Marketing in the 21 st Century
It Is important for the writer to note that for this paper, he will have to respond to section A and then in
section B he will combine the orders with references 111677, 111725,111768 and will also include
section A at the end of the paper before the final conclusion and references list in APA 6th edition format.
The writer must pay attention to details and properly arrange the paper base on the instructions giving
below. The writer will also use the resources giving below to respond to SECTION A, the article
mentioned to be read for section A is in the resources below.
SECTION A ( 1 page)
Marketing in the 21st Century
Once again, you will utilize articles listed in the Resources section to explore the different topics for your
Research Paper. In this section, you will find a series of questions pertaining to each article. You do not
have to answer the questions directly, but they are included to guide you in discovering the type of
information that you need to complete the research paper.
For this week, read “Horizontal Innovation Networks: By and for Users” by von Hippel. After reading the
article, consider the following questions:
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� Is user-generated innovation good or bad for a company?
� If user innovation can happen independently of manufacturers, how can companies incorporate
customers into their new product development process?
� How should companies manage their marketing mix variables in the era of personalized marketing in
order to generate and sustain competitive advantage?
Using the information you have read, and any other outside resources that you have found, consider how
these topics relate to the overall subject you are addressing in your paper. Remember to refer back to the
main task of this paper, which is to describe how you believe the usage of the individual marketing mix
variables is likely to change in the future and what companies must do to adapt their marketing
approaches in order to achieve competitive advantage. In particular, focus on the following aspect:
Marketing in the 21 st Century
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Introduction
In the 20 th century, the marketing strategy was based on television, radios, magazines, and
newsletters. The technological revolution has changed everything in marketing drastically.
People are adopting the revolution where things are done smart but not hard with limited
resources at a very short period. The introduction of the computer is perhaps the source of this
the change. While the generation 20 th century could only receive information when they listen to
radios and TVs, the generation of 21 st century sees the information whenever they are through the
phones. In that manner, the there is a move from traditional ways of advertisements to online
ways of marketing. This project champions the move from analogue to digital marketing and
what the companies need to do to become relevant in the future competitive market.
Online retailing
Online retailing has emerged as an important retail force as consumers are purchasing
online. It is now up to the conventional offline retailers to respond. In order to establish a clear
difference from retailers that have offline stores, online retailers should lower their prices below
the prices that offline stores ask for the same products (Chinta, 2006). This will allow price
conscious consumers to take full advantage of the cost savings which could at times be
considerable. Online retailers need to offer a wide variety of selection – seemingly endless
selection – that offline retailers may not be able to provide. Online retailers should ensure the
convenience of online shopping by enabling buyers to make a purchase of any item in seconds
from the comfort of their homes (Francis, 2007).
Online retailers should also allow shoppers to compare the features and prices of their
products instantaneously. Online information capture is generally more frequent and detailed.
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Click stream data gives complete information on how a customer shops, whilst virtual shopping
carts serve as loyalty cards that capture the purchase habits of shoppers (Strzelec, 2011).
Therefore, online retailers can actually increase their sales simply by targeting repeat purchases
basing on individualized content of each consumer. More importantly, online retailers can extract
behavior data of consumers to turn abandoned shopping baskets and/or switching decisions into
operational indicators of how to stock products and serve shoppers (Chinta, 2006).
For retailers with physical stores that intend to also establish themselves online, their
strategies should be to provide new services such as buy-online pick-up-in-store, in order to keep
pace with preference of the shoppers. Francis (2007) pointed out that having a physical offline
store wherein shoppers can engage with a product before ordering the product actually boosts
demand as well as revenue. The online store would encourage consumers to align themselves
with the channel that serves them better – be it online or offline – therefore optimizing the
experience of the customer and reducing costs for the business (Gregory, Karävdic & Zou,
2007). Offline stores/retailers can take their brand to the web and realize immediate recognition
and trust. It is of note that this value is actually true for the existing shoppers as well as aware
shoppers who look for the benefits of the personalized, intimate experience and the more
informative buy (Wong, 2008).
Retailers with physical stores should seamlessly integrate their channel offerings simply
by introducing online shopping perks to the offline, in-store consumers. For instance by (i)
allowing the shoppers to pick up online orders from the company’s physical, brick-and-mortar
location; (ii) Providing free Wi-Fi. (iii) By offering in-store access to the company’s online
catalog; (iv) developing an app that allows the buyers to scan product bar codes and read online
reviews, and (v) accepting mobile payments through the in-store point of sale system (POS) of
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the company (Griffiths & Howard, 2008). In essence, companies that can seamlessly integrate
offline and online offerings would be the most successful.
Globalization is essentially a trend that is typified by denationalization. Globalization has
influenced marketing trends in that increasingly more companies are engaging in business-to-
customer and business-to-business e-commerce that necessitates the use of online marketing
strategies to attract buyers and improve sales (Nelson, Cohen & Rasmussen, 2007). Basically,
the multinational firms that make use of e-commerce more intensively, engage in a wide range of
e-commerce activities compared with companies that are less global.
Personal Marketing
When the term marketing is used the first thing that comes to the minds of many is
advertisements or other related promotional activities conducted by the manufacturer and
distributers of a product with the aim of reaching as wide an audience as possible. In light of this
widely accepted view of marketing, the concept of personalizing the process seems at best alien
and completely out of place. Personal Marketing however does just that. Marketing has gradually
been moving from a product or price orientation to a more customer- centered process. Personal
Marketing is the preparation of a product’s design, packaging and promotional activities in a
manner that is targeted at an individual consumer rather than the masses. This can therefore be
said to be the highest form of customer-centric marketing. This is because the marketing efforts
are geared towards enticing a specific prospective or current consumer to purchase a specific
process. This is different from market segmentation or the creation of a niche market. With
personal marketing the target is the individual and not a group of individuals with similar
characteristics of importance to the marketer (Vesanen, 2007).
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Personal view of Personalization
According to me, personal marketing is a company’s way of reaching out to an individual
client whose purchase or purchases will bring about considerable benefits to the organization.
For such companies the power of customers is very high in the Porter’s Five Forces analysis. The
transactional behavior of individual customers has a direct impact on the turnover of the business
entity. It is a marketing strategy that needs to be prudently carried out by individuals who have
the perfect mix of product knowledge, creativity and persuasiveness so as to ensure the objective
of this promotional activity is realized. If this mix is achieved proactively, personal marketing is
sure to succeed where conventional marketing has failed to yield fruit. It is important to note that
the individual in this context is not necessarily an individual. It may also be a corporate client
whose purchases are carried out between the entity of the company and the customer as two
parties.
Impact of Personal Marketing to Companies
Personal Marketing is bound to benefit companies since it helps to bolster the
relationship that they have with their customers. On the part of the customers satisfaction will
increase and this improves their perceived value of the product thus leading to more purchases.
This then translates to higher turnovers and increased profits for the companies engaging in
personal selling. The fact that communication between sales persons and the customers is two
sided means that there is a provision for immediate feedback which is quite important to the
product developers and sales department.
The development of personal marketing
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The first step that firms need to do in developing personal marketing strategies is to
understand the needs and value systems exhibited by specific customers. Since the marketing is
being formulated to suit a specific customer, it is important to ensure that the product in question
meets all of these needs. These include issues like the quantity, quality standard, timing, pricing,
payment schedule, usability of the product, frequency of deliveries and any other special aspects
of the products that will be relevant to the customer being targeted (Balabanis and
Diamantopoulos, 2008).
Pricing in Personal Marketing
When it comes to the pricing of products in personal marketing, it is necessary to employ
dynamic pricing over fixed pricing. This is because the customer is treated as an individual and
the price plays a large part in this process (Garbarino and Lee, 2003). A customer may be willing
to make bulk purchases so long as the price is within their budget. Other customers will also
determine value by basing it on the price of the product whereby higher prices suggest greater
value. This is particularly important when goods or services of ostentation are involved. At times
the goods being marketed are not necessarily luxurious but highly specific such as military
hardware for a specific government’s army. In such a scenario the price set will depend on the
economies of scale that will be realized by the customer’s orders as well as the budget
(Calantone and Di Benedetto, 2007).
Degree of price discrimination applicable
The most appropriate approach to price discrimination is the third degree of price
discrimination (Avlonitis and Indounas, 2007). This price discrimination method is favorable for
personal marketing since the basis for the setting of the price is based on the customer’s
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preferences, geographical location and other subjective factors that can only chance from entity
to entity. As stated above, personal marketing is meant to tailor the promotional effort in such a
manner that elicits a positive reaction on the part of an individual customer rather than an entire
group of potential customers. Third degree price discrimination will be the result of the back and
forth communication between the sales department and the specific customer. The price will be
set in such a manner that it strikes a compromise between the profitability goals of the business
and the ability and capacity of the customer in question.
Mass Marketing Versus Personalized Marketing
The articles “The Continuing Power Of Mass Advertising” by Paul Nunes and Jeffrey
Merrihue(2007) and “Word Of Mouth” by Cater Reigner (2007) provides a comparative analysis
of personal and mass marketing through online and traditional channel. Although the researches
of the authors were independent, their researches focus gives a sufficient outlook of the current
literature which evaluates the effectiveness of traditional and new marketing strategies that
currently dominate the markets.
One of the common questions asked in the consumer environment is the trend of the mass
advertising. Is mass advertising dead in the era of personalized marketing? The reports of both
authors tend to move to one line of thought when assessing the prevalence of mass marketing
and the personalized one. Both authors acknowledge the movement and the prevalence of
personalized marketing. The use of technology has facilitated the use of personalized market to a
high degree in very short period. Havlena, Cardarelli and Montigny (2007) note that the use of
social media, emails, and phone have allowed individuals to interact with consumers one-on-one.
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A study carried by Nunes and Merrihue (2007) reveals that the Y generations are the most buyers
in the market and are the ones that are “digital” minded. It means that the focus of marketing
shifts to them. Keller (2007) posits that the Y generation argues that use of web-based marketing
is easy and fast as you can talk to the sellers unlike mass advertisement on TVs and newspapers.
On the other hand, Nunes and Merrihuel argue that it still early for the mass marketing to
die. The authors say that it will take considerable years for the mass marketing to disappear. In
their research, they revealed that the new venues have not interrupted the traditional venues for
getting the advertisements. The study revealed that common venues of advertisement are still
97%; this includes television, radio, print, and billboards. Hence, the fact those traditional venues
still dominate the market assures the continuity of mass marketing. Additionally, Nunes and
Merrihuel argue that a small percentage of markers are ready to purchase the tools for web based
marketing which seem to be expensive and are among the strategies the companies can use to
shift from traditional to personalized marketing. They have to create web page for the products,
programmed machines that responds to individual requirements, and addition of staff to respond
to each individual. Moore and Pareek (2009) add that most of the consumers are not acquainted
with some of the technologies hence they have to be taught through campaigns.
Both authors agreed that the web based marketing has got high prevalence as a marketing
strategy. The major reason for the high prevalence is the interpersonal communication between
the consumers and the marketers. One-on-one communication assures the customers on the need
and benefit of the products (Keller, 2007). It gives the marketer an opportunity to use his/ her
skills to convince the buyers on the importance and the advantages of the products. Ryan and
Jones (2009) describe interpersonal communication as a tool that assures the customers of the
products. According to Keller (2007) products will not sell unless the customers have the
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information about them. Therefore, the customers only decide after getting the information
through promotion that intensifies when there is interpersonal communication. As such, it is the
customers that have the powers to lift the company after getting the knowledge about the
products.
Managing market mix
As the world goes digital, the companies need to employ the same pace as the
technological revolution. As said by Kohn (2005), to compete in this competitive world, all the
5Ps (product, price, promotion, place, and people) are very important for the company to remain
relevant in a particular industry. As such, they have to be tactical to overcome their rivals or
competitors. Hippel (2007) says that one of the most important factors in 5P is the promotion.
He defines it as another form of advertisement that allows consumers to know more about the
product.
As discussed before, the online way of advertisement remains very vital in passing
information that all companies should adopt especially in future where the world will have Y and
Z generation alone. These generations are digitally minded hence they should be focused on
since they are the future buyers. Through online advertisement, marketers will have the
opportunity to communicate to the consumers. Through communication, price and place where
an item is needed will be identified. Additionally, through communication, marketers will get the
feedback from the customers about their products; as such, the 5Ps shall be managed. Pecotich
and Ward (2007) posit that the future companies will only maintain the market mix through
marketing and advertisement where the customers can have enough information of the company
and its products (Sinisalo et.al., 2007). Therefore, right approach for every organization will
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depend on the marketing strategy of the product, strength of their brand, and the extraneous
market that the marketing is aiming. According to Hippel (2007), the product will only sell after
the information is on the market. In that manner, to manage the market mix, product value whose
information is in the market becomes a necessity
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