Marketing and Technology, Article Review Example

In the article, “Wal-Mart to Bring Back Layaway for Holidays” posted on The New York Times on September 8, 2011, clearly exemplifies the fact that online retailing is becoming more popular which also is making costs to buying and selling online more cheaply than it was before. However, while things seem so cheap and the fact that are always available in online stores the problem comes up to money. In the article, the writer reveals that while schools are busy defining marketing and making everybody have the slightest idea of what this discipline entails, companies are finding new ways in which their products will reach the market much easier, faster and with lower costs.

The writer in the article also stands by the fact that technology as it stands today has enabled this to happen for most of the companies as many people are now relying on it for most of their duties. At the moment, it is hard to find a company that is not with e-commerce since after advertisement was taken online; people discovered that the next major move will be to sell their products through online channels. This has had its own advantages.

This is because, what one sees as the price of something is not really what it is. According to Clifford (2011), physical book stores in India lack most of the things and thus people are willing to actually acquire them from online stores. The problem is that, online store other than one paying the required fee for the product will have to pay other charges which include shipping fees so that the product can be shipped from the physical store to where the customer is located.

This is causing worries to many customers as many people do not think they will be able to be paying these charges in order to obtain an item. While this is a problem for some of the online stores an Indian company came up with their own online store that offers most of the products from books to mobile phones at lower rates while transportation charges are very minimal.

What Wal-Mart has realized is that online stores lack their own transportation means and thus have to rely on other means that makes their charges to go up.

“Wal-Mart’s revival of layaway indicates it does not expect consumers to feel flush anytime soon.”

In addition to that, many of the stores do not actually include these charges thus customers will come to know of them after they have purchased a certain item and now it remains shipping it to the customer. This is found to be the problem with most on the online stores thus as well as marketing is concerned, they have not made it easy for customers.

On the other hand, Market Watch unveiled the fact that, Universal Music Group is the best in Cross Channel Marketing for Email, Social media campaign. The use of email and social media for instance Facebook, Google and Yahoo to be used for marketing is one thing that most of the companies have not made really ventured in. this is because probably most of the companies do not really know how to use these medias for marketing purpose.

What made Universal Music Group the best in social media marketing is the fact that the company recognized customer preferences, improved subscribers’ lives as well as the fact that the company had a better delivering relevant content. The use of Email and social media for marketing is part of the few ways that were introduced to the field of online marketing. While sales are not done on these Medias many people have found it easier to actually pass information through them.

Emails make it easier for people to actually know on a particular item while social media have made it even easier for this phenomenon since it makes it easier for people to share information. At the moment, it has been revealed that many people are now found in social Medias and thus advertising one’s products especially videos and songs on these Medias are much easier. On the contrary, it is only a few companies that find it easy through these media. Some of the companies have found it much harder.

On the contrary, while many people are thinking of new ways in which products can be brought to the customers easily. The article further relates the fact that there is something big that is still to come in the field of marketing. According to the article, marketers are now required to put their full power behind technology. Many of the companies especially those that are mostly situated online which include eons have been found to benefit more due to their focus on customer preferences.

This however is no longer enough as more and more people are now realizing this. this method as far as technology is concerned is becoming stale while customer loyalty is being countered by the many brands while durability is making customers even more confused on which product to buy. Technology right now as more marketers are embracing it is losing its touch as people are still using the same old methods.

Social media and emailing have been used by most of the marketers to get customer behavior as well as engaging with the customers and prospects online in increasing personalized ways. This however is found to be outdated and marketers require updating their marketing skills as far as marketing online is concerned. Clifford goes ahead to suggest that marketer are required to leave these old methods behind and embrace new ones if they are to see their companies succeed in the market place.

Intelligence is what she feels will be the next big thing in marketing. Intelligence being included to marketing will mean tracking customer behavior on a real time manner so that one will be able get the true image of what is happening in the market place as far their company is concerned. Marketer will now be required to use technology intensively in marketing which can be broken down to something of the form:

Intelligent 1:1 Marketing = Mobile Devices + Triggers + Social Media + Point of Sale data.

This is what is referred to as intense use of technology in marketing since marketer will no longer be using just one data point but will be incorporation more than one data point to actually know the customer behavior as well as provide the best products to the customers. thus as much as we know and use technology in marketing we ought to recognize the fact that we still have a long way to go as far as technology is concerned in marketing.

References

Clifford, S. (2011, September 8). Wal-Mart to Bring Back Layaway for Holidays. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/business/wal-mart-to-bring-back-layaway.html?_r=1