Evolution of Marketing

Market Evolution and its Historical Background

Market evolution can be said to correspond to the development of the society. Therefore, in some ways, marketing can be considered as old as civilisation. Movies, books and various publications that are based on the ancient Greece or Rome show pictures of hectic market stalls and merchants busy engaged in persuading the customers to buy their products. These merchants would not have called this marketing, and their activities would seem different from a person ordering train tickets online. The contemporary marketing concept could be linked more to the growths that happened in the era of industrial revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The innovations in science and technology drove rapid social change during this time. Consumption of products was separated from the production. The developing mass media, the growing transport infrastructure, and mass production meant that the manufacturers had to come up with more advanced methods to manage the distribution of the products.

The Stages of Market Evolution

According to Gregory (2004), the first stage was a production-oriented era. During this time, the industrial revolution goods were scarce, and the producers used to sell all that hey could produce, so long as people were able to buy the product. The merchants put much emphasis on reducing the costs of production and distribution processes, and the marketing managers were considering issues such as opening up new markets and reducing the costs of distribution. The other era is sales orientation era which started at the beginning of the 20th century to the time following the World War II, though there was a disruption from the wars (History Cooperative, n.d). With the increased competition, marketing became sales-oriented. Branding, advertising, and communications began growing more significant since the organisations wanted to sell the growing production outputs in an increasingly frantic market. Although marketing at this time was still ’enslaved’ by production to some extent, there were significant efforts to focus on distributing, communicating, and persuading the clients that the products of one producer are better than those of another producing similar goods. The last era in the evolution of marketing whose onset was the 1960s (Gregory, 2004). Most of the markets since then have become saturated which means increased competition for customers. The advancement of the marketing management has thus grown into what is currently seen in a contemporary marketing department. Marketers are involved in strategic management operations in any firm, and therefore their work is to inform the organisation about what it should produce, where to sell it, how much the price should be, and how the organisation should communicate with the consumers of its products. Marketers in the contemporary world are involved in researching consumers and markets. They try understanding the needs of the clients and then allocating the organisational resources properly to satisfy them. The primary interests of the marketers are brands. They also make sure that the workers have an understanding of the marketing programs, that is, every employee is involved in the marketing process.

The Internet’s Impact on Marketing

One major event that shapes marketing in the process of the quest for the best is the introduction of the internet. This invention entirely changed how the customers were looking for and getting what they wanted as well as where to search for the goods and services they are interested in. Ultimately, the enterprises which wish to maintain a good position in the market, they need to change the marketing strategies as a response to the dynamic customer behaviours (Scott, 2015). Conventional marketing strategies such as cold calling, direct mail, television and newspaper advertising have become less effective at the age of the internet. One way in which the web is beneficial to marketing is the reduction in the price of the products. For example, any person with rudimentary skills in marketing and a computer can do email marketing. On the other hand, direct mail is expensive as it includes costs incurred to design, write, edit, and print. Thus, it is a costly method to reach out to a small number of potential clients. Additionally, the internet has no geographical boundaries as a person or company can market their products even abroad. Anyone anywhere in the world can, therefore, buy products at the click of a button (Koozai, 2009). With the significant increment in the internet popularity, the marketing speed has also changed. Clients can respond to advertisements that a company posted just seconds ago. The conventional marketing strategies cannot compete with the efficiency, accuracy, low costs and speed of marketing through the internet. According to Koozai (2009), some televisions have incurred a lot of debts due to the massive decrease in the revenue generated through advertisement. Conclusively, for a company to succeed in the new marketplaces, it must have an integrated approach, a plan for marketing that joins together the internet marketing with the traditional methods.

References

Koozai. (20th May, 2009). How The Internet Has Changed Marketing. Retrieved from https://www.koozai.com/blog/content-marketing-seo/how-the-internet-has-changed-marketing/.

Gregory Stone, A., Russell, R. F., & Patterson, K. (2004). Transformational versus servant leadership: A difference in leader focus. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 25(4), 349-361.

History Cooperative. (n.d). The Evolution Of Marketing – From Trade to Tech. Retrieved from http://historycooperative.org/the-evolution-of-marketing-from-trade-to-tech/.

Scott, D. M. (2015). The new rules of marketing and PR: How to use social media, online video, mobile applications, blogs, news releases, and viral marketing to reach buyers directly. John Wiley & Sons.