How technology has changed marketing...Forever

Nearly fifty years ago, Philip Kotler published his Principles of Marketing, which has defined the practice for marketers ever since. What made Kotler different than what came before is he took insights from other areas, such as economics, social science and analytics and applied them to marketing. Although that seems basic now, it was groundbreaking at the time.

Promotion dominated the field of marketing in the 20th century. Although evaluating opportunities was important, advertising, especially on TV, was what drove budgets and strategic thinking. Today, however, digital technology has enabled us to re-target consumers when they respond to a message and that has changed marketing forever. In effect, we must make the shift from grabbing attention to holding attention.

Due to this brands will have to learn to be more like publishers and develop content skills. It also means marketers will have to create a genuine value exchange rather than just coming up with catchy ad slogans and price promotions.

In the past, we focused on rational benefits to entice consumers to support our brands. Show that your brand is better in a clear, rational way and you could build a loyal following. While some energy went into tactics further down the line, the thinking was that awareness was a tide that lifted all boats. Most knew that the notion wasn’t 100% accurate, but it was true enough that it worked and played a crucial role in building our most beloved brands.

That model is now broken because 60% of television viewers are surfing the Internet while they watch (Chmielewski, 2013), so the action that a TV ad is most likely to elicit is not a trip to the store, but an Internet search. That’s a very fundamental change and it means we need to do things differently.

Once a consumer begins to research a category purchase online, their data trail will alert your competitors, who will re-target those same consumers with new offers based on their surfing behaviour. In effect, by building brand awareness you are also building category awareness and allowing your rivals to line their coffers.

Marketing strategy has always been numbers driven. We survey a small selection of the population and then scale up those samples to make decisions. Unfortunately, our numbers are always wrong. They are backward looking, fraught with error and based on confidence intervals that virtual guarantee that they’ll be wildly off one time in twenty.

However, big data (Arthur, 2013) is enabling an entirely different approach. Rather than wait for the results of controlled studies and then analyze them to glean insights, we can collect massive amounts of data in real time. Instead of fooling ourselves into thinking we have it right, we can become less wrong over time.

Adobe polled 1,000 marketers in the U.S. and found that most strongly doubt their skills, effectiveness, and ability to measure the impact of their campaigns. The study, Digital Distress: What Keeps Marketers Up at Night? (Adobe, 2013), exposes new insights into the industry’s attitudes toward e-marketing.

So, while Kotler reconciled marketing with the standards of business, over the next decade we will have to reconcile marketing with the standards of technology. Quite a challenge to take on. 

A word to the wise: Either adapt to change, or get left behind. 

Let's start at the beginning...

My career literally began on the eve of technology in the average workplace. My first full-time job was as the secretary for the sales department of a small, family-owned television station.  In order to sell commercial time to local businesses, the folks I worked with ventured out with a list of “cold calls” every day. That’s right, knocking on doors and asking for sales. This was my first look at “old school” marketing.

My first look at technology was the day the owner of the station purchased the company’s first PC. They locked it in a spare office. If someone wanted to use it, they had to ask the Manager for the key to the office and lock it up and return the key when they were done.  One night, someone forgot to lock the office.  The next morning we were all called into a meeting and admonished for being so irresponsible!

Those were the days before fax machines, email and cell phones. It really wasn't that long ago…it’s just that technology has changed all of our lives so much, so quickly since then. Our children grow up with more technology in society in their lifetime, than any generation before.

So, I am sure you understand better now why I find the prospect of e-Marketing so exciting. To be able to use technology to market a product or service to people all over the world in a matter of seconds, is a long way from those days of “cold calls” from the not-so-distant past!

Please check back frequently to discover how digital marketing can be a more targeted and less expensive medium than marketing through traditional media. I am looking forward to our journey together.