Marketing, Marketing, Marketing - Kya hai ye Marketing!

The world around us is filled with a plethora of brands and businesses, each trying to draw our eyeballs towards their offering. Be it Cred's innovative campaigns that bring back memories of some of our favorite childhood stars, the golden arches on McDonalds' outlets, or the famous brand wars between Pepsi and Coca-Cola, each brand is on a never-ending quest of capturing the attention and interest of each one of us!

As we embark on this journey of understanding the true meaning of marketing and exploring its enormity and nitty-gritties, we start our journey by understanding the functional areas that the subject offers. Read on to expand your knowledge and discover the area that peaks your interest.

1. Advertising

"If marketing is a wheel, advertising is one of the spokes on the wheel."

Many of us use marketing and advertising interchangeably, whereas advertising forms a small, yet integral part of marketing. Advertising aligns with one of the 4P's of marketing - promotion. Brands advertise a variety of their assets, they could advertise their product, their brand values, their brand mission and even their brand associations. Advertising is done through multiple channels, of which some of the most popular ones are - social media, search engines, print media, email and influencers. Some of the newer channels of advertising are - programmatic display and video ads, digital out-of-home ads and rich media ads.

I am sure we have come across advertisements across each of these channels and we will cover all these channels and more in detail, through the weekly 'Marketing Bytes'

2. Brand Management

As we discussed, brands are eager to draw the attention of their potential customers, however, it is imperative for brands to ensure that they draw the right kind of attention.

This is where brand management steps in! Brand management involves positioning the brand and its assets to the customers and the public at large, in a way that aligns with the core values and principles of the brand. The importance of brand management has increased multifold as brands have shifted from 'product concept' to 'marketing concept'.

3. Market Research

Whenever a brand creates a product or a service, it does an extensive research to understand the market that it would cater to, its competition, its customers, their preferences, their response to different stimuli and the consumer behavior. To do this, brands employ various tools, conduct surveys and focus group research, and analyze historical data.

Market research helps brands understand the barriers to entry, competition, ease of expanding, buyer and supplier constraints and threat of substitutes. These factors when coupled with consumer research aid a sound understanding of the opportunities and threats that the brand may encounter.

4. Sales

"I've got 99 problems, but My Pitch ain't one!"

Sales is the process of getting the product or service to the consumer and helps in building a relationship with the consumer. Sales is a critical part of marketing and has its foundations laid in the way the market research, advertising and brand is managed. Typically, brands have sales teams that focus on reaching out to the target segment through different touchpoints and aim to encourage the potential consumer towards a desired action (could be purchase of a product, taking part in a free trial, visiting a website). Sales actions can be broadly classified into B2B and B2C sales depending upon the interaction between the business and consumer.

Along with the above four areas of marketing, the evolution of the digital medium has led to the growth of newer modes of reaching out to the consumers such social media marketing, influencer marketing, and programmatic advertising. We shall explore each of these in the coming weeks!

A key takeaway for today is that, "Marketing is the art of creating genuine customer value".

With this, we shall end our first publication of 'Marketing Bytes', and we hope that you learnt something new today. Stay tuned to the next article coming your way.

With love,

The Tipsy Marketer