The Future in Marketing
Current Trends
Marketing today is an ever changing environment, with a vast amount of this change owed to the fast changing technology industry and the advancement of the digital age and products including mobile phones and other devices. A large part of this new digital age is the explosion of social media, with millions of people worldwide actively using social media daily in the forms of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube etc. The fact that social media has a large audience means that it is fast becoming an important platform for marketers, “they provide social marketers with timely and personal ways to deliver products and promotional communications.” (Lee and Kotler 2011, p.368) Marketers do not generally use social media as a platform to sell a product, but instead it will “most likely be used for raising brand awareness, engaging with a target audience or perhaps customer service and support.” (Manning, J. 2013) Twitter is perhaps the best example of a form of social media that can be used for these purposes. Twitter allows a business to communicate in real time with their customers, and lets them hear any complaints or compliments and respond to them.
Facebook, like Twitter has allowed brands to create a profile which they can use to not only promote the brand itself but also to communicate with their customers and any potential customers. The change in trends in marketing methods can be seen here, where we can see that the spending in online advertising is fast increasing, whilst spending in traditional forms like newspapers is sharply falling. The graph also shows us how people are spending more and more time on mobile devices, and with all the forms of social media now available on apps it means that marketers can target consumers whenever and wherever they are.
(The Economist, [online] 2014)
Figures stating that there are now over 1.7 billion people (around 20% of the world population) use smartphones, (The Economist, Online, 2014) it is clear that social media and digital marketing is a leading marketing trend that doesn’t look like going away anytime soon. B. J. Fogg (2009) director of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University, has predicted that by 2020, the mobile phone will be the primary platform for influencing people’s behaviours – with more power than TV, radio or the Web. The fact that Fogg is recognising the power of the mobile phone indicates that it could become the key marketing tool of the future.
Here we have an example of how a company (Jet Blue) has used Twitter to communicate with a customer who is not pleased witht he service. This effective customer service is likely to help keep customers loyalty and increase the chances of repaeted customs despite the customer facing problems.
(Rachel Sprung [online] 2013)
Social and Digital Marketing
Customer Relationship Marketing
Customer relationship management is geared around building a long lasting relationship between the business and its customers. The aim is to create a lifelong bond, with customers who are loyal to the brand. In order for the brand to build this relationship the business as a whole must become more customer centric, and they must understand their customer and what satisfies them. Firms have various methods to go about establishing and building these relationships. These methods can range from customer satisfaction surveys, mystery shoppers and complaint and suggestion systems. In recent years the digital revolution has aided the process of building a relationship. Instant online chat services allow problems to be resolved in a short amount of time. Just recently I encountered troubles with my laptops sound features, Microsoft have extensive online forums that can help problems be solved, in my case I began a chat conversation with a Microsoft expert who I was able to speak directly and instantly with. Thanks to extensive development into online problem solving it is possible for a Microsoft expert to access control of your computer from their location, this relatively new form of support has enabled consumers to access repair services instantly from their own home. This new technology has greatly shortened the amount of time that customers have to wait before having their problems resolved and minimised the cost at which they suffer when experiencing problems. In my experience I was able to have the issue resolved within a couple of hours, whereas before this software was available it would have taken substantially longer and had a greater cost to myself as the consumer. Social media interaction can play a role in developing the relationship, many companies, including John Lewis have managed to build strong and loyal relationships with their customers through social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.
John Lewis’ company structure is that it is owned by its employees, so they benefit from providing excellent customer service in order to maintain and expand the customer base resulting in the business excelling and they will receive benefits when the business does well. John Lewis markets itself through its advertising as being a company that builds a lifelong bond with its customers as shown in the following television advert they released, where it follows a woman’s life from birth to old age commenting that they have made a lifelong commitment to have never knowingly undersold of quality or service. The advert appeals to a consumer who wants to buy from a company that has this sort of commitment to them as the customer.
CRM is not always a recommended strategy for all companies despite its success in some industries. Ideally CRM is most effective when the target consumer has a high revenue contribution, these consumers can be split into two groups, the sleeping giants are consumers who add high amounts of revenue and also don’t require high costs to maintain the relationship, the other group are the power traders who also add high revenue but they also require higher costs to maintain the relationships, these are the consumers that firms put much of their CRM funding into turning into loyal customers. If the consumer requires a great cost to build the relationship and doesn’t contribute much in terms of revenue to the firm then CRM would probably not be the recommended marketing strategy, these consumers are known as delinquents. There are different levels of relationship that a business and a consumer can share. Starting at a basic relationship where there would be no follow up contact post purchase, and going up to a proactive relationship where the firm may regularly contact customers with information about new product and to survey about how they could improve. A partnership relationship may be formed where the business continually contact customers in the form of a focus group to aid in developing and creating new products. This is very prevalent in the B2B market, and is now emerging as a new trend in the B2C market also with companies including John Lewis moving towards this kind of a relationship.
Within CRM the 4 P’s of marketing is seen as being outdated and has been replaced byt the 4 C’s, where Price is replaced by Cost to the consumer, Place is replaced by Convenience, Product by Customer needs and wants and Promotion has been replaced by Communication.
(Roy McClean [online] 2012)
John Lewis' live twitter feed shows how the company like many other companies with a twitter profile engage with their customers through replies to comments and updating followers of events in their stores, new product and new advertising campaings.
John Lewis Commercial, Always a Woman [online] 2010
Green Marketing
Green marketing has recently become prevalent in marketing. With customers becoming more concerned about their environment and how their purchasing habits could negatively impact it, green marketing is becoming a more important consideration for marketers and companies alike.
A company that has strong beliefs in environmentally friendly processes would try to ensure that all processes of the products life, manufacture to sale and everything else in-between are as environmentally sound as possible. The Body Shop when set up by Anita and Gordon Roddick, aimed to create products offering beauty without cruelty. They were portrayed as investing into the quality of the actual product rather than expensive packaging and advertising. They created natural and organic products which were produced with little environmentally damaging impacts. This proved to be a hit with those environmentally concerned consumers who were looking for product of this nature. (Grant J. 2007 p.25) Timberland are another firm who have attempted to publicly portray themselves as being “green”. They allow employees 40 hours annually to take part in volunteer work in the local community as well as rewarding them with $3000 credit for buying a hybrid car. (Sheth J. N. & Sisodia R. S. 2012 p.74) Timberland also rate their products on what they call their 'Green Index' where products are rated on climate impact, chemicals used and resource consumption. They have a section withing their website alongside their store labelled as 'community' where they can inform customers of all the good that they are doing for the environment, including planting 5 million trees in 5 years, 2010-2015.
The Co-operative Group also like to push forward their green credentials throughout all areas they operate in from banking to groceries. They show this through some of their television adverts where showing their greenness seems to be more important to them than the actual product and service they are offering. These two examples below show how they try to promote themselves as an organisation that has environmental concerns and holds these 'green values' in all aspects of their business operations.
Whether these companies conduct these activities because they genuinely have a deep concern for the environment or if it is to make themselves appeal to the green consumer is debateable, but whatever the reason it must be seen as a good thing from the consumers and the environments point of view.
Green marketing is not an entirely new trend however. In the late 1980’s Grant (2007. p.25) states that after numerous natural disasters brands were jumping up and down to declare their green credentials. Brands including Ecover and The Body Shop were celebrated and prospered, and other brands such as Boots created new ranges to try and gain a share of this ‘new’ group of green consumers. The increase of the rise in the green consumer could be seen in the 1989 European elections where the UK Green Party gained an unprecedented 15% of the vote (Grant J. 2007. p.25)
Co operative Group [online] 2009
Co operative Bank [online] 2014
This promotional video from Timberland shows that they want customers to know that they are making financial commitments to improve the environment we live in, but they are still getting their brands image shown throught the video in the form of their log which is a symbol of a tree.
Timberland [online] 2014