Introduction
Today, any industry and most human activities are significantly determined by technology. It is hard to imagine a day without using technological devices like computers, smartphones, or digital cameras. People find it effective to exchange opinions, deliver news, and employ gadgets for sharing, storing, and creating data. This dynamic world would be incomplete and pointless without technologies that people continue developing. In marketing, new technologies and techniques are necessary to facilitate research processes, promote global trade, and strengthen marketing intelligence (Ellis et al., 2011).
The role of technology in contemporary marketing has been considerably redefined and changed with time. Modern organizations succeed in establishing customer relationships, managing their activities, and expanding their boundaries globally. Marketing has been improved in terms of connection, mobility, entertainment, and accountability. This report aims at evaluating the impact of technology on modern marketing and the evolution of technological developments. Digital marketing is a relatively new approach for recognizing the relationship between customers, products, services, and employees. The analysis of past achievements, current tools, and future perspectives will prove the necessity of understanding marketing history and theory and using this information in the 21st practices.
Past Experiences and Impact of Technology on Marketing
Marketing and Technology Essence
The connection between marketing and technology is inevitable for many reasons, and the history of this industry and past achievements serve as solid evidence. Hart (2016) offers not to reflect on the benefits of technology above marketing and vice versa but to investigate the fusion between market-led and technology-led innovations in strategic planning. It is wrong to promote marketing and neglect technological progress, as well as to underline technological contributions outside the marketing industry. According to the American Marketing Association (2013, cited in Parsons, Maclaren, and Chatzidakis, 2018, p. 1), marketing means âcreating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society.â Thus, marketing is not a single activity but several processes and institutions that should never be neglected because they help organizations create value.
Companies must create value-based projects to achieve competitive advantage and maintain customer satisfaction and loyalty (Khan, 2013). Dholakia, Zwick, and Denegri-Knott (2013, p. 495) define technology as a âkey factor driving strategyâ that connects consumers and marketers, making it another source of value. The penetration of technology into human lives and marketing has its history and impact.
Digital Marketing History
When technological progress became an evident achievement, its impact on marketing was meaningful. Marketers began investigating their opportunities and predicting the benefits and shortages of working with new technologies, including the Internet. The concept of digital marketing emerged in the 1990s as the management and promotion of services via the Internet. Some companies supported the intranet network to allow only staff to access information, while many organizations preferred the extranet network as an opportunity to invite customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2016).
In a short period, the era of personal computers initiated in the middle of the 1970s was replaced with Web 1.0 in the 1990s when technologies were used to deliver some content. Then, Web 2.0 was introduced to engage users in data exchange in the 2000s, and Web 3.0 helped people and machines to cooperate in the 2010s (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2016). In the 2020s, the Web 4.0 era will achieve another goal through vertical and horizontal designs to unite all devices and people who use them in real and virtual worlds (Ghobakhloo and Fathi, 2019). This advancement has shaped marketing and made marketers reconsider their priorities.
Marketing Theories from Past to Present
One of the causes of the marketing industryâs success is the possibility to follow theories that provide a deep understanding of all marketing elements, namely customers, products, services, needs, motivation, and competition. The first theoretical foundations were properly discussed in the 1930s to learn the essence of imperfect competition (Robinson and Chamberlin) or marketing parameters (the Copenhagen School) (Baker, 2016). Marketing theory was accepted as a set of facts and systems for people to use their knowledge, develop hypotheses, and act (Saren, 2016). The most popular ideas were discussed through a marketing mix model that included 4Ps (product, place, price, and promotion) in the 1960s and was expanded to 7Ps in the 1980s (physical evidence, people, and process) (van Waterschoot and Foscht, 2016).
In the past, the role of technology was not as evident and devastating as it is today. It was enough for marketers to implement one or two models to learn their competitive advantage or choose the necessary marketing segment. However, technologies enlarged the scope of marketing activities, and the implementation of Maslowâs hierarchy of needs, SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis, and consumer decision-making became obligatory.
Modern Tools in Marketing
Overall Changes
Modern marketing is usually interpreted as digital marketing, where electronic devices like personal computers and smartphones are used for contact and information exchange. There are many technological tools that may be applied to achieve the necessary marketing goals, including the Internet and non-Internet channels (Jain and Yadav, 2017). On the one hand, traditional marketing tools and methods of communication are regularly implemented.
People still like to address TV, radio, and SMS to get information or share a new product or service. On the other hand, technologies increase the number of opportunities and attract more individuals to this practice. Thus, email, easy-to-access apps, and social networks are in demand (Bala and Verma, 2018). The revolution of technologies in marketing makes it possible to decide fast, examine global achievements, and make changes quickly (Grewal et al., 2020). It is correct to say that technologies have already changed the rules and standards of marketing, diminishing the role of theories and traditional approaches. Now, the time is to understand if marketers use their opportunities correctly and achieve the maximum benefits for their practice.
Social Media Impact
Marketers represent their ideas within their companies and offer their services to customers and other stakeholders in a variety of ways. Still, talking about the role of technology in marketing, one should recognize the worth of social media in all processes. Today, millions of people are ready to spend their time and money using such digital channels as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram (Maheshwari, 2019). Compared to email marketing, which is preferred in about 23% of strategies, Facebook and Twitter are more than 25% popular (Cole, DeNardin, and Clow, 2017). It means that the presence of social media defines the level of knowledge an ordinary customer could obtain.
The benefits of these technologies continue to grow and attract the attention of many companies. New proactive relationships are established, and interactions with customers become more frequent so managers can track usersâ journeys and analyze their needs (Maheshwari, 2019). The 7Ps of the marketing mix is one of the most commonly used theories to see how technologies stabilize all marketing processes. Marketing departments have to work closely with information technology departments and achieve the desired outcomes by developing strong social media content.
Contributions of Young Populations
As one of the technological outcomes, social media engagement remains a vital topic in marketing research. Today, marketers pay attention to the needs of Generation Y representatives who believe in the power of the digital revolution and base their consumption choices on the information that they find on the Internet (Fletcher and Emmanuel-Stephen, 2016). Regarding Maslowâs theory of needs, young populations do not like to waste their time and consider a variety of options at the same time. Instead of visiting physical stores, they prefer to turn on their smartphones and use the products they see on their bright screens (Jain and Yadav, 2017).
They follow YouTube channels and observe Instagram stories to understand if they need a product or not. In some way, marketing has lost its initial purpose â to deliver and create offerings. Technologies make it impossible to predict what sources of information Generation Y would choose today or what their behavioural motives are (Maheshwari, 2019). Therefore, marketers have to extend the areas of their activities and control all sources of information.
Future Perspectives in Marketing Technologies
Ambiguous Relationships
In the past, the rise of the Internet was surely the most significant achievement that changed all the spheres of human activities. At this moment, it is impossible to think about any other discovery that could replace or surpass the impact of this particular technology. However, technological improvements are necessary to understand what marking shifts matter and must be developed in the future. Jain and Yadav (2017) recommend focusing on open-source content and recognising the role of services to pull customers toward products rather than to push products toward customers. Traditional marketing based on 7Ps and customersâ needs is no longer effective, and it is high time to integrate new models and theories in marketing through the prism of technological impact.
Grewal et al. (2020) also suggest distinguishing between immediate, near, and far future and creating a specific interdisciplinary issue that unites marketing and technology. Both approaches prove that technology affects and will be affecting marketing, but their relationships remain poorly investigated.
Corporate Survival
The future of marketing is hard to predict because of constantly changing technologies and social expectations. One of the possible trends in this industry is corporate survival and developing interpersonal relationships within a team. Ghobakhloo and Fathi (2019) discover that manufacturing digitalisation leads to the reduction of physically demanding jobs and the increase of machine vision applications. It means that the opinion of a human being is not as powerful and sustainable as the outcome achieved by technologies. Marketing activities would not include people and their observations but numbers and technical comments.
As a result, some marketing theories as SWOT analysis, communication mix, and Maslowâs hierarchy of needs could lose their worth in business. Integrating digital marketing with other marketing tactics is obligatory to create cross-functional teams (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2016). It is important not to allow technologies to replace interpersonal communication and corporate relationships with technological processes and social media analyses.
New Generations of Customers
Finally, marketing technology is constantly applied to make human life more interesting and easier. Markers use devices and platforms to create their services and share information about products, and customers receive all the material through the chosen channel (Nunan and Di Domenico, 2019). Some companies select inbound marketing strategies to distribute content and draw clients, while outbound marketing is necessary to initiate conversations and proactively reach clients (Maheshwari, 2019). Customers get access to more tangible marketing services, quit their experimental habits, and become a part of a brand community (Nasır and Kurtulus, 2018).
New generations have specific interests, increased responsibilities, and high expectations. Many companies are not able to find out their values because clientsâ loyalty is challenged. Instead of waiting for options or accepting compromises, it is easy for customers to find another product or use another available service. Technologies instigate marketers and provide customers with freedoms but no guarantees. Therefore, the future of marketing technologies is in close cooperation and real-life experiences that remove doubts and prove confidence.
Conclusion
A new era of marketing is characterised by multiple organisational, administrative, and technical changes. There are many benefits associated with technologies, including the possibilities of bringing marketing closer to people, discovering their interests and global perspectives, and sharing information quickly. At the same time, marketing content reaches customers in a variety of ways, and it is difficult to examine all types of market segmentation effectively. Digital marketing is an evident strength of a modern society that helps to address complex problems, multiple tasks, and various interests.
This report shows that the role of technology in contemporary marketing is great, with its positive and negative impacts. In general, most business practitioners understand that all these changes were inevitable because of the spread of the Internet and social media services. The connection between technologies and marketing provokes behavioural shifts, new expectations, and vital opportunities. Some organisations are ready to recognise and accept new marketing strategies, while others need more time and resources to take a step and work under new conditions.
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