Remember the days when renting a movie meant actually driving to a Blockbuster store instead of simply searching for a title on your Netflix account? Or when hitching a ride home from the airport meant hailing a taxi instead of tapping the screen of your smartphone to request an Uber or Lyft ride? Well, those days are now a distant memory and a thing of the past.
Digital technology is everywhere. It is so much a part of everyday life, that it is hard to imagine the world without it. How could we ever get from point A to point B without Google Maps? Do they even make paper maps anymore? Of course, I am merely joking, but you get the point. To adapt to the changing times, business models have been forced to change as well in order to stay relevant. Take the movie rental and distribution industry, for instance. Blockbuster was a company worth around $5 million at its peak—then Netflix came into the picture and is now worth around $41.1 billion. Because Blockbuster failed to adapt its business model to the new digital model that Netflix was disrupting the movie rental business with, Netflix drove it out of business. Consumers want whatever is the most convenient for them. They crave instant gratification. Why get up, get dressed, and drive to the video store to rent a movie when you can just stream it online and still be in your pajamas? The answer: It’s faster, easier, and cheaper.
With the inevitable switch to a more digital lifestyle, business models have been forced to adapt in response. Not only has technology changed, but firm infrastructure, operations, procurement, inbound and outbound logistics, and marketing has changed. At the Regan Group, we make it our job to fully comprehend this change in marketing. We understand what digital marketing is: the convergence of old school marketing, technology, social media, and the internet of things, amongst others. The idea of marketing has remained the same: to attract consumers to businesses, products, and services. However, the idea of how this is achieved has been completely altered, shifted, and rearranged by digital disruption.
Companies can no longer stay afloat simply by marketing their products the old-fashioned way. Print media advertisement space, television commercials, and radio blurbs are not going to cut it. Consumers have more of a choice in the type of marketing they are exposed to. They can skip through commercials, get instant reviews about companies online through websites like Yelp!, and click on profiles and links on their social media feeds that interest them. This means that marketers have to get clever in regards to how they reach and influence their consumers. They are expected to know the digital world and how to use it to their advantage. This is what the changing business model has done to marketing, and at the Regan Group we understand and know what it takes to change with it.
Read further why The Silicon Review named the Regan Group one of the “10 Fastest Growing Digital Marketing Companies” of 2017.
