1. Technology Makes us a
Marketing Tool,
Demographic and
Target
By: Zhuo Yuan Li

2. Technology and Marketting
 Over the past decades, new areas of marketting
 Advent of the internet
 Proliferation of the personal computer
 More electronic devices connecting to the web
 More people are on the internet
 Advanced technologies allow more to be done
 Data tracking and analysis
 Prediction technology (Hatmaker, 2012)

3.  Internet revolutionized human interactions
 People could browse through huge numbers of websites in
a short period of time
 Search engines such as google
 Social networks such as MySpace and Facebook allow
easy and quick communication
 Companies realized the importance of online marketing
 Standard practice for a company to have a website for
online customers, which was almost unheard of 20 years
ago
 Internet advertising is now everywhere
 Some companies deal exclusively online
 Amazon, Ebay

4. Online advertising
 Cheaper than traditional advertising (TV, radio)
 Wider coverage than tradition forms of ads
 Especially on social networks such as facebook
 Not limited to a certain geographical location
 Can be to a targeted audience
 Specific websites catering to specific people
 Easier to do and manage the results
 Easier to track clicks and pageviews
 Faster and more informative than offline ads
 Send you to company’s product page immediately
(Scifo, 2010)

5. We as a Marketing Tool
 Humans are social creatures
 Highly influenced by the actions of others
 Especially friends and family
 Word of mouth marketing (Raghuvanshi, 2010)
 On the internet, word of mouth travels very fast
 Companies use peer influence to expand consumer ranges
 Lists of popular items on shopping sites (Moon, 2011)
 As more people buy a product, more are inclined to buy it

6.  Online customer reviews
 By posting customer reviews, businesses attach a more
familiar atmosphere to a product as it has been used in real
life (Raghuvanshi, 2010)
 “Liking”
 Popularized by social networks such as facebook
 The more likes something has, the more people are
inclined to try it (Raghuvanshi, 2010)
 Many products sold online now has a facebook extension
for the like button
 Music on youtube is a great example of peer influence
 Justin Bieber’s Baby
 Gangnam Style

7. A Target on our Backs
 Consumers are a backbone of business
 Money flow from buying products
 Understanding consumers is vital to success
 Businesses predict consumer behavior to make profit
 Different people have different views
 Websites cater to a specific group (Raghuvanshi, 2010)

8.  Businesses gather information about us in more ways
than ever
 Websites record our actions and log them
 Our search histories reveal our preferences
 Companies working together to create a centralized
database for easy tracking
 By analyzing customers’ shopping patterns, companies can
predict what they want to buy more of, or a new product
 Cookies and spyware in our computers violate our privacy
and feed information back to companies (Hatmaker, 2012)

9. Demographics
 People who repeatedly frequent a website
 Websites are catered towards specific groups to increase
cost/efficiency in sales (scifo, 2010)
 People with similar tastes are grouped
 Targetted by online advertising, which fills websites with
ads on every page in order to generate revenue
 Continuously surrounded by products they usually prefer,
to cater to consumers’ buying impulse (Raghuvanshi,
2010)

10. Guided by an invisible hand
 Customer preferences determine search results
 Shopping sites have items that a consumer is more likely to
click on
 Based on previous searches, clicks and purchases (Moon,
2011)
 New and “hot” products are displayed on the front page
 People are influenced by what others have bought
 Never know if the business is manipulating these lists to its own
profit, or simply using them to gauge consumer response
(Moon, 2011)

11. Strategies
 Cameras are used in stores to analyze customer
movements throughout the store
 Used to optimize product placements
 Customers see the most popular product at the very first
sight (Hatmaker, 2012)
 The need for technology
 People always want the latest in technology
 Period between switching to newer version of electronic
device is decreasing every year (Hart, 2012)
 Home delivery for convenience
 people are more inclined to shop online and continue the
cycle

12. Conclusion
 Technology does indeed make us a marketing tool, a
demographic and a target
 Not necessarily a bad thing
 As long as we make informed decisions
 Internet provides a wide variety of choices for us as
customers
 Viewing prices between different stores is much easier
 We have been subject to these since capitalism and
consumerism began
 Businesses have been using consumers for profit long before
the 21st century
 Technology simply provides a façade of convenience

13. References
 Hart, Richard. (2012). Technology Consumption, innovation to
continue in 2012. Retrieved from
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/drive_to_discover&
id=8487231
 Hatmaker, Taylor. (2012). 5 Ways “Big Data” Is Changing The
World. Retrieved from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/224582
 Moon, Mariella. (2011). The Future of Shopping: How technology
will change the way you buy. Retrieved from
http://www.tecca.com/columns/future-of-shopping/
 Raghuvanshi, Raka. (2010). The Importance of Consumer
Behavior. Retrieved from
http://www.businessihub.com/importance-of-consumer-behavior/
 Scifo, George. (2010). 10 Advantages of Online Advertising.
Retrieved from http://www.georgescifo.com/2010/05/10-
advantages-of-online-advertising/