Consumer behavior is continually evolving, both adapting to and influencing our permanently online world. How can marketers, and more broadly businesses, keep up with the pace of change and evolving consumer behavior?

First and foremost, we need to understand in what ways our markets are changing, how connected our world is, and how being all but permanently online is altering consumers, including their expectations.

The Internet of things (IoT) consists of networks of connected devices—everything from smartphones to voice assistants to wearables, to cars, and to home security systems, TVs, and even light bulbs—some 27 billion devices now, and projected to reach nearly 75 billion by 2025, according to data cited in an infographic from content management platform Contentstack.

And "because consumers [are] online all the time, they're starting to expect businesses to be, as well. Eighty percent of consumers desire a response within six hours of sending a message to a company via social media—bonus points if it's consistent and personalized across channels," according to the company.