Page 273 - Foundations of Marketing

240 Part 3 | Customer Behavior and E-Marketing

LO 3 . Understand the changing CHANGING DIGITAL MEDIA BEHAVIORS
digital media behaviors of
consumers. OF CONSUMERS

Consumers now have a greater ability to regulate the information that they view as well as the
rate and sequence of their exposure to that information. The Internet is sometimes referred to
as a pull medium because users determine which websites they are going to view; the mar-
keter has only limited ability to control the content to which users are exposed, and in what
sequence. Today, blogs, wikis, podcasts, and ratings are used to publicize, praise, or challenge
companies. Digital media requires marketers to approach their jobs differently compared with
traditional marketing. However, most companies in the United States do not routinely moni-
58
tor consumers’ postings to online social networking sites. In many cases, this represents a
missed opportunity to gather information.
However, some companies are using the power of the consumer to their advantage. While
negative ratings and reviews are damaging to a company, positive customer feedback is free
publicity that often helps the company more than corporate messages do. Because consumer-
generated content appears more authentic than corporate messages, it can go far in increasing
a company’s credibility. Additionally, while consumers can use digital media to access more
information, marketers can also use the same sites to get information about the consumer—
often more information than could be garnered through traditional marketing venues. They
can examine how consumers are using the Internet to target marketing messages to their audi-
ence. Finally, marketers are also using the Internet to track the success of their online market-
ing campaigns, creating an entirely new way of gathering marketing research.

Online Consumer Behavior
As Internet technology evolves, digital media marketers must constantly adapt to new tech-
nologies and changing consumer patterns. Unfortunately, with so many new technologies

AP Images/PRNewsFoto/Porsche Cars North America, Inc

Online Behavior of Consumers
QR code scanning offers
consumers the opportunity to
obtain more information about
the product.

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