May 26, 2017

1990s vs. 2017: Marketing Then and Now (Infographic)

Written by
TechnologyAdvice
Why is TechnologyAdvice Free?

Twenty years ago, people would spend five minutes listening to the strident bing bong kshhhhh of their dial-up modem just to watch Hamster Dance. Now, they click the back button if your website takes longer than .7 seconds to load and buy from a competitor if you don’t have the stamina to follow them around the internet with some sort of constantly engaging, hyper-personalized experience.

Consumer behavior and marketing have indelibly changed.  

ALSO READ: Infographic: 8 B2B Marketing Myths Debunked

Marketers didn’t have it easy in the ’90s, but things were a lot more straightforward. If you wanted to connect with prospects, you spent money to put your message in front of them in one of the few available channels: TV, newspaper, direct mail, or local display. 

Now, marketers track an impossibly complicated customer journey across dozens of different channels and devices, struggling all the while to stay relevant and push the right value proposition at the right time. In the infographic below, we explore some of the ways marketing has changed by comparing top tactics and skillsets between 2017 and the good old 1990s (cue Saved By the Bell theme music). 

1990 vs 2017: Marketing Then and Now

 

Technology Advice is able to offer our services for free because some vendors may pay us for web traffic or other sales opportunities. Our mission is to help technology buyers make better purchasing decisions, so we provide you with information for all vendors — even those that don't pay us.