How Changes in the Economy and a Growing Population Affect Marketing Strategies

Millennials

As time goes on, humans evolve and require different things. Economies evolve as well, which causes marketers to make decisions based on these changes.

In my previous article, I discussed how marketers go about selecting their target markets, based on things such as demographics, psychographics, and geographics. You would think a marketer would be all set to go after selecting a target market and honing their marketing skills and strategies. But in an evolving economy, no marketer can sit and be complacent. They must continue to understand the lives of a changing population as time goes on.

For example, if a company like Best Buy was able to market CDs very well back in the 90s when CDs were big, they will have to realize that they must market other things such as smartphones that play music. This is because today's generation does not use many CDs if any CDs at all, compared to generations before. You'd be lucky to find a new car these days that has a CD player installed. An article written by Linkedin user Celso Andre summarizes and article written by PhDs Philip Kotler and Gary Armstrong that analyzes changes in the economy and the differences between generations. The article argues there is a "change in consumer spending", and due to economic factors and a growing population, Americans are more likely to save their money. They have reacquired "back to basics sensibility". This would suggest that marketers must do more to intrigue consumers because they are more conscious and careful with their money. The article also discusses the terms "millennial" and "generation Z".

One could argue that Millenials, born in the 80s or 90s, have been exposed to two very different societies. They likely didn't grow up with laptop computers or video game consoles, and cell phones weren't a mainstay. The internet didn't come around until 1991. However, now those Millenials have lived their young adult lives fully engulfed in the world of technology today. Therefore, marketers should be responsible for marketing to those people based on the fact that they each may have different interests because they lived in two different time periods. Going back to the example of the CDs, it is wise to devote your marketing more to smartphones than CDs, but you can still market CDs because chances are there are many still into CDs.

"Generation Z" are the millennium babies, those who grew up in the early 2000s during the onset of mainstream technology. Marketers now have many different ways of reaching these kids/young adults, such as commercials on TV stations or advertisements on the popular Snapchat app.

It is clear that changes in the economy and a growing and evolving population will affect a marketer's decisions and strategies.

What are some of the hallmark marketing strategies that effective marketers use?