Promotion & Information Systems Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Promotion & Information Systems - Research Paper Example Companies are increasingly going online for their marketing efforts. Kellogg Company is an example of a company who saw their sales increase 17% for the first 9 months of 2008 by moving to use of more online promotions (Laric & Lynagh, 2009). Kellogg stated that online marketing gives better opportunities for targeting, engagement, and dialogue (Laric & Lynagh, 2009). The trend that Kellogg refers to does not seem to be passing anytime soon. Hassens (2002) mentions that the rise of information technology has made the business environment ever more customer oriented. In addition, the combination of global markets with the wide variety of choices consumers now have will mean businesses need to be more customer focused than ever before (Hanseens, 2002). The author goes on to mention that the customer should be considered a strategic asset of the company. Information technology should play a large role for most organizations by tracking and analyzing the behavior and habits of buyers in order to make strategic plans (Haseens, 2002). A closely related idea is that of data mining. Data mining is defined as: â€Å"methods used by companies to sort and analyze information to better understand their customers, products, markets, or any other phase of their businesses for which data has been captured† (Jessup & Valacich, 2008). One company’s marketing switch involving data mining occurred when Merck made a $6 billion acquisition of the pharmacy mail order firm Medco. Since Medco was only generating around $80 million in revenue at the time of the purchase, there were other untapped factors involved. It turned out that there was a vast wealth of relevant information regarding both doctors and patients that could be utilized. The marketing and sales areas were able to custom tailor sales presentations based on a doctor’s past record of writing prescriptions and can even show where upcoming trends are located and then be