The New Age of Marketing

      

What is marketing? Dictionary.com defines marketing as the “total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling.”

The Business Dictionary goes further by stating it is “the management process through which goods and services move from concept to the customer” It includes the coordination of four elements of marketing: identification, selection, and development of a product, determination of its price, selection of a distribution channel to reach the customer, development, and implementation of a promotional strategy.

As each generation passes, marketing evolves to meet the new needs of the market and to satisfy the customer lifestyle. The new generation coming is Generation Z. They will account for 32% of the marketplace so if you are a marketing company who needs to meet the needs of this enormous groups buying power, below are 7 of the best strategies for selling to the tech-savvy Generation Z.

1. Act fast
Generation Z has an incredibly short attention span because of the instant gratification that technology and social media provides. Almost anything can be accessed instantly. Consequently, you have a short window of time to transfer your idea, your story, the value you offer, or you will lose their attention and ultimately the sale.

2. Entertain and entertain them some more
The Gen Z group has a low attention span, so you need to entertain them. You have to engage and interact in order to keep their attention.

3. Mobile-first index strategy
Google has now adjusted the SEO ranking towards websites that are mobile friendly because there is where most Generation Z’ers access websites. Make sure that the company products or services are adapted to mobile.

4. Customer experience focus
Selling a product does not work on them, you need to sell them an experience. Show the benefits and results of them selecting your company’s product or service instead of the competition.

5. “Market” to Generation Z on social media
Gen Z is the most tech-savvy generation. All your marketing strategies should start on social media because there is where they spend most of their time. They tend to engage better with short videos with no more than one to three minutes. You need to use that time to highlight the company’s value.

6. First-rate technology
This is a very discriminating group, so you have to make sure that the tech designs companies are superior in quality including the images and functionality.

7. Toss out the labels
Lastly, this group is all about inclusion. They do not respond to labels. You have to indirectly market to them and treat them as individuals.

If you have a degree in marketing prior to 2010, you may need to throw everything you learned out the window or at the very least take a refresher course. The distribution channels and the types of promotional strategies have been altered by technology, social media, and Gen Z. If you are looking for different ways to update your marketing knowledge visit journalreview.org to gain further information on the new age of marketing.