Evolution of Marketing – Everything you need to know

“Progress is impossible without change, and those. who cannot change their minds cannot change. anything.” –George Bernard Shaw

To progress, we must all change. That also holds for online marketing as well. There have been several changes in how marketers interact with consumers.

But the greatest among all is now the target customer is also part of the marketing conversation.

You must be wondering how?

But before that, in this blog, let’s explore the Evolution of Marketing.

What Is the Evolution of Marketing?

The term “marketing evolution” describes the various stages that businesses have gone through as they looked for fresh and creative ways to generate, maintain, and grow income through customer sales and relationships.

Marketing is an act of influencing people to buy a product or service. We have been witnessing this act of marketing since we started commercialization and with the passage of time, we have witnessed the evolution of marketing.

Until and unless you have clearly understood the entire concept of marketing and how its evolution took place, it is important for you to understand modern-day marketing techniques and strategies.

Stats claim that around 40% of businesses consider proving ROI of their marketing activities their biggest challenge.

The concept of marketing is all about using different measures to ensure a continuous rise in the profit of any business.

Introduction to the World of Marketing

Here is the most basic thing; until and unless someone knows about your product or service, it won’t be sold.

Thus, you need to realize the importance of marketing:

• Create Brand Awareness: If you want to sell your product then you will have to create awareness among the people about your Brand.
• Tell The About The Product: You will have to tell them about the product, its specification, and how it is going to help them in solving their daily life problems.
• Use Different Marketing Techniques: This awareness that we are talking about can be carried out through different marketing techniques.
• Modern Generation: The modern-day generation is getting smarter and more educated day by day hence they will only purchase your products if you can convince them at their best.
• Digital Marketing Campaign: Your internet marketing campaigns are not only helpful in fetching traffic and users but also help in retaining them or re-targeting them.
• Customer Relationship Management: You can maintain a healthy relationship with your customers through your marketing campaigns.
• Value addition: No matter how good your product is or how much quality service you are providing, it will only be valued if people are aware of it.

We can never ignore the importance of marketing in any business as it is undoubtedly the backbone of any business.

Your business will cripple if your marketing team is not able to function properly. Use the right marketing techniques and put them in the sweet spot to get the maximum out of your campaigns.

Well, when we are talking about the marketing concept, it has always been changing for many years and there are still some changes that are going on right now.

Why there is a need for marketing to evolve and change?

Simply said, things are changing in our world. Whether you notice the changes or not, customer needs, customer perception, competition, technology, and even design trends are all continually changing.

These factors are important in sales and marketing.

Different stages of the evolution of the Marketing Concept

The evolution of marketing started during the Industrial Revolution that took place in the 18th and 19th centuries. We can trace the entire evolution of marketing in four different phases-

• Production Orientation
• Product Orientation
• Sales Orientation
• Customer Orientation
• Social Orientation.

Here are the five stages of marketing evolution, according to ERA.

The evolution of marketing is summed up in the sentences that follow.

• Production era: Customers choose products that are easily available and very reasonably priced.
• Product era: Good products don’t need marketing
• Sales era: Selling is said to involve trapping customers.
• Marketing era: The customer is the King
• Relationship marketing era: The future of our company depends on our relationships with customers.

Let us take the importance of marketing into consideration & understand each one of them deeply –

1. Production Orientation

• Under this people believed that when a product’s quality is good enough it doesn’t require any additional efforts in promotion as people will anyhow purchase it. This was the widely used approach during the industrial revolution.
• People focused on more production at a low cost so that it can fetch better returns. Before the revolution maximum products were handmade and this entire process made the production cost of the product go high.
• Due to a high production cost, producers had no option but to sell it at higher prices.
• After the introduction of machinery, this production cost came comparatively down and the products were being sold at 1/10th of the original price.
• Customers were ready to buy this product with happiness as it was cheaper for them than ever. In this case, there was hardly any requirement for marketing, and the products were being sold with ease.
• Though when we are going through this philosophy of production orientation we need to know that a few assumptions were taken while framing this philosophy; as everything that was being produced with the machinery could be sold, the production cost was kept to a minimum only, and so on.
• Manufacturers during this phase of the evolution of marketing concepts were eyeing more efficient production which is coming out of low-cost as to attain the maximum profit.

2. Product Orientation

• Here, a more competitive approach was taken during the production process in order to produce the most ideal product they can.
• An assumption was made during this phase that if the people are already having a product of certain quality they will only expect you to produce a product of better quality than that.
• If they are already benefited from the core features of a product then if you want to sell your product, you will have to create something different and better.
• What was happening in this phase was, that every production process was setting a standard before itself.
• Since customers were seeking a product with more and more unique features, manufacturers were also aiming toward producing a better and better product. They were doing their best to solve the problem of the diverse needs of customers.
• But there was a downside during this approach to production – the prices of the product were going up at a high rate.
• Every time the product contained more and more features, this leads the manufacturers to increase the price of the product, and sometimes even the customer themselves were not in a position to pay the prices for what they seek were seeking from the product.

3. Sales Orientation

• By this time people started to recognize the importance of the promotion process and why they should introduce marketing to their business.
• Producers started to realize that the mere production of quality products is not enough for their business’s growth rather they will also have to invest in the promotion process.
• They realized that it was extremely difficult for them to move the product out of their firm without proper promotion or advertising.
• What we know today about marketing was realized during that period of time. They started to feel that no matter how much quality their products contain, people won’t buy them if they are kept to mum.
• During this phase, the manufacturers were only eyeing two things – producing the best quality product they can and convincing the people at their best to buy the products that they produced.
• They started using different tactics to influence people to buy their products. Even high-pressure tactics were being introduced to boost up sales.
• This philosophy is being followed since the 1940s and the marketing which we are following currently is entirely based on the same philosophy

4. Customer Orientation

• Under this philosophy, the main aim of businesses is to understand and satisfy the expectations of the customer.
• This is undoubtedly the most ideal condition of any business where they try to figure out what are the actual needs of the customer and what they expect from their seller.
• Since the 1950s this philosophy has been considered the fundamental aim of any business.
• Customer satisfaction was the main aim of businesses during this phase of the evolution of marketing. They focused on the customer more than just their product.
• What they produced depended upon what the customer desired and expects from them.
• First of all the businesses commence with the customer and once they are all clear about their needs and desires, they move on to the next step; production.
• What they are going to produce and how the production process will proceed depends on the above-mentioned factors.
• Under this philosophy many assumptions were made as well like; as firms are going to produce only those products that are desired by the customer, the entire management will work to enhance their programs for the prime satisfaction of their customer and the business focuses on the long-term goals rather than the quick sales.
• Under this philosophy, marketing campaigns grew as well.
• Businesses came to know about their audience’s desires only through their marketing campaign and they were able to be aware of their product through their marketing campaigns only.

5. Social or Societal Marketing Orientation

• Till now marketing campaigns were completely oriented toward business, sales, products, and customers. We were not paying attention to the environmental degradation that was happening due to our activities.
• Marketing theory went through a refinement during this phase when the marketers and the business owners started paying attention to the environment.
• They started to recognize how their activities are harming nature and eventually creating harm for our society as well.
• Consumer welfare came into play during this phase of the evolution of marketing. Here the aim of businesses shifted towards providing humans with a quality lifestyle and along with that ensuring a pollution-free environment around us.
• Now the businesses were not just focusing on producing quality products rather they were focused on producing environment-friendly products.
• Their aim shifted from complete customer satisfaction to customer welfare as well as social welfare.
• Environment safety was the major aim of businesses and this philosophy of environmental protection is being followed even today and that is what we call Green Marketing.

Now let us understand how digital marketing evolve during the past few decades –

Evolution of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing came into play during the 1990s-2000s and we have witnessed its great dynamics in this commercial world.

Digital Marketing Vs Traditional Marketing

Traditional Marketing

There were times when traditional marketing campaigns were causing pain in the neck for all the marketers and even by the following hardest schedule we were not getting enough leads.

The traditional marketing techniques limited our reach and it became extremely hard for businesses to let their product reach the great dynamics of the world.

Digital Marketing

Digital marketing has opened a number of opportunities for us to give our product the best exposure that it deserves.

Since the entire world is going digital and around half of the world’s population is active on the internet, we can reach out to a huge number of audiences through digital means.

The evolution of marketing is incomplete if we are not talking about the evolution of digital marketing.

• The evolution of the internet and our lifestyle has been the primary reason behind the extraordinary evolution of digital marketing that we are witnessing these days.
• Growth in the usage of smartphones, the internet, and other technological devices has contributed to the evolution of digital marketing.
• With the evolution of the internet came social media and we all know how popular it is these days. Social media provided marketers with a window through which reaching out to their targeted audience became an easy job.
• People started using smartphones more often than ever during the past two decades and this leads marketers to explore this as an opportunity to reach out to a large number of audiences.
• Targeting people became an easy job since the efforts were minimal and the results were extraordinary. This became the reason behind such upliftment of digital marketing.
• Businesses start noticing the difference that digital marketing was making in their sales and this marked the extreme popularity of this concept during that phase.
• Content marketing, SEO, and other digital glossaries were being explored and search engines also kept on getting smarter day by day. The competition among different digital marketers rose and this also enhanced the quality of their campaigns.
• The word; digital marketing that we know today has gone through a number of phases. The great dynamic nature of digital marketing is the result of so many refinements that it went through during the past two decades.
• Digital marketing has not only helped in the growth of businesses but also it has helped in increasing the employment percentage.
• Now there is a huge requirement for human resources in digital marketing sectors in various domains like Copywriting, content writing, SEO manager, social media manager, and so on.

Conclusion

The evolution of marketing didn’t occur in a short period rather it went through several phases and what we are seeing today is the result of refinements that it went through.

We should realize the importance of marketing. Undoubtedly marketing is the backbone of business and we are going to see different aspects of it in the upcoming future.

The evolution of marketing is an omnipresent process that will keep taking place at regular intervals.

Enrolling in Digital Marketing Certification Course can enable you to learn and master the best marketing practices.

In case of any doubts about the evolution of marketing, feel free to ask us in the comments.

FAQs:

1. What are the 5-stages of marketing evolution?

The 5-stages of marketing evolution are:

• Production-era
• Product era
• Selling era
• Marketing-era
• Holistic era

2. What is the first step in the evolution of marketing?

Marketing theory began with a production orientation. Production efficiency, which is the viewpoint that the road to corporate success lies in decreasing manufacturing expenses (usually by producing in enormous quantities), is at the heart of this concept.

3. Who is the father of marketing?

Father of the Evolution of marketing Philip Kotler.

4. What are the 4 Ps of the marketing mix?

The 4 Ps of the marketing mix is product, price, place, and promotion.

5.  What are the 7 Ps of the marketing mix?

The 7ps of the marketing mix are product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical environment.

6. What Is E-Marketing?

E-marketing, often known as electronic marketing, describes advertising done online. Internet marketing and online marketing are two terms that are interchangeable when referring to e-marketing.