Life being a marketer

by Anoop Raghav Brand Strategist

I stepped into the shoes of a digital marketer nearly seven years back. And let me tell you that it has been a roller-coaster ride thus far.

I am in a profession, which requires less traveling. But I love to travel and build relationship rather than connections. And I am sure you will never find a link between traveling or building relationships and digital marketing.

Being in India, it is difficult to work by simply sitting at one place, which I hate the most. Most of my clients are spread over Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kerala. So I cannot avoid traveling as I seek a pan-Indian presence.I always feel digital marketing is nothing but selling the product or service using online tools, technologies and platforms. Eventually, you are helping the business sell a product or service to their ultimate stakeholders called human beings.

So, you are ultimately dealing with human beings who can think, respond and take a decision.

Surprisingly, when a client approaches, most of the digital marketers see only their website. They don't analyze the product or the target audience. They don't analyze the behavioral patterns of people.

Let me tell you how traveling and building relationship polished my core skill set.

Travel to build relationship instead of network

Every journey brings some kind of wisdom as we get to meet many people in flight, train or bus. Picking a conversation was my key strategy in these journeys. Though an introvert, I had to change my basic character in order to place myself in a better league.

I met Dr Varma in one of those journeys. We met at a resort in Kerala and had a detailed discussion. I gave him a clear idea about my views on digital marketing. How content-driven digital marketing works wonders for companies in the healthcare and education fields. But I held myself back when he started telling me about his experiences in the digital world.

He detailed his decade-long experiments in digital world. They tried Ad-words, SEO and affiliate marketing. But barring Google Ads, none of the other tools worked for them. Like every digital marketers, I also thought the same way that any content on health would find readers online.

But he gave me a different take.

"People take Ayurveda as a last resort. They try all other methods and land up on Ayurveda to give it a last try. They read all the content before they take a call. We need a Geo-targeted content approach. And content should position Ayurveda as a procedure to keep the illness away."

I have learnt one important lesson. Before you take up the contract, you should take time to have detailed study on their business, target audience and the approach required. You don't need to worry about the size of traffic, or size of back-links. You need to worry about their current market position, approach of the target audiences, the locations, and the list goes endless.

If I held back in my office in Mumbai, I would not have met Dr Varma. This is just an example. I never thought I would learn such an important marketing lesson from an Ayurvedic doctor. He gave me the first corporate client with a recurring fat pay cheque.

Similarly I met Padmaraj and Co. A casual interaction over couple of drinks in Bangalore led to a contract that helped me understand the new verticals of digital marketing. For the first time I tried out the high-authority niche market targeting campaign.

Let me tell you that they taught me the power of Quora, as they survived and become operational breakeven in just two years with the leads from the Q n A platform.

Every month I spend around 15 days in my office. And I use next 15 days for traveling and meeting my clients. A casual visit means everything to your client. It is not to please them, but to ensure that you get the update about their movements. It helps you bringing necessary changes in the digital strategy.

There is always fresh lessons to learn every time I meet a new person. It is not that only a digital marketing person knows everything about the trade. Sometimes those in other industries may have better understanding, perhaps not about digital marketing, but definitely about their niche markets and people.

The list is endless. Let me delve into each segment one by one. I will cover more topics and talk about people. Soon I will write about clients' reaction as I seek to debunk the digital marketing myth.