I started this blog site to share the lessons I learned through my career journey.

What can be better than to start this new chapter with fresh learnings on digital marketing with social media that I have/am going through this lockdown period? 

So let me begin with some basic building blocks of Digital Marketing in this blog.

Digital Marketing and growing trends

Marketing –  “The action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising”

 The ever-increasing consumer demand, further boosted by technological advancement, continues to open up new niches and opportunities to further ‘up’ the marketing and services game.

 The changing trends where the consumer needs better engagement, experience and personalized touch, it’s imperative to engage ‘technology’ and therefore go for Digital Marketing. 

Further, with social media becoming the backbone for the 21st-century ‘way of life’, it plays a big role in influencer marketing. 

So, digital marketing is there to stay and would only grow and transform with the change in market needs and availability of groundbreaking technologies (e.g., AI, ML are already driving the change today).

Now, how would the current economy and its drivers impact digital marketing?

The economy of a country grows with a younger population, like India. The ability to spend, create debt, affects the growth of the economy. 

The slowing down of the economy has put most businesses in disarray. Digital businesses and products not only remain mostly untouched but are using this opportunity to strengthen their base leveraging digital marketing.

Integrated Digital Marketing (IDM)

The key to success is a well rounded 360-degree approach to digital marketing is an integrated digital marketing (IDM)  framework. 

Building & Branding

Content & Tribe –

The first building block is strong content. A well-structured, informative content that can address the needs of the masses is the first step towards gaining the ‘loyalty’ of people and help build a tribe or a following of your own. Build and share content in your Niche. Content could be in the form of blogs, YouTube videos, Instagram posts, etc.

SEO  –

Once you have strong content, the next important factor is to drive traffic to your site. SEO (search engine optimization) helps you to get a proper listing in the search engines. 

Social Media –

A right mix of SEO and driving social media strategy leads to further building your tribe and therefore your Brand.

As you share your content on social media and drive traffic, it’s time to build your email list and drive and leverage the same for further drive traffic and connect with people and expand your tribe.

Marketing & Sales

Till now you were building a foundation for marketing. The next steps are to establish your product and set up your marketing funnel.

• First, you leverage Email Marketing &, Paid Advertisements (i.e. both organic and inorganic sources) to start a planned marketing campaign., 
• Next, you proceed with the Sales & Convert the prospects

The Marketing funnel 

The IDM is a cyclic process that goes through a  5 step marketing funnel as mentioned below.

• Awareness – Where you provide free/ value for money content
• Consideration –  Consistent value to followers 
• Conversion – automation builds relationships
• Loyalty – help build mass trust and a brand
• Advocacy – The loyal brand ambassadors  help grow the brand

We may also see a funnel as a flow of CATT –

• Content
• Attention
• Trust
• Transaction

It’s a funnel as at each step the conversion continues to reduce. E.g., for every 1 million people touched at the top of the funnel you would get 1000 loyal brand ambassadors. However, an effective brand building can create mass trust and help an inverted funnel with an increase in the number of loyal followers who advocate for you.

An automated system keeps the IDM and the funnel robust and scalable. A strong and ‘intelligent’  measurement and analytics process helps in continuous improvement in the efficiency of the IDM and the funnel.

Where and how to start your Digital Marketing Journey?

If you refer to the Integrated digital marketing framework, the core is ‘Content & Tribe’. Your success depends a lot on that. Once you have that set up rest is more of process and automation.

So some component that you can address to form a robust core, contents & Tribe are –

Finding your Niche

When we talk of content, it’s also important to talk about the Niche you want to work in. The three key parameters are –

• Are you passionate about it?
• Do you have a talent for it?
• Is there a need or market opportunity?

These three questions decide your critical success factors and your authority in that Niche would help you build an ever-increasing tribe.

How to Identify Market demand?

Some pointers  –

• Use tools like Google autosuggest, answer the public, Amazon reviews, etc. to identify problems in your niche that you can solve for.
• You can also identify problems that you, your friends and customers faced and address them.
• You could address/provide help and information on products, services that you have a passion for.

Finding your niche and identifying the market demand would help you build a sturdy content platform. 

Some Personal Attributes

Personal attributes that would help you build the ‘Tribe’ and the following are effective communication skills and building a brand. These would take you a long way down that path.

Communication Skills –

• Powerful writing skills are key to create impactful content whether its a blog, email connection, copywriting, authoring a book or  social media interactions
• Verbal communication and visual presence are equally important for other modes of effective interactions like podcasts, webcasts, webinars, and face-to-face interactions

It’s imperative to work on these skills to be a successful entrepreneur driving all aspects of your business.

Communications Tips: Practice until you’re perfect!

• Read – 30 minutes a day – Books of interest, various articles on business sites
• Listen – 30 minutes a day – podcasts and other talks in your area of interest 
• Watch – 30 minutes a day – Ted Talks, Sitcoms shows, etc. 
• Write – at least 500 words a day – start with a blog
• Think – Think in the language of your business, if it’s English, then it’s English!

Building a Personal Brand – 

The best ‘known’ will always beat the best!

People connect with an individual, they want to hear from an individual, a person. A powerful presence via written, verbal, and visual communication further enhances your brand and your following.

Personal Branding Tips: Improve as you go!

• Publish your content, share your thoughts. Don’t be afraid to stand out.
• Show your personality on social media
• Share content via different modes – written, videos, public speaking, etc. 
• Work on feedback – improvement is a continuous process

Well, this is just the beginning, lots more to come on this fascinating topic. So stay tuned. I would appreciate if you could take out a few moments to provide your comments/ suggestions.

Acknowledgments

I based the structure of this article on the session taken by Deepak Kanakaraju and my study on the subject over the Lockdown 1.0 till 3.0