How Marketing Has Evolved

By Lindsey Murphy

With the vast increase in social media and technology use in the past decade, the ways companies interact with consumers has surely changed as a result. The seven key ways that marketing has changed recently include:

1. Marketing and its tools change so quickly, that your marketing team needs to become a research department. In order to keep up with the always-changing modern society, marketers must constantly remain aware of consumers's needs and patterns. Always using different platforms such as Pinterest or Facebook is essential in the cutting edge of marketing.
2. The changing tools of marketing mean that your initiatives have to shift. Using different tools of communication is a good way to interact with consumers. A new inexpensive form of marketing is video, which can help introduce a website, for example.
3. Your entire business has to accommodate the use of social media. Customers are more in control now than ever because of the growth of social media use. Being flexible and open is a key component of being "social."
4. Your marketing department needs to become a media and education department. Marketing has changed to producing content that requires writing, video editing, analytical skills, etc.
5. How you spend your marketing dollars is different. With social media sites costing nothing, money can be used in different areas such as digital media.
6. The four Ps of marketing have changed. The four basics of marketing, or the four P's, are product, price, place, and promotion. But Brian Fetherstonhaugh believes that marketing is now centered around experience, everyplace, exchange, and evangelism.
7. People have changed. People are different because they expect fast responses, rather than being on hold for half an hour. People now also have shorter attention spans, with higher standards from marketers. Consumers don't just want a great product, they want their life to be changed in a meaningful way.

Rabinowitz, Ilana. "7 Ways Marketing Has Changed." Social Media Explorer. N.p., 24 Aug. 2016. Web. 26 Feb. 2017. <https://socialmediaexplorer.com/content-sections/news-and-noise/how-marketing-has-changed/>.