Viewpoint – a big opportunity for interactive marketing post-COVID-19
Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing
ISSN: 2040-7122
Article publication date: 23 August 2021
Issue publication date: 24 February 2022
Abstract
Purpose
The objective of this short research-informed, practitioner-orientated paper is to provide a viewpoint on interactive marketing pre and post COVID-19.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual article designed to articulate a viewpoint that despite COVID-19 the strategic considerations that marketers need to make remain unchanged.
Findings
As a result of the pandemic, there is much more obvious use of interactivity in other, aligned functions such as sales and customer services. The effectiveness of interactive marketing will only be increased by having focus on the fundamental roles of the marketing discipline, strategy and segmentation, and understanding customers at the individual level. We also need reminding briefly that the rules of competition had changed well before the COVID-19 pandemic. The traditional make and sell model has been substantially replaced by new technology-enabled organisations without the restrictions of high fixed costs and cloying bureaucracy. Customers can now search for and evaluate products and services independent of suppliers and now have as much information about suppliers as suppliers have of customers. This is the backcloth against which marketers face the challenges at the beginning of 2021. We conclude that there is a great future ahead. There is no reason why the best of interactive marketing will not be capable of building relationships that are great for customers, great for the people who create them, great for all stakeholders and great for the environment.
Originality/value
This is a practitioner viewpoint outlining the view that COVID-19 has not had as great of an impact on interactive marketing practice as technological change has and that interactive marketing will continue to develop after COVID-19 has receded.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This paper forms part of a special section “Pandemic Aftershock - The challenges of rapid technology adoption and social distancing for interactive marketing practice”, guest edited by Paul Baines, Mairead Brady and Shailendra Pratap Jain.
The author would like to thank Visiting Professor Ian Ryder and Professor Stan Maklan of Cranfield University School of Management for their advice in relation to this paper.
Citation
McDonald, M. (2022), "Viewpoint – a big opportunity for interactive marketing post-COVID-19", Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 15-21. https://doi.org/10.1108/JRIM-03-2021-0092
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited