Marketing: Then and Now!
Marketing isn’t a new concept. It’s one of the key components of the entrepreneurial world, if you can’t market your product properly you can’t establish your presence in the market. You might be able to flip better burgers than Mc Donald but unless you market it, you can’t create a business out of it.
The beginning of marketing dates back to 4000BC in India. The Industrial Revolution was the first time in history where marketing and advertising were practiced on a large scale. The government used to advertise their propaganda, scientists and engineers needed to advertise their inventions.
Art and business were considered poles apart but the Industrial Revolution reduced this gap. Artists started proper marketing of their art by showcasing them in their showrooms which built and expanded their customer network from emperors to businessmen and from businessmen to common men.
The era has changed now, we have switched from traditional methods of marketing to the latest method using the latest technologies. We have replaced paper with the digital world and are still moving forward. Market segmentation is tougher now than ever before as people who look for cheap air travel and hospitality may be the same people who buy Apple’s latest iPhone.
Marketing Strategies also get retired!
The strategies of marketing evolve from time to time. A strategy that you were using 10 years back may not work today. One of the most famous techniques used for marketing was ‘Flyers’. But they eventually lost their value as the world became more digitized.
You know what you do with all the flyers you are handed on your way or the flyers which come with your newspapers.
Do you read all the posters while you are on your way to work or on your way home? Aren’t you troubled by all the phone calls you receive from the service providers? Don’t you use ad-blockers? When was the last time you read a brochure glued at the back of a bus? (Except for the fact that you were stuck in traffic).
Things have changed in the past few years and marketing isn’t the same the way it was before.
Here are some brands who have kept their marketing game up using social media:
Using social media just for advertising is a very good idea for marketing. If you wish your customers to react with you, you first need to interact with your customers. Brands like Twitter, Wendy’s, Tacobell, Burger King keep interacting with their customers using these social media platforms. They conduct various social campaigns engaging their customers to tag their friends and use their hashtags. At times they also react to their mentions in posts and also reply to the first few comments in their posts. They aren’t always formal in their approach, at times they will pass some in-joke and they know pretty well how to interact with their audience.
Won’t you feel good after getting a reply from your favorite brand?
Who is the King?
Do you read all the emails in your inbox every day?
Some of you will be checking your emails regularly but most of you won’t. In the world of WhatsApp and other chat platforms, people don’t often use their emails. You might consider it as an ineffective method of marketing.
But, the king in the marketing world is ‘EMAIL MARKETING’ with ROI (Return on Investment) more than 4000% ($44 for every $1 spent).
These figures are hard to digest, right?
Dell’s Marketing for Dell XPS 12 Convertible Ultrabook -
Dell faced a challenge for its new Convertible Ultrabook: a laptop with a special hinge to convert it into a tablet. It belonged to a special class of laptops called ‘Convertibles’ which were gaining popularity then. The problem was the marketing of a unique product, that wasn’t ever done before by Dell. Dell came up with the solution of using E-mail Marketing with a GIF campaign. They showed in the GIF how the laptop was converted into a tablet.
This marketing strategy benefitted Dell by increasing its revenue to 109%.
What’s there for the future?
The world is running at a fast pace, new inventions are made each passing day. Similarly, the model of marketing also needs to be modified accordingly. As time has flown by, the customer interest has changed from product to experience. People have started investing in things which give them experience. Why do you think people buy Apple? They not only buy Apple for technology but also for their status in society. Disneyland doesn’t sell tickets for rides and shows, they sell an experience. People have shifted their interest from reel to real, after Youtube, Instagram, and other social platforms. People have started connecting more to the bloggers, vloggers who share their day to day life with their audiences. People connect to these vloggers more as they share the same language and the same background. Since people can connect to these influencers more easily than brands so they trust these influencers more than the brands which have given rise to Influencer Marketing which is at par right now.
As technology will keep on advancing, the marketing of products will be more personalized with the help of big data. Companies will be able to implement these technologies in their marketing techniques providing a better experience to their customers. Google search has grown smarter now, your search results now not only depend on the keywords, but also on other factors like bounce rate, time on the page, etc. So, in place of filling your content with the keywords, you should work on improving the quality of your content.
Abbey Klaassen, the president of 360i’s headquarters in New York, says that ‘Voice Marketing’ is the future. She says, “Voice is somewhere between evolution and a revolution for marketing.”
As technology advances the field of virtual reality will be explored more, giving rise to various new inventions. Virtual reality has the potential of attracting the audience, which could be used in the future to create experiences for the customers in campaigns. It can help in storytelling, leaving an unforgettable impact on the audience.
Conclusion:
The history of marketing had been an incredible journey. Every new technique of marketing becomes old in the blink of an eye. If you need to survive in the game you need to be creative all the time.
Marketing plans backfire also at times. One of the famous examples of failed marketing plans is:
Starbucks “#racetogther” campaign:
Starbucks, well known for personalizing their customer’s experience by writing their first name on the coffee cup, launched a campaign in the year 2015 encouraging its customers to participate in discussions over the race with their baristas. Employees used to write ‘#racetogether’ on their coffee cups. This plan backfired and resulted in the fall of SBUX stocks.
If you have to survive in marketing you need to be creative and interactive with your audience, creating a personalized experience for them.
