Marketing Has Changed. What Five Changes Can You Make to Thrive?
by John Ellett, CEOMarketing has changed. And that is a great thing for consumers. It is also an opportunity for those marketers who are willing to embrace the new era and become agents of change for their organizations.
Over the coming months I will be sharing thoughts about five changes that marketers should be making to capitalize on the advantages that the current era brings. To clarify those advantages, I'd like to start by contrasting this era with the two previous eras of marketing.
The first I'll call the local era. For centuries communities produced goods locally and members traded with trusted neighbors. Selection was limited but merchants tailored their services to their customers whom they knew well. Trust, personal experience and word-of-mouth facilitated trade and determined buying behavior.
Soon, technology transformed manufacturing and communications to usher in the next marketing era: that of mass production, distribution and communications. Because consumers were not personally familiar with suppliers, brands evolved as a way for consumers to navigate the marketplace and discern among proliferating alternatives — making brand trust the key determinant in product selection. Now that trade was based on brand experiences, marketers sought to communicate with consumers efficiently and build brand familiarity through mass media, such as radio, television, newspaper and magazines. To focus resources, marketers used demographic segmentation to guide media selection and message development.
Most of today's marketing concepts (brands, demographic segmentation, reach and frequency, etc.) were forged in this "mass" era. Many marketers treat these principles as gospel, having lost sight of their original premises; premises that have gone unchallenged despite the many ways that technology has altered the playing field. It's time to take a fresh look at our environment and welcome in the digital era.
Information technology has made it possible to enjoy the benefits of the previous two eras. Mass-customization now offers consumers a virtually unlimited selection of goods, which companies can tailor to desires, produce anywhere and deliver to doorsteps. Instead of having to remember all available brand choices, consumers let search engines do the work for them. This consumer empowerment has profoundly shifted emphasis from selling products via mass media to helping consumers buy what they want. To pick from an overwhelming array of choices, consumers now turn to their virtual communities for guidance.
Providing the online information people need to make decisions is now paramount. The buying experience can be more critical in decision-making than brand familiarity, which frustrates marketers who have invested in traditional brand-building approaches. Digital media targeting based on buyer behavior has surpassed demographically targeted mass media as a more efficient and effective method for engaging buyers. The world has changed and it's time for marketers to embrace this change and prosper.
Over the next few issues I'll dive deeper into the five changes that marketers should be making to succeed in the digital era. To preview, these changes are:
- 1. New approaches to involving customers in value creation
- 2. New approaches to communicating
- 3. New tools for allocating marketing resources
- 4. New methods for measuring efficiency and effectiveness
- 5. New organization models
