Lee High School

How do Successful Marketers use Technology to Influence the Consumer?

Business Marketing

Brithany Reyes

Brian Scott Cahoon

Senior Capstone

March 13, 2019

 Reyes 1

Brithany Reyes

Brian Scott Cahoon

Senior Capstone

March 13, 2019

Flying Under The Radar… The Hidden Side of Marketing

A marketer is a person that must come up with a marketing campaign to market

a company's product, service, or a person. They can have tasks such as designing

logos, ads, and posts on social media. Marketers have to stay creative and focused to

be able to influence the consumer. Especially since consumers change and evolve so

do their interests and tastes. Marketers need to be able to adapt to new trends and

technology to continue to keep interested in the consumer. ​Successful Marketers use

technology to influence the consumer by taking advantage of social media,

tailoring media to targeted groups, and infiltrating apps for

demographic data.

Social media has revolutionized the way marketers can influence the consumer.

With social media, marketers can be more connected with the consumer. They can see

what the consumer likes and dislikes from their product. They can also see the new

trends and see what is currently the purple cow (a term used to identify what's unique at

the moment). With social media, they can also market their product in a more

empathetic way. “A product by itself is boring. It only becomes exciting when you show

people all of the cool things you can use it for” (WishPond). Marketers can use this to

their advantage very easily. For example, if a marketer is selling some socks, they can
 Reyes 2

put a post on Instagram of donating socks to the homeless. The consumer will then see

it and start sharing it because they believe in the kind act the business did. Then it

becomes a snowball effect more and more people share it, and they start to become

more familiar with that brand of socks. Then when they go to the store, they see that

brand of socks, and they make an empathetic connection all because of that specific

post on social media. Another way marketers use social media to their advantage to

influence the consumer is to trick the consumer into doing the selling for them. Every

time a consumer likes or shares a brand or a product the consumer is becoming a seller

for that product or band and they don’t even know it. According to the European

University of Tirana, the most useful social media outlet used to promote their business

is Facebook with a ninety-three percent.

Target segmentation is a efficient way to influence the consumer. Instead of just

throwing an ad out to the world and hope it catches some consumers, marketers are

getting more ingenious with the way they market. They are studying the consumer, their

likes, income, gender, what drives them, etc. To find products that suit that type of

consumer.

“Influencers are often brand advocates and should be discovered

and very carefully nurtured to help exert their influence. But don’t
ask them to transparently talk about your product or gratuitously
give them something for nothing, you will alienate them. Give them
something new and really interesting to talk about or review, that’s
what motivates them” (Fennemore).

For instance, a way marketers influence the consumer with their marketing is by finding

influencers with their products specific target market. For example, If they have a

product that is for skin care they will find an influencer that talks about skin care that has
 Reyes 3

a ten to twenty-two year old demographic that care about their skin. Now that influencer

will promote their product to their audience in efforts to market it to their audience to buy

it:

“Marketers use market segmentation because it allows them to do

a better job marketing to the correct target consumer. By
understanding those you market to, you are more likely to hit the
right market, and to do so without wasting marketing dollars.
Different ages, incomes, genders, etc. purchase for different
reasons, so market segmentation is a valuable tool for a marketer”
(Helfrich).

To marketers, demographic information helps them be able to find the right target group

for the product or service they are marketing. It makes is much easier and cost effective

to just market to a selective group of people. For instance, marketers can try to sell a

Lamborghini to a middle-class person that is only making $40,000 a year because it’s

just an unrealistic purchase for them; but they can try to market it to a CEO that makes

$200,000 a year because it’s more realistic that they will be able to purchase a luxury

car like that.

Demographic information is very valuable information in the marketing industry. A

marketer will buy information from websites or apps to learn more from the consumer.

For instance, Facebook is known for selling its users information to marketing agencies.

Marketers later use this information to find what kind of consumer they have to tailor the

right type of ads and products to them. In hopes that the consumer will see the ad and

like it or share it on Facebook. “They can sell your product for you” (Generation like

Facebook). By liking and sharing marketers are triking the consumer into selling their

product for them because the consumer is promoting the product through sharing and
 Reyes 4

liking the add or promotion. Demographic information also helps find the right marketing

strategy for the consumer you're trying to influence:

“Demographic information is important in targeting

audiences/consumers for specific products and services to have to
achieve desired marketing results. Craft brewers, for example, who
want to attract a younger consumer to their brewery can do so
using demographics, just as the American Association of Retired
Persons would want to target individuals who are at or nearing the
age of 50 to join their membership” (Alvarez).

For example, if marketers are marketing to 50 years old. Their marketing strategy would

be more towards doing adds on Facebook or Sunday night TV advertisements.

Marketers won't invest in influencers or on celebrities because consumers of the age of

50 and up don’t tend to follow trends for celebrities. That’s why it is important to know

who your market is to make the marketing campaign the most successful as possible.

Marketers don’t have the easiest job since the market is always changing, but it's

worth the challenge. to become a successful marketer in today's world they need to be

creative, willing to change and evolve, and team builders for marketers to continue

influencing the consumer. Successful marketers are taking advantage of social media,

tailoring media to targeted groups, and infiltrating apps for demographic data to

influence the consumer.

 Reyes 5

Works Cited

Beqiri G. Marketers and social media marketing. ​Proceedings of the Multidisciplinary

Academic Conference​. December 2015:91-98. http://search.ebscohost.com/

login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=111482181&site=ehost-live. Accessed

March 15, 2019.

Reyes, Brithany electronic interview with Helfrich, Kirk, March 25, 2019, kirkhelfrich@ke

ntisd.org

Reyes, Brithany electronic interview with Alvarez, Raul, March 26, 2019, gtsdgroup@g

mail.com

Fennemore, Paul. “How Social Media Influences Market Segmentation.” ​Marketing Tech

News,​ 16 Mar. 2012, 10:10 am, www.marketingtechnews.net/news/2012/mar/16/

how-social-media-influencing-marketing-segmentation/.

Morgan, Clifford. ​YouTube​, YouTube, 16 Aug. 2017,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6goB

jgXv4Q.

Wishpond. “4 Simple Ways to Turn Facebook Fans Into Paying Customers.” ​Wishpond​,

Wishpond, 10 Aug. 2017, blog.wishpond.com/post/58168360492/4-ways-to-turn-f

acebook-fans-into-paying-customers.