Developments in Marketing and Sales
The impact of the Internet and digital technologies on marketing and sales has been profound. Conventional approaches based on direct advertising and individual transactions are proving ineffective in an environment in which the traditional power balance between the buyers and sellers of products and services has been overturned. New forms of marketing and selling have emerged, centered on understanding and building ongoing relationships with individual consumers and other buyers.
The key drivers of change in marketing and sales include an ongoing global increase in use of the Internet and social media; a recent rapid expansion in on-line shopping or eCommerce; the increasing use of mobile and other devices, and a major increase in the influence and power of the consumer resulting from the increase in online activity.
Organizations are responding to these drivers in various ways including the adoption of more analytical approaches to understanding customers and markets; increased emphasis on social media marketing, and a focus on developing trust-based relationships with individual customers. Content marketing and multi-channel or omni-channel marketing strategies are being increasingly used as means of staying competitive in the new environment, along with automation of marketing and sales.
The Art and Science of Transformation? framework has two key features that are important for guiding organizational change and minimizing the risks involved in any change initiative, such as adapting marketing and sales to the new digital environment: an emphasis on achieving the right combination of “art” and “science” in any change initiative, and a holistic approach which recognizes the inter-relationships between the organization’s people, culture, systems and processes.
One of the main features of new forms of online marketing and sales is the need to combine creativity and innovation with a technical, systematic and analytical approach – in other words, to combine art and science. Organizational systems such as the performance management system, competencies development system and the communications system must also be adjusted in order to promote new mindsets and reshape the corporate culture to support new approaches to marketing and sales.
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