According to Sergio Zyman, former Chief Marketing Officer, Coca Cola, “Traditional marketing is not dying – it’s dead!” He believes, “The era of marketing as we have known it is over, dead, kaput – and most marketers don’t realize it…”

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Cultural and technological changes are impacting local businesses in a more severe way than we can imagine. What we all need to understand is that the old fashioned (more commonly referred to as the traditional marketing) techniques are being replaced by new exciting and innovative, techniques.

Firstly let’s try to understand what all comes under the shade of “Old fashioned” marketing?  A fractional list may include the very basic yellow pages, newspaper advertising, television and radio advertising, telemarketing, direct mail, and even e-mail marketing (interesting right?). Now let’s swiftly just go over all of these.

Why is newspaper advertising sort of endangered? Simple, because so are newspapers.  Optimists like to believe they’ll last for another five or so years, but reality checks say otherwise. What’s true is that newspapers are increasingly becoming an anachronism.  With the widespread availability of technology, people have started relying on the Internet and smart phones for news updates. Considering this is the ongoing trend, and costs absolutely nothing, why would anyone still buy a newspaper? These days live feed is mostly preferred since it’s much more cost effective and current. Website Live Support provides you with the live support facility, and they do it pretty well.

Telemarketing is another avenue fading which is dying out as new innovations are coming out.  Telemarketing is known as the epitome of “interruption marketing”. Ever wondered why it always ruins dinner time? Telemarketing is also the best example of the “noise” marketers make in an attempt to gain our attention. This approach however is dying now due to the very popular government legislation which introduced the Do-Not-Call lists and Caller ID.

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Coming down to TV and radio advertising, these two are being challenged by innovations such as TV and podcasting.  Direct mail’s first stop in every house is always the bin. And let’s just face it, with internet technology and email facilities being so widely available, who uses direct mail anymore?

What might come as a shocker to you is the fact that email-marketing is also fading away. Social networking has suppressed all other forms of marketing as we know it. People now prefer no-noise and the direct selling approach, meaning whatever approach you’re adapting, make sure it’s subtle.

“Mass advertising has lost its ability to move the masses. Technology has given people many more options than they had in the past and created a consumer democracy. Everybody has a thousand choices for any product they might want to buy, and there are a million different products competing for their wallets. So marketers need to find ways to speak to customers individually, or in smaller groups. With so many choices, each customer has many factors that weight in his or her decisions, so marketers have to find the reasons that speak to particular customers’ concerns. Old-style, one-size-fits-all mass marketing can’t do this.” – The End of Marketing As We Know It. New York: Harper Business, 1999.

What we’re trying to help you understand is that other than the few corporate giants, the idea of market saturation is not possible anymore. Instead, it’s time you started looking for alternative approaches.

One of the most popular and effective forms of marketing is web-based advertising. The best part about this is how specific you can get. For example, you can specify when your message/ad appears, it can appear when a certain keyword regarding or related to your company is entered in a search engine, or every time your rivals information is viewed etc.

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You can even do a comprehensive analysis of traffic demographics for high-volume sites, by doing this you’ll find out which sites are most reviewed or logged onto and this information can help with your investment plan accordingly. Another very interesting feature you can benefit from is Adding Live Chat to Website and providing Website Live Support. This makes it easier for you to get direct with your customers and provide a better customer service experience.

Another advantage of web-based advertising is that you can see the results of your marketing plan with click-through rates and web traffic report facilities. In case your message is not generating the sort of response you had in mind; you can easily change the message or alter it according the situation. On the internet, your competitors aren’t your biggest competition, the quality of your products and how authentic your website and your messages are.

Something we need to understand is that traditional marketing is not at all compatible with social networking. Social networking is not just a different format; it is a completely different world, a completely different form of communication. The shift in marketing, caused by the social networking websites, is a stepping stone towards the social revolution. How it came down to this and away from the old fashioned modes is a very fascinating story.

The story starts shortly after internet became oh so widely available, and which was once a luxury became a necessity. And people worldwide, realized that internet could be used to discuss issues, events and stories on a global platform. What social networking did was provide people the platform of befriending each other and connecting with whoever they admired. Not only could you befriend people, but you could also share what you like, it was like being part of something, and you could use it to come out of a bubble-world and tell the world who you are, what you think, what you can do, and get instant feedback. Maybe even do something together, no matter where or when.

Social networking basically changed how people experienced communication. At first, back in the days it used to be one-way or controlled by the company websites.  But now, it’s about multi-faceted communication facilitated by the social web. Social networking websites have provided us with a platform where we follow people, and people follow us. All you have to do is sit back in the middle of this unbelievable network of people, share ideas that matter to you, and get enlightened by the opinions and likings of the hundred or thousand people on your network.

Marketing is no longer confined to the product you’re selling. It’s about the people you’re selling to, and how it brings all of them together. A smart way of portraying yourself as a customer oriented company, meaning showing that it’s you’re all about the customer and his needs is that you Add Live Chat to Website.

The initial idea of marketing was to sell the product, but in the current global scenario, it is to create the need of the product you’re trying to sell, which puts the control in the hands of those who are being dealt with; the consumers. The basic rule of economics that is “demand” controls the overall equilibrium in the society also perpetuates this belief that the power is in the hands of the consumers, and consumers have now gained the knowledge of their significance in this entire system. Therefore, a good marketer will never try and manipulate, instead he will form alliance with this power, and use it for his benefit. Why I say this is because; it’s never about manipulation, it’s about conviction.

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