The Principles of Modern Marketing in a Nutshell

The field of marketing is an innovative and ever-changing one. Just within the last decade, it has evolved dramatically as a direct response to new technology and market demands. We often focus on technology as it impacts every facet of digital marketing.

From the dissemination of information to the integration of various elements of branding and sale structures, it tends to lead the change when it comes to the transformation of marketing.

However, the marketers of today are taking a much more holistic approach to marketing. Longstanding tropes and strategies have been adapted and elevated. This enables companies to broaden their scopes, personalize brands, make connections, and attracting a larger audience.

Here, we have simplified and briefly explained the modern principles of marketing to reflect both traditional and new approaches that are held by new-age organizations.

Technological Advancement – Crucial but only the First Step

This might sound a bit strange to anyone who is not already well-versed in the field of marketing. However, it’s not hard to understand that technology impacts everything. You can improve customer experiences and overall marketing practices.

But despite becoming more disruptive, the integration of technology is only the tip of the iceberg. It needs to be learned and adapted by people, into business processes, and existing technology. It’s incumbent on the marketers to train their people and reestablish cross-functional relationships across the organization for seamless marketing functions. 

Customer Experience is Key

Improving and maximizing the customer experience at every point leads to a significant increase in revenue. Whether you optimize your website to make it easy to navigate or make the online shopping journey much simple, consistency in customer experience is vital.

Good products and services are obviously important but without a sound customer support system, informative sites, aftersales services, and general support enhance the overall experience. 

Personalized Connections are Prioritized

This doesn’t mean you have to get to know each customer personally. That would be quite ludicrous. In modern marketing landscapes, customer-brand relations have evolved to become symbiotic and immersive connections.

The questions to ask here are focused on understanding the customers. Yes, you have the preliminary market research telling you their pain points. But that is more focused on describing your target audience.

You have to stretch further, asking them what they need from the brand and what can brands do that they are not doing. You can leverage technology to personalize. Customer reviews, blogging, social media, and interactive digital campaigns are a stepping stone.

Value Creation… with a Twist

This is definitely not a new concept. From Kotler to Seth Godin, have all described value creation and value addition in great details. Broken down in basic terms, value creation was previously considered as the perceived value customers expected in the forms of benefits gained from a product or service.

These benefits can be psychological, functional, emotional, cost-effective, and others. However, value creation based on these benefits is not sufficient in modern marketing. Your product might have value for many pain points but until you communicate and deliver efficiently, you won’t see any results.

Simply the explanation of exactly how your product solves their problems. If there are multiple benefits, make them known. This will help the customer understand the product more, aiding band appreciation. And value delivery is pretty self-explanatory. Your product should do what it promises.

Testing 1, 2, 3…

Back in the day, a product was launched without a solid understanding of how they would perform with different target audiences. At least, testing wasn’t as common as it has become now. Companies from a wide range of industries now put in time and resources into testing to find out what the customers are saying.

The culture of testing has further grown to include product and marketing perspectives. For instance, software companies like Adobe and video game production companies release beta versions of their software or video game demos respectively. This way, customers are able to use them and give feedback. As a result, they know what the customers liked and didn’t like and how they can make things better before launching the product. 

This improves the product, marketing practices, and customer experiences.

Collecting and Measuring Data

If you’re truly committed to personalization from a marketing perspective, you need to understand people. You can do that by collecting and analyzing data and make trends. Even the smallest piece of information and data becomes a stitch in the tapestry of customer perspectives.

Data such as clicks, conversion rates, views, likes, reshares, etc. are all metrics of measuring engagement. With better algorithms and software functions, you can collect more data in real-time to get a more holistic view of your target market.

The digital ephemera are valuable assets that signal what needs to be changed or improved for better performance.

Going Beyond – Understanding the Bigger Purpose

Typically, marketing is about getting new and existing customers to build a relationship with the brand while improving sales and profitability of the organization. However, modern marketing principles have a more holistic approach that goes beyond what was once thought the norm.

CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility was considered an entirely separate entity. But now, companies are involved in promoting and internalizing various causes. Sustainability, ethical production practices, diversity, inclusion, etc. are all important.

A great example of companies going beyond is Adobe. After Hurricane Harvey, the company teamed up with a group of students to recover photos of the victims. This way they were able to give something back to the families when they’ve lost their physical possessions.

It’s clear from these principles and current trends that marketing is definitely gone beyond what was once conventional. It’s not just promoting a product or service anymore. There is much more at stake now, making redefining marketing practices a necessity.