1. Defining the Who, What, Why of Paid Marketing
- Harish Narayanan Ex-Chief Marketing Officer, Myntra
Before you begin your paid marketing journey, you should clear out some basics.
The first step is the ‘Who’. There are all these different names for it — customer segment, prime prospect, ideal customer profile, target segment. Essentially, it means figuring out who is your customer.
Who is going to buy your product and give you your initial revenue? You have to be very very clear about this. It’s very likely that you have multiple segments in your mind and you’re thinking you can serve all of them. But you won’t be able to.
You're a startup and have limited resources. You will only be able to serve a limited number of segments. Usually just one. It's critical that you pick the one and even more critical that you understand the unique insight of that customer segment. What is the customer wanting from life that is not solved today and that your product or your company will solve?
The ‘Who’ is part segment and part unique insight. It is very critical to understand these things before you begin paid marketing.
Then you need to know your Promise. Promise also has different names — brand promise, positioning statement, unique selling proposition — these are all essentially the same thing. What you can say to your customer after which the they have to say “I must take this offer. I’d be a fool not to.”
Ola will promise one click and a car will come to pick you up without any wait. It will say that their cars are secure and you get the lowest price. This is such a wonderful offer that I am an idiot if I don’t take it. This is the ‘What’.
The ‘What’ also has things like differentiators. If you are in a very competitive space then it is very possible that your promise is very similar to that of your competitors. Then you have to have some differentiators which make you unique.
Depending on the ‘Who’ and the ‘What’ and the intersection between the two, you get into the ‘How’. This is how you reach your customer.
I’ve invested in 40 companies and have worked with at lest ten as an advisor. Each of them want to start from the ‘How’. Should I do Facebook, or Instagram? Should I do influencer marketing? How much should I spend on search? Should I do SEO or not?
The 'How' part is the tactical part. Most Digital marketers/performance marketers can tell you that this is actually easy. It gets tough when it gets highly technical at a later stage. But for you to get there, there's a journey. You have to solve for the 'Why' and 'What'. My request to you is to begin with answering these two questions first.
For example, say you’re an e‑commerce company and your target segment is a college going kid in India. Then the promise you want to make to them is great trendy styles at fantastic prices. If that is the ‘Who’ and the ‘What’, the outcome of knowing that will be choosing channels will be YouTube, cricket stadiums, IT parks and PG houses.
Whereas if your product is a D2C food brand that is catering to healthy women, then your channels or your ‘How’ will be completely different. Maybe you’ll go and do a partnership with Cult. Maybe your go-to-market has to be Instagram, not YouTube, not Facebook.
The ‘How’ of paid marketing completely changes depending on ‘Who’ and ‘What’. Please get this right and things will be easier for you from then.