What is the objective of marketing? have you ever thought about it?
The ultimate objective of marketing is sales. This is the candid answer of 99% of marketing and sales professionals.
Everyone thinks marketing is advertising and promotion; the sales figure should shoot up due to this promotion. Support the sales team to achieve their targets. This means a support system.
This is just one side of the story. This describes just one aspect of the entire ecosystem of marketing.
This is just another P of marketing.
Now fasten the seat belt of your thoughts, and don’t be surprised by reading the few following lines.
Marketing is the source code and growth engine of the most crucial thing in humanity.
Viewers – Audience –> Community –> emotions–> Religion -> Culture
Now you can check where your brand stands and which category of target objective. They all start with getting the viewership and converting into the audience.
Viewers:-
who see your brand. Use your product. Consume your services. Benefit from solutions. They are your customers; they use it and move on. They see your content and turn to someone else. One night stand. One-time user. Accidental users. Most of the tick-tock and reels have users only.
The most brand comes under this category. I won’t name them; they feel bad. Aren’t they. 🙂
Audience:– A little ahead of viewers. They are your audience; they wait for you.
Your product launch, your announcement, your offerings. They know you or at least pretend to know you. They consume your content and wait for the next. It is like a live-in couple. Subscribers of your channel. Daily family serials,
Community:- When the audience connects to the brand and shares and exchanges their thoughts, it forms the community.
Members engage through community rituals, and these rituals make the bond stronger. There are thousands of examples around us of how rituals help to create a strong community brand.
When Great Gangadhar Tilak started Ganpati Utsav in Maharashtra, they wanted to have unity in the community and use that unity to make India stronger to restore the faith and pride of nation. Ganpati Festival unites the country every year, even today.
The annual launch of the new apple phone is a ritual that strengthens the apple community. The company organizes fan clubs, dealer meets, and other events to energize the community eventually strengthen the brand. Other examples are monthly R&R, annual days, Chintan Shivir and political rallies.
These days tech companies create CXO clubs, Tiles companies like NITCO LIMITED have meson and architect clubs, and Xiaomi Technology Fan clubs are other examples.
The community provides the food for thought and thought leadership, backing the brand in ups and down.
WhatsApp groups are the most recent and typical example of communities. Other social platforms, Meetup, Facebook, and Linkedin, also help create communities.
But all communities need rituals to sustain themselves and require new members to join the community to make it alive. The community’s success lies in new innovation, but the foundation should be intact.
Emotion:– is a rare stage, and very few names are in this category.
A brand that identifies a specific class uplifts social status, a sign of aspirations, desire, and beliefs, and hence comes in this category.
The national anthem is emotion, Martyrs and national heroes are emotion, and Sachin Tendulkar is emotion. Maradona, MS Dhoni, and Narender Modi are not just players or leaders but they are emotion now. They are beyond the thoughts and placed in the heart of their fans. Apple is not just a smartphone but an emotion, which Samsung Electronics could not be able to enjoy. Rajesh Khanna was an emotion, not Amitabh Bachchan.
Companies like Apple, Tata Group Royal Enfield, and Fiat Punto have already reached emotion levels.
Religion:– It’s rarest in a rare category. It could be one person, object, concept, or Audiology based on unlimited Love, trust, belief, affection, and aspiration repeated in generations.
It depends on the market to market; one religion could be a musical mythological drama at another place. Mohammad Gazani is an invader and terrorist for us, but he is like a god in Afghanistan. It varies as per the degree of emotional devotion.
So that was an example of how one concept, person, and generation became the religion. All religion has books, ambassadors, and promoters to promote and create followers.
Cricket is a religion in India. The concept of India means Bharat Mata is a religion. In Defense – of protecting the border is the religion, and they are ready to give the supreme sacrifice. It takes years to fall into this category. Few Sports, such as Football and cricket, reached pre-religious levels.
There is one more category, which is a way of life. You can name it culture.
Culture is ahead of religion, but it is a little complicated. Religion and culture sometimes overlap, so it is next to impossible to separate. Both of these concepts are tangled with various theories and rituals.
India is a country of many audiology and faith, but the culture is the same that is based on Vasudhaiv kutumbkam. Sanatan is not a religion but a way of life and more like a culture.
Shri Ram was not just a king of Ayodhya but a perfect son, king, brother, friend, husband, and warrior. Today every Indian wants a son like Ram, who can renounce his power and post to honor his father’s promise. A brother like Ram and Bharat, who love and respect his brother unconditionally, a husband like Ram who dared to fight with the most powerful man at that time to get his wife back. He is the epitome of a perfect man; that’s the concept of RamRajya. The entire Ramayan is our history, not mythology, and we are free to define it in our words; that’s the beauty of it. Real Sanatan dharma is based on millions of years of practice, concepts, and science.
Ever imagine in India, a less educated priest in a small village can tell you the right time of a solar eclipse in just 4-5 minutes by referring to the Panchang. It’s pure science. For that, Nasa has to spend billions on satellites and instruments.
This is all culture.
In west Asia, Uzbek, Baloch, Hazara, and other tribes were there; they all came together to invade, loot, destroy, and murder. Hindukush mountain range, Gori, Gaznavi, and even the recently demolished Bamiyan buddha statute are reference points. I don’t need to explain this. That’s their way of life.
For Western Europeans and the U.S., trading and making a profit is the way of life.
So marketing is more than the content calendar, sales strategy, and launch plan. It is beyond the PPT.
So what’s the objective of your brand? Where have you reached so far?
Share your views in the comment box.