Marketing has not been reinvented

To put the argument to rest, the web has not created a reinvention of marketing. Yes, there are entirely new tools for finding out about buyers – and delivery vehicles for promoting and distributing to buyers – but the basic tenets and principles of marketing have not change one iota.

CRM analytics and big data are new and exciting tools that enable marketers to engage in real-time consumer and buyer research, and to respond in lightning speed.

Up-sell, cross-sell and buyer affinity offers can be targeted precisely to individual buyers in real-time, automatically and without the need for human analysis.

Social media enable buyer dialogue individually and en masse in a way that was not possible even 10 years ago.

Pricing offers can change instantaneously and contextually to map to a potential buyer’s online behavior.

These are among the exciting new and useful tools that are available to marketers to perform their craft. Yet, the principles of marketing remain doggedly unchanged.

Products must still be matched to buyers and markets.

Pricing mechanisms still persist, and value must be perceived and acknowledged before a transaction occurs.

Distribution now adds online delivery to the mix – for billions of dollars in annual transactions. It forms part of the repertoire of choices available to ensure that value is delivered to buyers.

Buyers must still be communicated to and learn of the offering, gather information about it relative to other market choices, and be persuaded directly on occasion. Person-to-person B2B and retail sales, telemarketing, newspapers, TV, billboards and POS have now been supplemented with online catalogs, online chat, banner ads, YouTube ads, and thousands of other vehicles for reaching buyers.

At the end of the day good marketing is all about efficiently connecting sellers to buyers to effect meaningful and satisfying transactions for both parties. How it is done has – and is – evolving magically. The principles that frame the new magic are no different now than they were ten, fifty, a hundred or a thousand years ago.

Written by Michael

Michael Douglas has held senior positions in sales, marketing and general management since 1980, and spent 20 years at Sun Microsystems, most recently as VP, Global Marketing. His experience includes start-ups, mid-market and enterprises. He's currently VP Enterprise Go-to-Market for NVIDIA.

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