The Ultimate Approach To Start A Digital Marketing Career

Do you want to know how to start a successful digital marketing career?

Did you learn a digital marketing course and unable to implement and get the outcome?

If yes, this information is exactly for you.

These days’ people are sailing through a lot of online courses online and offline and getting lost in this ocean of courses including digital marketing courses. They don’t know from where to start and implement what they learned. This is making them to drop out and leading them to nowhere in their career.

In this blog, we will discuss the best ways to form a sound foundation for your digital marketing career and make it successful. We will touch upon different topics which form the stones of the foundation so that one can take off smoothly from there. This would help students, professionals who want to start a successful digital marketing career.

I consider these are the topics of at most importance and every digital marketer must know.

Let’s upturn the foundation stones one by one……

Successful mindset:

Just learning skills will not give you success….am I, right?

If yes, let’s see how to have a mindset, along with the skills you learned, to be successful.

Successful people will have a different mindset, they will have a unique approach towards problem-solving. They stick to base principles and have long-term goals. Seek for the objective truth and do not get influenced by subjective truths. Transform to a newer version of themselves by adopting best practices. This becomes a constant effort throughout their life. Don’t chase for money instead, add value to the world, which makes you money. Money is the byproduct of the value you create.

Reward yourself with the minor achievements you achieve that keep you motivated all the time. Celebrate the success of others and don’t be jealous of others' success. Dream big and act on it so that you will positive vibes to achieve them.

Maintain high standards of yourself. Try to use high-quality products so that you don’t sell yourself cheap. Treat others you wanted to be treated. Always try to be in a positive state of mind and in positive emotions so that things will make you feel the same.

Don’t cut corners, avoid distractions in life to be more productive. Doing brain dump regularly keeps your thoughts clear and makes you more productive. Focus on your health and diet. Exercise daily at least for 30 minutes, which makes you fit physically and intern mentally. Measure everything in your life so that you can analyze the data and make improvements if necessary.

Try to make slight improvements every day and this will have compound effects over a period. These thoughts make you ready and have the successful mindset to take off in any career.

“Once your mindset changes, everything on the outside will change along with it”

-Steve Maraboli

Marketing Fundamentals:

Do you know most digital marketers forget about marketing and just focus on the digital part of it?

The fact is having knowledge about the fundamentals of digital marketing makes you sustain in the market in the long term even though if the medium of marketing changes from time to time. Once you gain the knowledge about basics of digital marketing, you have to just choose the medium and gain knowledge about the medium and its reach so that you can use it for the marketing of your product or service.

We base marketing on science and not on creativity. Marketing starts even before you create the product. It starts with understanding the customer and their needs that leads to creating a product the fits his needs. Once it fits his need, the product sells by itself.

Marketing is all about sending the right message to the right people at the right place at the right time. It not just selling. It’s about keeping an existing customer happy by communicating with them so that they remain customers of life. Building trust in a target audience is very important to keep them for life.

Never make marketing more important than the product you sell. Remember, a great product always converts your customers into brand ambassadors. And this very word of mouth is a powerful channel of marketing ever.

Let’s take the example of Reliance Jio. See the way it has affected and changed the lives of millions of Indian in our country. This happened by creating value to the customers. For our understanding the value here is, it has disrupted the telecom industry and changed the perception of mobile usage in India by starting cheaper tariff plans that an average Indian can afford. It has created a digital revolution and able to connect everyone. An average Indian able to do online shopping pay bills etc. because of their cheaper and reliable data plans. This made their life easy. We call this value addition and proper positioning and formation of the brand which now it sells by it selves.

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so that the product fits them and sells itself…. the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous”

— Peter Drucker

Now having said you understood the marketing fundamentals, let's understand why you need to learn them?

Why everyone needs to know marketing?

Marketing education has a long shelf life because it is rooted in human psychology. Learning marketing is the most valuable investment in business because it gives direct returns. Every other specialization like accounting, administration, finance, manufacturing and production is an expense that does not give immediate ROI. Every entrepreneur must know marketing so that they can prepare a strategy and hire the personnel to execute them so that he can understand and plan the company's growth.

Let’s understand a little about the importance of communication in marketing. In order to send the right message to the right customer one needs to have excellent communication skills. It doesn’t mean that one should have sophisticated English with proper vocabulary and grammar. Good communication means one should be able to transfer their thoughts to others effectively so that he can understand and take the action on them.

Good marketing is all about good communication

-Deepak kanakaraju

To develop this, you need to be a constant learner and writer. Write as you talk. Join the conversation in people's minds so that you don’t have to create one. You can just be a part of it and continue with the flow of conversation so that you know and understand your customer better. The more you write better you can write. It slows down your thought process and gives you clarity on what you are trying to communicate. Watch standup comedy shows, sitcoms to improve your communication skills. One other way to improve is to think in English and with constant practice, your thought process will be in English naturally so that you can make a natural English communication.

Hope you understood what are marketing fundamentals and why you should learn to market.

Now let’s embark on to the next topic “Traditional vs Digital marketing” and try to understand it.

Traditional Vs Digital Marketing:

Do you think traditional marketing is losing its shine?

If yes, then you are wrong

Why are we still seeing TV ads, radio ads, billboards then? Did you ever realize that still millions of money spend on these commercial ads?

So let’s understand why traditional marketing (majorly TV ads) is still alive and popular. In India there are 197 million households having TV out of 298 million. If you consider an average of 4–5 family members per household, then TV has a reach of approximately 800 million people. Similarly, radio has a reach of 65% of Indian population and Newspaper has a reach of 465 million people.

Comparing to this Digital marketing reach is nowhere nearby to this number. Because digital marketing needs the internet and the reach of the Internet is very less in India.

So reaching this huge percentage of the population there is no other source than traditional marketing.

Having understood this, many big brands with generic products do marketing by traditional means because the reach is in million and cost is less comparatively.

For example, brands like car and bike brands like Maruthi, Bajaj etc. depend more on traditional marketing as the reach is more. Another example is Jio, which changed the face of the telecom industry still runs traditional marketing as the reach is more and cost is low.

The disadvantage of traditional marketing is, we cannot personalize, cannot do deep marketing, and cannot do natural sales.

On the other side, digital marketing is more personalized, engaging, data-driven with immediate ROI.

Digital marketing can be more effective in urban areas to reach affluent English-speaking populations with spending power.

In summing up, one can say that traditional marketing can be used for generic products and low end B2C products and Digital Marketing can be used for high-end B2C and complex products and services.

Having said that, you have a basic understanding of Traditional Marketing Vs Digital Marketing, let’s move to next topic Global economics and marketing.

Global Economics and Marketing:

Do you know economics plays an important role in marketing? Do you know we based buyer decisions on economics?

Let’s understand how economics and marketing are related to each other.

We can define economics in simple terms as the interaction of people with Value; in particular, the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

This interaction of people with value is mostly by money. And ultimately it relates to how money is being used by people in a country. Money used by people depends on its circulation in the country. More money circulated in the country, the better is the economy of the country. That is why developed countries have a better economy and high standard of leaving than that of developing countries.

More money being circulated in the country more will be the buying capacity of the people and vice e Versa.

Based on the buying capacity of the people, the marketing budget can be decided. Not only the budget but the marketing strategy also can be changed based on the economy of the county.

For example, Apple has launched and marketed its phones in developed counties initially followed by developing countries this is because the buying capacity of the people is more in developed counties than developing countries.

Do you know the economy grows as the average age of the country grows? Let’s see how this can be explained.

Let’s take the example of Indian Economics. The average age of India as per the research is 27 and will reach 37 in next 20 years of time. A country's economy goes up as the average age of the country goes up. For example, the average age of Japan is above 60 and its developed country. As the age is growing spending capacity of the person goes up. He will be employed somewhere and start becoming financially independent and start buying goods (clothes, gadgets, cars, etc.) and services as per his needs and wants. The expenses keep going on as they age. Considering the average age of India, many people are focusing and expanding their business in our country as they considered the spending capacity to be more and more for the next few decades to come.

As per Sajith Pai, a Venture Capitalist, the Indian population is categorized into three based on Per capita income. India-l has a population of 110 million with per capita income of $8800, India-ll has a population of 110 million with per capita income of $3000 and India-lll has a population of 1126 million and per capita income of $1200.

Most of the companies and startups initially concentrate on India-l and create the products as per their needs. The profits that come from India-l are used to cater to the India-ll and next to India-lll.

Source: Sajith Pai — India

Hope you understood the basics of how economics and marketing are related. Having said that let’s move to our next topic CATT funnel.

CATT Funnel:

What is CATT funnel and how it is relevant in marketing?

We will explain a customer journey from his first encounter to sales and beyond with the CATT funnel. Imagine you are trying to sell a product to a customer without creating value for the product. Do you think he will buy that product in first place? No, right?

To create some value of the product, we use this funnel.

CATT funnel is all about Content, Attention, Trust and Transaction. Let’s talk about each one in few words.

Content(C): Create useful content that attracts the people through your blog post, videos, lead magnets, live webinars, etc. The primary aim to create the content is to provide value and create interest in your product or service.

Attention(A): drive the traffic (prospective customers) so that they consume your content and create value and interest in them. SEO, SEM, SMM, etc can do this.

Trust(T): Once the attention is created, created, try to build the trust among the prospective customers with Tripwires, marketing automation, deep marketing, and re-targeting. It is the most important phase of the funnel.

Transaction(T): Once the trust is created, your leads get converted into customers with natural sales.

You know wealth creation depends on your niche selected and how well you nurture through CATT Funnel. The above formula can represent this.

Having said that wealth creation depends on your niche and CATT funnel, let’s talk about Niche selection.

Niche selection:

Why niche selection is important? Why can’t we create wealth without niche selection? After all, everyone wants to create wealth and well settle in life.

It is so much important as your goal. You can’t excel in multiple subjects at a time in life. For example, after completion of MBBS by a doctor he can just practice as a doctor but he cannot create wealth because he cannot go deeper into the subject and treat every patient except to refer other specialist in that subject. Instead, if he is specialized in a category, he will treat patients with confidence in that subject and treat it with ease. He then creates the fame and wealth in that specialty.

Same is the case with everyone in any industry. After all, no one wants to become “Jack of all trades and master of none”

Having understood the importance of niche selection, let's explain how it can be selected in any industry.

It should be selected based on majorly three factors:

Passion: know what you are passionate about. For example, you are passionate about the health and fitness of your body and have excellent knowledge about it, try to select that niche. All you need to know is whether you will be interested in this topic for the next 10 years or not. Because it takes time to create wealth on any niche selected.

Talent: Know what you are talented at. If not, try to learn and become more knowledgeable about that niche. Always try to select a niche which you are talented at.

Market: Check if your subject of interest has a market. Whether that market keeps increasing or decreasing over the next decade or not? Try to evaluate and then finalize your niche.

Always try to select micro niche as the competition n will be less and scope to excel in that niche is higher and create wealth easier and faster.

Once you excel in that niche you have better scope to select another nice or a broader niche in your subject and enter the market again.

For example, let's study Reliance. It was in the petrochemical industry initially and once they captured the market. They slowly ventured into other industries like telecom, retail, etc.

Once you selected your niche based on the above 3 factors, we need to have an Omnichannel approach to market your niche product or service. We call this Integrated Digital marketing.

Let’s discuss what Integrated Digital Marketing means.

Integrated Digital Marketing:

It is the most effective way of digital marketing approach to get effective and faster results. Most digital marketers use one or two channels to get the results. They might get the results but may not be effective and fast. Here effective means that they are getting the traffic, leads, and sales but not with low ROI and CLV, etc.

In Integrated Digital marketing we integrate all marketing channels like content marketing, SEO, SEM, Email marketing which will have a rolling snowball effect.

Keeping the content in the center doing SEO and SEM to the content will give the leads and will nurture the leads with content updates through Emails and Social media and once we built trust, then we pitch on sale. I called this rolling snow ball effect. Integrated Digital Marketing frame work drives the CATT funnel.

Personal Brand and Brand Building:

Do you know what is the cost of selling yourself? Do you know how much you are worth?

People want to hear from people and not from brands. A company cannot directly talk to you. It is the person who sends the mails and tries to interact with you, knows you better, understands you better. That’s how you create trust in the product or service through that person. If he himself becomes a brand by creating value in the people's mind every new thing, he comes up with sell naturally.

For Example, Elon Musk has a bigger following than his companies Space X and Tesla.

A personal brand cannot be invested in and cannot be sold having said that it has the advantage that a personal brand becomes an influencer and a brand ambassador for that company.

In the above same example, Elon Musk grew his personal brand along with Tesla company and now started Space X few years back and got instant success in the market and grabbed everyone’s attention.

Having said the importance of personal brand, let’s see how the ideal evolution of personal brand should be?

Your brand is what other people say about you when you are not in the room — Jeff Bezos

Evolution of Personal Brand:

Evolution the very meaning tells you about a change of person over a period. So for a normal person to become personal brand or to build a brand takes time. We can fit the time frame into frame work called Mass trust Blueprint.

Let’s understand Mass Trust Blueprint. It comprises six stages of brand building.

Learn: Learn new skills through concepts, facts and procedures. Understand the concepts, remember the facts and practice the procedures.

Work: put your new skill to work. Go from practice to implementation. Implementing in the real world will give a better understanding of the skill.

Blog: Write about what you have learned and experienced through work. When you write, you understand it better, and simultaneously you will start a building brand of yourself.

Consult: Now you have a personal brand through the blog, have work experience, and learned the fundamentals, start consulting other business instead of working with them.

Mentor: Mentor the people who want to become like you. Mentoring will help to scale your understating to a whole new level.

Startup: Start your own product and service business with the understanding that you have developed about the market, the problem, and your skills.

The end outcome of the framework is Personal brand. The brand that’s sells naturally.

Conclusion:

Marketing is all about creating value. The value creation should be effective so that people take action without hesitation. Effective marketing is not instant its time taking process. Time taken depends on you approach whether its single or integrated.

Marketing, in a nutshell, is knowing people, place, time to create value and to get the outcome naturally.

Thanks for reading.

Venkatesh Munukuntla

Note: I would like to thank Deepak Kanakaraju for giving a chance to join DDIP internship which has created a lot of value, inspired me to write such a long article.

I wrote this as a part of DDIP internship program and if you are interested, please apply here

Check out my latest blog posts on

1. “Seven Ultimate Reasons you should take your business online with Digital Marketing” here
2. “7 Best Web Hosting Companies for Bloggers and Small Businesses in 2022” here

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