Technology changes promotion in a way that new technologies have significantly impacted the way businesses market and sell their products to customers.
As many manufacturers search for cost savings, they started questioning using intermediaries in the distribution channel. Especially when they were selling items that are bought regularly and in small quantities.
This coincided with the development of the Internet which allowed ease of access to products which caused consumers to be attracted to buying them in that way – online.
Trends in new technology and promotion
Apart from E-Commerce, business websites have other uses to promote the business and its products. The main trends include search engines, web banners, viral marketing, social media marketing and social networking.
Let’s take look at these methods in details.
1. Search engines. Businesses use online search engines such as Google, Bing, Baidu or Yahoo! to promote their brands online. They pay for a sponsored link on popular search engines to appear at the top of a list of results when customers look for a specific word or phrase in the search engine.
2. Website banners. In addition to their own company website, businesses use web banners or ‘pop-ups’ placed on a related product’s website of other businesses for promotion. Banner advertisements are embedded onto a web page such as YouTube.com or Facebook.com to attract and redirect online traffic to the advertiser’s website. The advertising business pays the host on a Cost Per Click (CPC) after the online advertisement is clicked.
3. Viral marketing. Similar to word-of-mouth, viral marketing, or Peer-to-Peer (P2P) marketing, relies on the electronic spread and transfer of promotional messages with E-Mail such as Gmail or Hotmail, and social networking services such as Linkedln or Dropbox. Businesses create catchy content that attracts attention and encourages people to share this using their own online profiles via E-Mails, social networks, websites, blogs, instant messaging, news feeds, etc. The purpose of the advertisement is to entice the recipients to take action such as buy a product, sign up for a new account or subscribe to a service.
4. Social media marketing. Businesses also use social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google to promote their business – inform about a product, brand, event, etc. Gaining of Internet traffic through social media websites gives businesses access to a huge number of potential customers from around the world. It encourages people to share from person to person the marketing content on specific topics often issued on a regular basis. Here, the marketing message comes from a third-party source rather than from a company itself. As the global number of Internet users continues to grow up to billions, potential reach could be greater and faster while being and relatively inexpensive. Hence, highly cost-effective for the business. However, firms have no control over what is shared about their products or brands. Therefore, negative or even false information can go viral creating a Public Relations (PR) crisis.
5. Social networking. Social networking refers to any platform used by individuals to build online social relationships with people, often because they are friends, classmates, colleagues or simply have things in common. Generally, social networking websites allow members to share information with people in withing online network. They can be either individual-centered or group-centered existing as an online community. Linkedln allows professionals and businesses to network online by sharing their professional profiles and discussion forums. Social networks are usually a free of charge to attract a large number of people. Charging users money for membership would be counterproductive. That is why it is advertisers who pay to place ads on the network site. Facebook sells online advertising space on its website to businesses that want to reach out to billions of people around the world.
Social media vs. Social networking
The distinction between social media and social networking might sometimes be confusing. Let’s make things clear.
A. Social media. Social media is the tool, e.g. videos posted on YouTube, posts posted on Facebook, short messages posted on Twitter, etc. It is one-directional being something that pushes media out to people.
B. Social networking. Social networking is the human interaction that the tool encourages, e.g. conversations about jobs and careers on LinkedIn. It is multi-directional being something that encourages back and forth activities between both parties.
The growing use of electronic means of communication has not only allowed companies to sell products online directly to customers, but also promote them. Internet technologies have broadened the opportunities available to marketers to extend a range of promotional strategies.
It is important to mention one more word about traditional channels of distribution. Traditional shopping, including brick-and-mortar stores, will most likely continue to perform essential functions for many years for most products as long as consumers lack IT facilities.
