Full of excitement, I dove headfirst into my first module on learning digital marketing. During that week (Dec 8th, 2022) I took my marketing 101 crash course. I learned the fundamentals of marketing, the marketing mix, what a marketing funnel is, and the core four. I also learned the benefits of digital marketing over offline, and why people use it.
So, what is Marketing?
Fundamentally, marketing is communicating and creating value to clients! Any activity to promote a product, service, or brand is marketing. It is important because products are usually successful because of its marketing, not because it is the best product to use. In economics, it is assumed that people make buying decisions using logic, but in marketing it is assumed that everything gets bought because of emotions (this is why the luxury market exists).
The Marketing Mix (The 4 Ps)
Something that every marketer should understand is the Marketing Mix (The 4 Ps.) I remember learning about this in my introductory marketing course. The 4 Ps are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. The 4 Ps often encompass a range of factors that are considered when marketing a product, including what consumers want, how the product or service meets or fails to meet those wants, how the product or service is perceived in the world, how it stands out from the competition, and how the company that produces it interacts with its customers.
The Ms of Marketing/The “Core 4”
The Core Four consists of Model (product or service), Market (target audience), Message (communication of value), and Media (channels used to reach target audience). The focus is on understanding these M’s and applying them to the ideal client avatar (ICA) through demographics, geographics, and psychographics, and delivering a message that addresses their problems, using multiple channels where the ICA is active. The “Core Four” is something I learned from Adam Erhart’s introductory marketing videos, but I have seen more than four “M’s” (I believe there are 6 M’s) doing further research, but I see why he only taught 4 of them – to make it simpler to comprehend.
Digital Marketing vs Traditional Marketing
Digital marketing offers several advantages over traditional marketing methods. It is more easily optimized, allowing for quicker changes to be made to a campaign if it is not performing well. It is also more cost-effective, making it accessible to small businesses. Digital marketing is easier to measure and provides greater customization and targeting options. It also offers a global reach and has the potential to reach a larger audience.
The Marketing Funnel (*Very Important*)
The marketing funnel consists of four stages (depending on which version you learn, but they’re genuinely the same): Awareness, Interest, Consideration, and Purchase. The Awareness stage involves putting the brand out there. The audience becomes aware of the branding. The Interest stage focuses on those who are aware of the brand and generating interest in the brand, product, or service. In the Consideration stage, the marketing initiative aims to have the audience consider the brand over others by highlighting specific features or benefits. Finally, the Purchase stage is where the target audience makes an action, typically a purchase.
In this first week I learnt a lot. Even though it was a simple introduction to digital marketing, I was excited to learn. I learned about the fundamentals of marketing, including the marketing mix (the 4 P’s) and the core four M’s (Model, Market, Message, and Media). It is also nice to know the advantages of digital marketing over traditional methods, such as optimization, cost-effectiveness, easier measurement, greater customization and targeting options, and global reach. I felt that the marketing funnel was the one of the most important things to learn that week. I was excited, but I was even more excited to do practical work the next week. As I was preparing to start a website of my own!