The Production Era
Set in motion from the Industrial Revolution during the 1800's, until the mid - 1920's, manufacturing of goods was standardized. As automation and production capacity increased, products were mass produced for as little cost as possible. Consumers accepted the goods as a limited variety was offered. Production workers were paid by piecework and management focused on production and operations processes. Coca-Cola a major advertiser at the time hired their first celebrity to endorse the product in their national advertisements that appeared in 1904. By 1911, the advertising budget was up to $1 million dollars per year.
The Sales Era
Lasting until the 1950's and, for some firms the 1960's, this era has been called “the age of the hard sell.” Companies could produce higher volumes of products than consumers could buy. They accepted products as is. Competition grew in many industry sectors. Unions were formed in order to improve workplace conditions. Management was focused on hiring salespeople and selling products. Products were priced to cover manufacturing and distribution costs. There was limited advertising and promotion, other than creating awareness.
The Marketing Concept Era
A shift began during the early 1950's and 1960's, through to the 1980's, where consumers' wants and needs became the focus, rather than pushing sales, as well as achieving organizational goals. Marketing managers became top executives. Marketing strategies were directed towards customer satisfaction, developing close working relationships with customers and profitable sales volume. Marketing concepts were implemented before the production cycle as opposed to after. Many firms were slow to adopt these new principles.
The Marketing Orientation/Relationship Era
During the mid 1980's new terms emerged as regular corporate vocabulary, total quality management (TQM), customer relationship management (CRM), consultative selling and customer lifetime value. Market oriented firms continued to gather and collect information about customers and competitors and to use this information in order increase their value proposition to the customer. Relationship marketing and CRM were the buzzwords for the 1990's. As computer and technology were becoming mainstream and with the emergence of the Internet, communication and collaboration increased. Buyers and sellers committed to doing business over a long period of time. These long-term relationships were built by increasing the customer's revenues and profitability.
The Global Economy Era
As a professional marketer I’m calling this the global economy. After getting past the terminology introduced in 1995, bricks and mortar to clicks, the new economy and understanding hyper text markup language (HTML), e-business models have transformed business and marketing. Economic development and trade were expanded by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed in December of 1992, and The Treaty on European Union (TEU), otherwise known as the Maastricht Treaty, signed in February, 1992. The Euro began circulating and trading on financial markets on January 1, 1992. Combined, the Internet and the free flow of goods and services from trade agreements created a global economy that increased market reach, reduced costs and brought buyers and sellers together despite their geographic location. Customer's instantaneous access to information and enormous increase in the selection for products and services intensified competition. The tech boom-bust in the late 1990's educated business owners and marketers that traditional models must be incorporated along with Internet marketing models in order to generate revenue. Consumption and demand patterns shifted as the Internet and e-commerce were available twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week. Email instant messaging and text messaging became the new platforms to communicate with others. Marketers focused their efforts on developing corporate websites from static, one way communication and, brochure like pages to providing dynamic content full of rich media, and enabled users to retrieve information in response to a request. From corporate corruption, environmental damage and an increased awareness of ethics by the general population, social corporate responsibility emerged.
The Customization and Personalization Era
I'm calling this the customization and personalization era. Customization uses all three general purpose technologies of digitization, networking and personalization. Computer storage, memory and power have increased approximately seventy-five billion times over the past fifty years while costs have dramatically decreased, during that same time period. The life cycle and miniaturization of electronic chips has been approximately eighteen months, while doubling the computing power. Companies gained a competitive advantage by digitizing processes and information. Customers have been increasingly demanding customized products and services that fit their specific wants and needs. Consumer' demands for involvement in the design and delivery of products and services has resulted in many companies radically re-designing their business and operations processes.
Internet users have become more sophisticated. They conduct less broad based search and often use the same requests on frequently visited sites. The share of time spent online for individuals in order is communications, e-commerce, content and search. Widespread use of broadband in developed and developing countries have brought increased demand for interactive content including streaming media, music and gaming. Innovative companies have matched this demand by developing new, portable connection devices. The speed of delivery for photos, videos, music, weather or news has increased digital media consumption. Mobile users are demanding experiences on their portable devices similar to what they have on their home computer.
Social networking sites and clustering provides an enormous opportunity for marketers to reach pockets of like minded consumers' who share similar tastes, interests, habits, values and beliefs. Consumers are now relying more on third party feedback about a product or service, before their initial purchase, rather than just company information or a salesperson. Thousands of bloggers post information which has become a sought after resource.
One of the key factors in the personalization of the web is the ability of individuals to choose their own content on their computer's home page through content feeds, updates, links and bookmarks. Expectations include a welcome message to the site by their name appearing after login, recognition of past purchase history or previous customer services issues resolved. Consumers have more control than ever over their shopping behaviour and, product and service selections through information seeking and comparison shopping. Brand awareness, brand equity, the perception of quality, value and all price have all become critical components to a brand becoming part of a consumer's evoked set. Customers seek individual rewards for completed calls to action by the way of deals, special offers and discounts.
Marketers are matching web page content, products and services to users in order to maintain their interest level, increase involvement and number of page views. Users abandon sites quickly, generally after two to three page views and an average time of two to three minutes. Marketers must contend with content fatigue, which can be avoided by adding new, relevant and believable information weekly. Users expect to have found the right information quickly and easily. Internet usage for the individual has evolved to be either a task oriented visit or an experiential visit. Task oriented users seek to find information, solve a problem and to save time where experiential web surfers are seeking entertainment and spending time on a site.
The Internet ties together branding, advertising, sponsorships, email, public relations and promotions. Marketers have become more focused on the user as customers' attention has become more fragmented between traditional broadcast and print mediums and, the Internet. Marketers today focus their efforts on high quality content, personal interaction and engaging the individual, as well as, receiving feedback from the user.
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