Considering how significantly practices have changed, the marketing landscape certainly isn’t what it used to be. So how exactly did we get from the earliest billboard ads in 1867 to the latest infographics in 2015? Let’s look back on how things evolved and what this can teach us about our practices today and in the future.
How it Happened
Between the late ’60s and late ’80s, a growing system of government and university computer networks was inaccessible to the general public. Then the early ’90s came around. With the creation of the World Wide Web, user-friendly browsers, and Internet service providers, the super-network of networks we call the internet had suddenly been democratized on a huge scale. A new way for people to connect with one another meant a new way for businesses to communicate with their audiences. In a matter of less than twenty years, typical practices went from the intrusiveness of spam email to the dialogue-driven communities of social media.
What It Meant Then
The central characteristic that marketing through print, telephone, radio, and television have in common is the outbound approach. Most of marketing history can be distilled down to this concept. As a result, the practice of marketing before the Internet often operated on the underlying idea that a business is an isolated organization, which interacts with people of the outside world to become successful. The potential of the Internet would serve to almost entirely eliminate this dynamic as a concept and unify companies with the people they serve in direct and mutually beneficial ways.
What It Means Now
Now that social media, content, and engagement have become so central to marketing, the result is a focus on the importance of online and in-person communities. So how do we make sure these communities stay strong and allow our businesses to succeed in the future? Our best bet is to be diligent in keeping a close eye on how things continue to evolve. Understanding the means of marketing involves understanding how people connect with the world around them. In such a connected world with so much development, there’s a lot to adapt to!
Whether it’s hard analytics or insights into the history of web-based technologies, CAYK strives to understand the dynamics of marketing from as many angles as possible. If your business is looking to broaden its marketing horizons, give us a call at 403-456-0072 today!
