many more. This will work only if you have not kept personalization switched off.)

Be true to yourself while writing your interests or passion. Don’t try to copy others based on their earnings or their life.

The secret to their life is their Niche. If you can be true to yourself now, you will find someone else copying you.

Step2: Identify the pain areas you can solve.

With a list in your hand, start narrowing down your options. This step will ensure that your selected areas are marketable enough. To do this, you can either search various forums like Reddit, Quora, or the like.

Don’t bother about the profitability and competition of your selected Niche. If the selected subject is of your interest area and you find problems out there in the market, one thing can be assured that-

• Either your competitor is not so tough to beat.
• Or, there is room for you to fit in solving those problems, which your competitor is unaware of.

In any of the cases, you’re in business.

Step3: Test your idea.

Don’t ever jump on to the idea you selected above altogether leaving ongoing things aside.

You need to gradually pace it up.

But it doesn’t mean that you will keep planning for years and two.

The best way to proceed is to learn first and then try out your solution by answering the forums you find the pain areas.

Try persuading them with the solution you have to solve their problems.

This way, you will know to be able to build your place in your niche among people.

Once you are done with your Niche selection, other activity areas of the funnel will not feel scared.

Content

Content creation is the next activity in the chain of CATT Marketing Funnel. You need to deliver value with whatever content you are creating. It may be in the form of a blog post, videos or webinars or anything, but should provide value to peoples.

Attention

There are various platforms out there to drive people’s attention to your content. Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, paid ads, referrals, etc., will help you drive people to your funnel.

This is where your content holds importance. Once the people are inside your funnel, your content is the one that needs to take care of them. Unless you provide value through your content, people will start getting out of your funnel.

Trust

Building trust is an important stage in the Marketing Funnel. It is a driving force being the successful transaction. It matters not how good your content was or how well to grab people’s attention, the Trust is something that needs to be there in people’s minds to bring them forward to do a transaction.

You need to demonstrate and prove to your target audience that you are trustworthy. This can be done with social proof. Bring them to your group or share some of the reviews with them that will help instill trust in them.

Transaction

Converting leads into customers is not an easy task. You need to get into their present state of mind by asking questions. Once you get into their mind, the only thing you need to do is to let them see the solution to their problem through your product or services.

It becomes easy to convert a lead when you can speak your mind.

This brings to an end of the funnel but not the marketing. As said earlier, marketing is an ongoing process to retain your customer to gain subsequent sales. Here comes the role of Integrated Marketing into the loop.

Integrated Marketing

Integrated Marketing is the process of unifying all aspects of marketing communication- such as

• paid media,
• social media,
• content,
• SEO, and
• email marketing.

Marketing derives more value and output when it is integrated. None of the above can be considered important individually.

Personal Branding

Personal branding is an effort to influence people by positioning itself as an authority in the industry, elevating credibility, and differentiating from the competition.

It helps develop trust in the public. They feel more connected even though they have never met.

Your personal brand helps you stand out from everybody else. You can use your personal brand to demonstrate your knowledge and skills about your areas of expertise.

Here is how you can create a personal brand-

• Create content with a purpose
• Be consistent, show up and serve
• Create a unique selling proposition — Find out something unique and special that will make you stand out from the competition.

The more people know you as Brand Authority, the more people will trust and the more they will transact with you.

Conclusion

Marketing is the need of the hour. It is needed almost at every stage, be it to understand the customer's requirement, to sell the products, or to keep them inside the funnel.

It is needed to create your Personal Brand and is equally important to keep that into the mind of the people after that as well.

At every stage of the CATT Marketing Funnel, we learn, marketing is a must.

There is a need to integrate marketing to get the desired result.

A big question left unanswered…

Would you think marketing will help you decide your niche? If yes, Can you specify one or two ways to do it?

If you think it would not help to do so, can you help me with some ways you think worth pondering?