Assignment for Week 2
Write at least a 1,000 words (No upper limit) on what you have learned in Week 2.
6 Global Trends That Will Affect Marketing in the Digital Age in 2022
Things you need to include in the article
The fundamentals of marketing
Digital Marketing vs. Traditional marketing.
CATT Marketing Funnel
Integrated Digital Marketing
Personal Branding: MassTrust Blueprint
In this article, I am going to talk about how marketing has evolved in the digital age and why it has become necessary to learn the tools to adapt to the new change.
Let me start with the basics of Marketing and why marketing is needed to sell our product. The history of marketing is as old as the history of mankind on the planet earth. We have been using marketing in one form or other throughout the ages. Earlier primitive men used to convince their tribesman to their idea which was one form of promotion only and later as time evolved new techniques were used to convince the prospect.
Marketing is everything a company does to place its product or services to attract potential customers. In order to do this better than the competition, they must know everything about their customers from what their need is and how they can satisfy it, to what need can they further create. The focus nowadays is to sell as much as one can to a customer, focusing on the existing customers while acquiring new ones and treating them as individual persons and not as a target group.
In order to use wisely this big amount of data, companies need to automate their marketing processes through marketing automation tools. Brand awareness and customer attraction may rise if companies become more aware of the potential of combining both digital and traditional marketing campaigns.
Digital marketing is a broad term for the targeted, measurable, and interactive marketing of goods or services using digital technologies in order to reach customers and preserve them. The main objective is to promote brands, shape preferences, and boost sales through several digital marketing techniques. Alternative terms for digital marketing are often: 'online marketing', 'internet marketing, or 'web marketing. The fundamental concept in digital marketing is based on the marketing approach or generally, it’s called the customer approach. Entering marketing means promoting a business through blogs, podcasts, videos, eBooks, e-newsletters, whitepapers, SEO, physical products, social media marketing, and other methods of content marketing that draw the interest of customers through the different stages of the purchase funnel. As long as technology continues to advance, digital marketing will advance as well. Digital marketing is similar to traditional advertising, but the main difference is in the use of digital devices.
2.1 Digital marketing’s advantages
•Cost efficiency: compared to traditional mass media marketing, digital marketing has a much lower cost and in many cases, websites can generate traffic even for free.
• Interactivity: the online users can choose when to contact and for how long.
• Entrust effect: One of the advantages of online marketing is related to its enabling effect especially on small businesses since the “internet can extent market reach and operational efficiency of small and medium enterprises”
• Infinite audience: a web for example can reach an entire globe, but if necessary it is also possible to go for a digital campaign to reach a local net.
• Duration: online information is permanently available.
2.2. Measuring digital marketing success
One important aspect is the return on investment (ROI) from any digital marketing campaign. To understand what the ROI is, we need to understand what the goals or aims of the company are, what they wish to get from a digital marketing campaign, and then measure these goals. To be able to find out the company must look at the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and the goals for each one. Types of key performance indicators are the following:
• General Performance - Traffic, leads, reach • Channel Based - Website, blog, social networks, search engines
• Source-based performance - Direct traffic, organic search, referrals, email, PPC
• Campaign-based performance - Lead generation, click through, conversions, conversion rates (Safko, 2009).
2.3 How Traditional marketing Works
Durability is the main reason why people are used to traditional marketing. Finding ads in magazines and newspapers, or reading billboards are still familiar activities and people still do them all the time. In most of the cases, traditional marketing is reaching a local audience even though it is not limited to one. There are many faces of traditional marketing and examples might include items such as business cards, print ads in newspapers or magazines. It can also include posters, commercials on TV and radio, billboards, and brochures.
Traditional marketing is anything except digital means to brand your product or logo., it is considered “outbound marketing“ and it means buying attention, cold calling, direct paper mail, radio, TV advertisements, telemarketing, and traditional advertising.
3.1. Advantages of traditional marketing
• Faster results: traditional marketing may produce results that are faster or more effective if the ads are placed well and suitable to the targeted audience, compared to digital marketing methods that can take several weeks to produce effects.
• Durability: some offline items are often more durable than online ones.
• The level of trust: may be higher for traditional marketing, and it can be said this is the number one advantage. Many people are still trusting more offline items.
3.2. The balance between traditional marketing and digital marketing
With no doubt, we live in a digital era and the use of the internet has increased and still growing as statistics show. The world has transitioned into a very digital environment. There is a continuous debate on whether digital marketing is overpowering and beating traditional marketing or not. Many analysts think that digital marketing has taken over and traditional marking has lost its importance. But others consider that traditional marketing is still very much used and digital marketing is combining very well with it. A recent study conducted in 2015 by ZenithOptimedia shows that in the last five years the use of the internet has grown a lot and on the other hand the use of other media has decreased or just slightly grow. The situation states as follows: Internet (+105%), Outdoor (+3%), Television (-8%), Cinema (-11%), Radio (-15%), Magazines (-23), Newspapers (-31%)
4.1. Marketing Funnel Explained
Over a century ago in an ad agency, the mysterious “marketing funnel” began to take shape. Today, you probably have one whether you realize it or not.
You may not know what it looks like or how it works. You might call it a “conversion funnel” or a “sales funnel,” or a number of other names – but if you’re part of a business that relies on customers to grow, then you have a funnel.
If you’re searching for further clarification on it, you’re not alone. In theory, the marketing funnel is straightforward: It’s the representation of your buyers’ journey from prospect to customer, combined with the tools and processes you use to gracefully guide them through. But in practice, constructing a marketing funnel is far more confusing.
4.2. The early marketing funnel
At the turn of the 20th century, agency owner and future advertising hall-of-Famer, Elias St. Elmo Lewis, developed a model that mapped the stages of a customer’s relationship with a business. Those stages were as follows:
Awareness: The prospect becomes aware of their problem and thinks of possible solutions to it.
Interest: The prospect expresses interest in a particular group of products or services that solves their specific problem.
Desire: The prospect shows interest in a particular brand or product and begins to evaluate whether it meets their needs.
Action: The prospect decides whether that brand or product meets their needs. If it does, they become a customer. If it doesn’t, they continue to evaluate until they find a brand or product that does.
4.3.CATT Marketing Funnel
Wealth = n ^ CATT (Marketing Funnel Framework)
Where n = niche ( your success and wealth depends upon the niche you choose)
After the selection of niche, add content such as,
C => Content =>Blog Posts, Videos, Live Webinars
A = > Attention => Drive Attention (traffic) to your Website
T = > Trust => Build your trust with your confidence
T => Transaction => Convert your leads into customers with natural sales method
3 stages of the marketing funnel
The traditional funnel model is definite, beginning at the top of the funnel and ending at the bottom, where your prospects convert.
The challenge is that marketing funnels don’t always work like this in the real world. People don’t always jump into a funnel right at the top and progress step-by-step through each stage until they come out the bottom, a new customer.
Many people bounce in, out of, and around the funnel before they convert. Or, they may make it to the bottom of the funnel and then drop out, never to be seen or heard from again.
The marketing funnel is like people's real-life(nonlinear), which is why it's important to understand the customer journey from the moment of awareness to the moment of conversion. And part of that is understanding how each stage works in the traditional marketing funnel model.
1. Top of the funnel: awareness
The top of the funnel (TOFU) is where prospects become aware of your brand and engage with it for the first time. They might not know a lot about your product or service yet, so this stage focuses on content and marketing material that promotes brand awareness.
Use this stage to attract prospects, and show them what you have to offer:
Create a landing page or infographic that introduces your brand, service, or product to new visitors.
Share a post on social media that highlights your unique selling proposition (USP).
Use paid ads on social media and in podcasts that are relevant to your target audience.
2. Middle of the funnel: consideration
Potential customers enter the middle of the funnel (MOFU) once they’ve engaged with your brand in a meaningful way: maybe they’ve subscribed to an email list, are following you on social media, or have signed up for a webinar.
Use this stage to engage with prospects—to earn their trust and set your brand apart:
Write an article or white paper that provides value, answers a question, and solves a problem for your potential customers.
Invite visitors to participate in a survey to learn more about the drivers, hooks, and barriers they encounter with your brand.
Share case studies and product comparisons.
Create landing pages specific to individual customer segments.
3. Bottom of the funnel: conversion
The bottom of the funnel (BOFU) is the last place prospective customers go before they convert. You’ve gotten their attention, built trust, and fostered a relationship with them.
Use this stage to convert prospects—give them specific reasons to choose your brand over your competitors:
Offer a trial or demo so visitors can experience your product or service first-hand.
Write a how-to guide or article that answers questions and eliminates any doubt or blockers potential customers may experience.
Share social proof, like customer reviews and documentation, to build even more trust.
Send email marketing campaigns and use on-site surveys—for example, send an email to users that have abandoned their shopping cart, or put an exit survey on the checkout page.
3 tools to increase conversions throughout the funnel
Now you know: when you focus on measuring quantitative data (i.e. numerical data) without considering qualitative data (i.e. how people experience your marketing funnel and how they think or feel throughout their customer journey).
But you’re missing an important part of the picture!
Here are three tools to give you qualitative data that'll help you increase conversions throughout the marketing funnel:
Heatmaps: to understand user behavior
Session recordings: to understand individual journeys
Surveys: to get user feedback
5.1.Personal Branding
Tips to Develop Your Personal Brand & Win More Clients [Infographic]
Find your niche.
Choose a target audience.
Build a brand personality.
Create relevant content.
Build your social media presence.
Learn to network.
Sell yourself.
Personal branding is the practice of creating a brand around a person rather than creating a business entity. By developing a personal brand, a person can grow their social following to help them secure a better job, sell more products in their business, and increase better opportunities in their career.
Building a personal brand is not something that happens overnight, it can take lots of planning and months of hard work to start seeing the results; sometimes you also need to improve your personal brand after receiving feedback. This type of branding can also be called self-branding, and these will be used mutually in this article to mean the same thing.
To grow your own personal brand, you can write a personal brand statement. A personal brand statement sets out who your audience will be, the value you want to give to your audience, While building your personal brand, you should assure a statement to ensure that you are remaining true to it.
5.2. Follow these steps to improve your personal brand.
Research and create your personal branding statement: Define your audience at this stage and survey competitors that may exist for you.
Build a personal branding strategy: Plan how to engage with your target audience and decide what success will look like for you in two months, nine months, two years.
Monitor your personal brand engagement: Promote positive participation and have a plan of action for negative remarks.
Develop your personal brand: Share your personal brand through social media, networking, outreach, and speaking opportunities. Consider blogging, vlogging, podcasts, and other ways so that your audience will get attracted to the content quickly.
Have a communication plan: Controlling your presence online can be time-consuming. This plan will help you with negative responses and help you easily provide information to partners that you will work with down the line.
Measure your success regularly: Set some KPIs for personal brand success so that you know you are heading in the right direction. Celebrate even small wins to remain motivated to achieve more.
6.1. Integrated Digital Marketing :
We believe that in digital marketing only one area is important and that sale can happen when we focus on that area, such as Content Writing. However, we need to understand that Content is even though the central theme for a blogger or a Digital Marketer, we also need to understand the various other Areas that needs equal focus and attention to perform the sale.
When we write good content, we need to use paid advertising initially to market our content. On a web of trillions of pages, how do we expect the user to land on our page? We also need to do SEO to increase the ranking of our page so that our page shows up in the top ranks of the google search. It is estimated that the web user will hardly go to the second or third page if he gets his queries answered on the first page itself. Therefore, it is equally important to not only write good content but to ensure that users visit our page to read the content. When then is quality content on the page, it leads to user loyalty and the user will be more than happy to share his email address to see similar content in the future. The collection of a huge number of fan lists is exactly what email marketing is. People love to read quality content and not be spammed with unnecessary emails. Therefore, we need to interact with our customers to add them to our funnel that we have discussed above and this will convert them to a sale and ultimately become our prospective customers for our future sales also. The role of Social Media in building a relationship with our customers is very important in the long run. The figure below is an apt explanation of how marketing is not just one area but an integration of various digital marketing areas.
6.2. Conclusions:
Even though a few years ago the era of traditional marketing was predicted to come to its end, studies show that this is not true. It is true that the use of the internet is constantly growing and also the amount of time people spend online. In conclusion, the best solution for a company when it comes to the efforts for increasing clarity on the market, as well as for raising their brand awareness is by trying to make a combination of the two strategies.
On one hand, there are customers of old generation used and attached to the traditional marketing items, who still spend their time on television, radio, reading magazines, and on the other hand, as statistics show, the young population spend more and more time online
