The Impact Of The Digital Revolution Marketing Essay

Introduction

Consumers are important for organizations as their all efforts are directed toward the satisfaction of needs of their target consumers. Study of consumer behavior help firms to improve their marketing strategy. This helps organizations to understand the psychology of consumers, how they think and feel about the specific products and how they select between different alternatives such as different brands and retailers. More specifically, consumer behavior is defined as the study of individuals, organizations or groups and processes they use to select, use, secure and dispose of products, services, ideas or experience to satisfy needs and impacts these processes have on society and consumers. Study of consumer behavior is very useful for organizations with its extensive applications. The most obvious use of consumer behavior is marketing strategy. When organizations have clear understanding of behavior of consumer about the product or service, they are in better position to develop and run an effective marketing campaign. For instance, by understanding that consumers are friendly towards food advertising when they are hungry we are more likely to schedule snack advertisement late in the afternoon. Consumer behavior also has its application social marketing which includes the ideas across to consumer rather than selling something.

The Impact of the Digital Revolution in Marketing and Consumer Behavior:

Advancements of technology have affected all the fields of life and so as the business world. Technological revolution is characterized with inventions such as internet, cell phone, global positioning system (GPS devices), notebook or laptop etc. many amazing. These changes have changed our lives to great extent. Now every human is connected with each other due to digital revolution. Communication technology has made it possible to share information quickly and easily. Information technology has also increased the ratio of communication and involved people from everywhere in the world. Digital revolution has provided new and fresh ideas to its users that are so common to use presently. Like all other aspects of life, technology has given a superb impact on consumer behavior and as well as on marketing. Technology has changed the ways to market the product to the target audience and consumers, more emphasis on market side is on how to execute and implement the marketing strategy. Internet is critical mean, used by contemporary organizations to promote their products and services. Now companies are going for social media marketing and promoting their products via social networking websites such as face-book, twitter, word press, BlogSpot and liked in etc. Whereas in past companies were using traditional means of promotion and advertisements e.g. news paper, radio and televisions. But now, internet provides more innovative, quick and fast way to implement promotion strategy. Internet and social media networking websites provides effective and free of cost media to encompass the target audience. Selling methods have also been changed with digital revolution. GPS devices, notebook, laptop and cell phones bring information through users of those technologies faster. Due to fast and easy access to information, people are more aware and try to get latest information when making a purchase decision. Digital revolution has given emergence to relationship marketing (with focus on customer), industrial or business marketing (with organizational focus) and social marketing (with focus on benefits to society) and most importantly to internet marketing.

Online Consumer Segmentation:

Companies must recognize that cherished knowledge of target market facilitating customer segmentation provides basic information that is necessary to maximize the returns on practices of internet marketing and increase its effectiveness and efficiency. Consumer information is qualifying information that is applied by internet marketers; it also clarifies and help to connect the promotional content with specific segments of consumers. This process is carried out with aim to match the attributes of products with needs of potential online consumers and these customers are more likely to benefit from specific promotional offers of company. In this case, it must be recognized that whole population that have access to the internet can be potential customers. But from this population, only a certain portion of online population represent the potential customer of the product or service being promoted by the company. Process of online segmentation of consumers, is consistent with traditional approach of market segmentation. Internet marketers observe the consumer behavior toward the formulation of promotional content and apply the results of observations in segmenting the online consumers. It is designed to forecast behavior of consumer relative to what is already known about current and prospective consumers. The prognostic value of consumer segmentation is obvious as content of promotional strategy and it is aligned with subset of consumers.

Consumer Motivation and High Technology Products:

Technology has changed the business practices to great extent. Modern technologies are time saving and require less efforts by humans as well as it simplifies information access and bring people from different places together. Now, high technology gadgets are essential part of human life. Business executives forecast that sales and profits of future are expected to come from high technology products. (Asp, 1999 ). Consumer behavior in the contemporary world is more neutral toward technology. However, there is no single agreement on what is high technology means, actual business practices and competitive strategy theories recognize explicitly that there are important attributes such as rapidly changing life cycles, intensity of information and turbulence that distinguish high technology from the traditional market in psychological factors (Hirunyawipada & Paswan, 2006), most important one is motivation of customers as behavior comes from motivation. But actually, consumer needs are not that specific which exist potentially. So the aim of promotional and advertising activities is to satisfy the customer demands and motivate them to buy the products or services even for those which consumers do not need actually. High technology products can prove to be very crucial factor in consumer motivation.

Cultural Factors affecting Consumer Behavior:

In simpler definition, culture is all about the values of an individual. Culture decides about the behavior of consumers. Cultural factors also influence the individual’s buying behavior. All individuals hold different sets of beliefs, habits, and principals that are developed by him or her from his family status and background. Within each culture, there are some subcultures such as gender, religion, geographical location and status etc. companies must know specific cultural attributes and how they affect the buying behavior of the consumers. Marketers believe that consumers have similar cultural attributes or having same culture show similar buying behavior. Every country has its distinct and different culture so while going for international marketing, companies must overcome the cultural and economic boundaries. In order to run a successful marketing campaign on domestic and internal level, different presences, attitudes, beliefs and habits of customer in the target market. Beliefs are important element of culture and can show similarities between the people in a community. Understating the cultural properties of target consumers is critical for analysis of consumer buying behavior and play important role in the process of market segmentation, product positioning and target market.

Adult Consumer’s Decision Making:

Marketers and researchers have great interest in decision making style of target consumers. Demographics have great impact of thinking and buying behavior of consumers. Age is one of the important elements that affect the consumer’s behavior in the market place. Consumer’s decision making style is a mental orientation that is characterized by approach of consumer to make choices. Adult consumers are hard to handle for marketers as they are living in technological advanced world, like innovative and latest products. Attracting and retaining adult consumers is a challenge for marketers, they must be aware and have enough knowledge of advanced technologies and applications that are part of daily life or adults consumers of modern era, in order to reach that specific segment of the market (Olshavsky & Granbois, 1979). This market segment may boast considerable purchasing power. This segment is noticed widely due to its perceived importance. Home buying decisions of this segment are fairly noticeable and they are recognized as trend setters which influence consumption patterns in the other segments of market as well (Olshavsky & Granbois, 1979)Buying decisions of adult consumers are influenced by critical reference groups such as friends. It is observed in many researches that impact of promotional activities on loyalty of adult consumer is insignificant. Instead brand loyalty can be enhanced by improving products ad past utilization, convenience and expectations do not affect the loyalty significantly.

Conclusion:

Consumer buying behavior is a mental orientation that makes the approach of choices by the researcher. Technological advancement has been having great impact of buying behavior and purchase patters of consumers. Due to smart technologies, companies can easily and quickly spread their promotional message and hit their target market consumers. They can benefit by technological advanced options to carry out activities. Internet and social networking websites are important tool for marketing contemporary organizations. A successful marketing strategy in modern world organizations, need to consider important factors such as high technology products, cultural backgrounds of target consumers and demographics of target consumers as well.