While refreshing my MBA knowledge, I thought it would be fun to revisit some of the marketing lessons that shaped how I see the world of brands today. Marketing isn’t just about ads or selling — it’s about understanding people, strategies, and a little dictionary of jargons that sneak into a marketer’s daily life.
If you’ve ever wondered what terms like AIDA, CLV, ROI, or guerrilla marketing really mean, here’s a breakdown of the most important marketing concepts — explained simply, with real-world examples you can actually relate to. Consider this your Marketing 101 crash course.
1. AIDA Model (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action)
The AIDA model is one of the most popular frameworks in marketing. It maps the customer journey from the moment they notice your brand to the moment they take action.
- Attention: Capture the audience with bold visuals or headlines.
- Interest: Spark curiosity with storytelling or benefits.
- Desire: Build an emotional connection that makes them want the product.
- Action: Drive the final step — a purchase, sign-up, or click.
Example: Nike’s “Just Do It” campaigns follow this perfectly. They grab attention with powerful visuals, hold interest through inspiring stories, build desire by showing athletes as relatable heroes, and push action with the iconic swoosh and call-to-buy.
This model is the backbone of sales funnels, email campaigns, and digital ads — basically Marketing 101 in action.
2. The 4Ps of Marketing (and the Extended 7Ps)
The 4Ps — Product, Price, Place, Promotion — are the fundamentals every marketer learns first. But in the modern era, especially in services marketing, this extended into 7Ps, adding People, Process, and Physical Evidence.
Example: Starbucks
- Product: Not just coffee, but a lifestyle.
- Price: Premium but accepted.
- Place: Everywhere from New York to Sydney.
- Promotion: Seasonal buzz like Pumpkin Spice Latte.
- People: Friendly baristas (even if they spell your name wrong).
- Process: Easy ordering through apps and loyalty programs.
- Physical Evidence: The iconic Starbucks green cup.
Whether you’re in digital or retail marketing, the 7Ps remain a go-to framework to design strategy.
3. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV or CLTV)
CLV is the estimated revenue a business can expect from a customer over the entire relationship. It’s not about the single purchase today, but the future purchases stacked over months or years.
Example: Amazon Prime is the master of CLV. Customers may join for free shipping, but soon they’re streaming movies, listening to music, ordering groceries, and shopping more often — increasing their lifetime value exponentially.
For businesses, CLV helps decide how much to spend on customer acquisition and retention. High CLV customers are worth extra investment in loyalty programs, perks, or personalisation.
4. Product Lifecycle
Every product follows a journey: Introduction → Growth → Maturity → Decline. Understanding which stage your product is in shapes the entire marketing strategy.
Example: The iPod. It launched with huge excitement (Introduction), dominated music culture (Growth), enjoyed years of strong sales (Maturity), and then faded out (Decline) once the iPhone made it obsolete.
Marketers often fight to keep products in the Maturity stage for as long as possible — Coca-Cola being a prime example of a product that never seems to age.
5. Matryoshka Model (The Layered Value Approach)
Like Russian nesting dolls, this model shows that products have multiple layers: the core product, augmented features, and the emotional or symbolic layer.
Example: An iPhone.
- Core: A smartphone.
- Augmented: Sleek design, App Store, AppleCare, seamless integration.
- Emotional: A status symbol, a lifestyle choice, and a sense of belonging to the Apple tribe.
Great marketing comes from building these layers so customers feel they’re unwrapping more than just a product.
6. Guerrilla Marketing
Guerrilla marketing is all about unconventional, low-cost, high-impact tactics. It’s marketing that surprises, entertains, or shocks people into remembering your brand.
Example: IKEA once built a fully furnished apartment inside a Paris subway station, letting commuters experience “life at home.” The stunt cost far less than a TV commercial but created huge buzz and media coverage.
Today, guerrilla marketing often goes viral on TikTok or Instagram, proving creativity often beats budget.
7. Niche Marketing
Instead of marketing to the masses, niche marketing focuses on a very specific audience.
Example: Gymshark. They started by targeting young fitness enthusiasts on Instagram and YouTube, not the entire sportswear market. By owning their niche, they built a cult following before scaling globally.
Niche marketing is powerful because it creates loyalty and authenticity — qualities mass marketing often struggles with.
8. CPL (Cost per Lead)
CPL is a performance marketing metric that measures how much it costs to acquire one potential lead (like an email sign-up or demo request).
Example: If Canva spends $1,000 on Facebook ads and gets 1,000 sign-ups, their CPL is $1. But the real test isn’t just the cost — it’s whether those leads eventually convert into paying customers.
This is why CPL is often analysed alongside CLV (Customer Lifetime Value).
9. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is when third parties promote your product and earn commission for driving sales. It’s performance-driven and very common in e-commerce.
Example: Bloggers linking “Top 10 Skincare Products on Amazon” earn money when readers click through and purchase. Influencers also thrive on this model by sharing discount codes or affiliate links.
It’s a win-win: brands get reach and sales, affiliates earn income, and customers feel they’re getting “trusted” recommendations.
10. ROI (Return on Investment)
ROI measures the overall efficiency of an investment — not just in ads but across the business. It asks the simple question: Did we make more money than we spent?
Example: Adidas spends $100,000 on a campaign that generates $400,000 in profit. That’s a 300% ROI. But ROI isn’t always straightforward — some campaigns build long-term brand equity, which is harder to measure in immediate dollars.
11. ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
While ROI looks at the big picture, ROAS zooms into advertising only. It measures revenue generated for every dollar spent on ads.
Example: An e-commerce brand spends $10,000 on Google Ads and generates $50,000 in revenue. Their ROAS is 5:1. But if it drops below 1:1, the ads are losing money.
Digital marketers obsess over ROAS because it’s the clearest measure of whether campaigns are profitable.
Final Thoughts: Marketing Lessons from My MBA
Brushing up on these jargons felt like revisiting old friends from my MBA days. Together, they form the foundation of Marketing 101 — a mix of psychology, strategy, and creativity.
And as I like to remind myself in The Narrative Muse:
“At the end of the day, marketing is storytelling in disguise — sometimes dressed up in acronyms, sometimes layered like a matryoshka doll, but always chasing the human heart.”
The Narrative Muse 
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