Do you want to know what is meta marketing? Keep reading to find out more.
Marketing is one of the most important tools that a company can use to communicate its mission to the customer base. It serves as a means to create value for the consumers. The marketing strategy adopted by an organization reflects the goals that the organization has set out to achieve.
Being in a world where information is constantly flowing, marketing can be the driving power behind the success of an industry as it allows the business to form a strong and enduring relationship with its consumers.
There exist different types of markets that differ in their customer base and sometimes the nature of the seller. These include consumer markets, the general name given to markets where customers purchase products to use for themselves instead of reselling. Another type is the global market, within which the goods and services of one country are traded to other countries. These are just two examples of the types of markets that operate. We will now look at meta markets, how they work, and why they can be beneficial to customers.
Meta Markets
The concept of meta marketing or meta markets was first introduced by E.J. Kelly, who tackled the prevailing conundrum of ethics in marketing. This new type of market was thus introduced to provide a more ethically sound channel of communication and business between buyers and sellers. Meta marketing can be defined as a combination of the ethical, scientific, social, traditional, and managerial aspects of marketing. It essentially creates an online market space where the buyers and consumers of a line of products come together to buy/sell said product. This product can be tangible (physical, such as a phone or a car) or intangible (such as a software or NFT).
Market places are generally understood to be physical markets where sellers provide certain products that they may have manufactured, and buyers are physically at the location looking to purchase the product.
On the other hand, ‘market space’ is a term usually assigned to an online marketplace where buyers and sellers come together to conduct their business through the internet. Some examples of marketspaces are Alibaba, eBay, Craigslist, etc.
Meta markets can exist in both forms but are usually seen in market spaces. There may be different types of meta markets classified by the category of products that are being sold. Often in meta markets, interrelated products are sold to facilitate the customer better. Even though the products being offered may be somewhat different, they are often thought to be utilized in the same field, affirming consumers’ belief that all products sold on a meta-market are similar.
An example of a meta market would be an online music store website that sells a host of instruments and provides accessories for those instruments. Additionally, merchandise relating to the store or different artists could be sold. The online seller could also offer the service of instrument maintenance and repair. Although the products and services we have defined above cover a wide range of things, this is considered a meta market since the whole website is an online marketplace (a marketspace) that sticks to one industry and a correlating line of products.
Why are Meta Markets Important?
Meta markets are beneficial for the consumers because they bring one whole category of products into one place where buyers and sellers can interact comfortably. This means that consumers will not have to go to a separate application or website which provides products covering multiple industries. The main problem that consumers see with a general market space is that the integrity of the sellers, and hence the products being sold by them, cannot be verified. Whereas in meta markets, since different buyers compete to see who can entice the customer the most towards their product, the consumers can rest assured that the sellers know what they are doing and can be trusted.