Internet of Things for Marketers

In writing a little piece of more ‘futuristic’ marketing thinking for my upcoming Digital Marketing book I came to the subject of the Internet of Things and it has me really thinking.

Marketers are currently all focused and wrapped up in social networking. They see it as THE key responsibility. How many followers can you get and when’s your next viral campaign coming out.

All this vanity marketing will allow the savvy marketer to outflank in the battle to win the customers’ hearts, minds and attention. And in steps the Internet of Things: “The internet of things (IoT) is the inter-networking of physical devices, known as “connected devices” or “smart devices”, buildings, and other gadgets or machines embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and an internet or network connection which enables them to collect and share data.”

The more I think about this the more exciting I feel it becomes.

We can move on in our marketing from just communicating with people and in parallel also focus on keeping in touch with our products, long after they have left our warehouse, shop or service desk.

Constantly connected to our products we can watch and listen to how they are used, where and when. We won’t need to ask the customer or conduct research because the reality will be on a dashboard on the screen or smartphone in front of us. Direct access to answer all those unknown questions and curiosities that would hitherto go unnoticed.

So let your competitor marketers focus on their social media (I am not saying you shouldn’t do that too!) but start to think about how and where you could add the potential of IoT into your product marketing strategy and development.