Priyank Verma

Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories that you tell.

In today’s world everyone in some way or another is trying to market themselves to the world. This becomes even more prominent if you are trying to attract customers to earn your living.

Preping to become an entrepreneur, I decided to take this course to get the proper understanding of how the mind of a marketer works.

This course included loads of case studies in the form of stories that covered many famous marketing campaigns world wide, from Viagra vs Cialis to Hershey’s vs Mars. Each story will teach you important aspects and tactics of marketing. It will equip you will all the marketing jargon that you will no longer hesitate to invite your marketing friends for a cup of coffee or beer.

The course was 6 modules long. I did it in 15 days as I was running short on time.

Module 1 : Changing nature of marketing, Competition

It covered various tools and frameworks like 3C’s , SWOT and PEST to understand the changing marketing scenario around your business.

Module 2 : Market Research, Segmentation and Targeting

Market research to get actionable insights will make sure that you don’t end up making a product that nobody wants. The case very common with startups.

Study of demographics and psycho-graphics to determine the target customers is another vital component.

Module 3 : Positioning and Value Propositions and Product

Positioning your product in the market by the use of VPs , PoPs, PoDs will determine your product gets sales or not.

Product is not just product, it is a much broader and deeper experience that customer is having with your brand.

Module 4 : Branding and Pricing

Brand identity is what company thinks of its brand, brand image is what use feels about your brand. The more they are similar, more well your product will do.  

Pricing should also be done using skimming and penetration approaches.

Module 5 : Distribution, Integrated marketing communication 

Channel economics, indirect or direct and how product distribution schemes can affect it.

What are IMCs? Basically these are used to reinforce your brand images in customers mind.  Be it PRs, SEO, websites, traditional ads etc.

Module 6 : Social Media, Measurement and Conclusion 

How social media is changing the marketing scenario when combined with digital marketing. (Mobile marketing is what my new start up is based upon).

They can be used to facilitate customer communication.

Metrics of any marketing campaign is revenue, cost of customer acquisition and customer lifetime value.

Conclusion : 

Being a beginners course in the field of marketing, this course served its purpose. My new startup is in the field of mobile marketing where we help small businesses get mobile and expand their customer base.

This course really helped me in shaping what exactly I have to do to shape the company.