Dave Sutton's Take On Using The iPad For Marketing

by Ryan Taft in Tablet Marketing

In an earlier article, we took a look at the Forbes article from 2010 where Dave Sutton, co-author of Enterprise Marketing Management: The New Science of Marketing, and founder of TopRight Strategic Marketing, predicted that the iPad will transform marketing. His interview was extremely insightful, especially when you consider it took place soon after the iPad was first released in 2010. Already, Mr. Sutton saw the iPad’s potential to shift the marketing paradigm for businesses of all shapes and sizes. In our article, we focused on the three main qualities the iPad exudes which are the reasons Sutton gave for why this device, and not others like smart phones and laptops which came before it, would transform marketing. In this article, we will dig into what the iPad provides businesses who decide to use the iPad for marketing.

The 5 Q’s of Marketing

The 5 Q’s (or Questions) of Marketing is something that every Marketer learns very early on during their education. Answering these questions about your customers can give you a strong understanding of what your company needs to do in order to successfully market your products and services.The 5 Q’s of marketing are as follows:

Who are your customers?
Where are they?
What are they buying?
When do they buy?
How do they buy?

According to Mr. Sutton, using the iPad for marketing allows marketers to answer all of these questions at the same time, whereas traditional tactics normally can only answer 1, 2 or 3 (if you’re lucky), thus requiring companies to follow-up and run additional tactics to seek the answers to the remaining questions.

Using the iPad for marketing allows companies to collect digital data in real world environments. Here is how each one of the 5 Q’s gets answered through iPad initiatives:

Who – Digital marketing tactics leveraging the iPad can easily collect contact information, thus identifying the “who” to your organization.
Where – Utilizing technology such as geo location, or by simply knowing that your tactic is being run in your store, answers the “where”.
What – If you incorporate the iPad into your point-of-sale system, or possibly leverage some of the newest technology which allows consumers to purchase products in your store without ever going to the cash register, you can understand “what” customers are buying when they make the purchase through their smart phone OR iPad kiosk set up in your store.
When – Again, iPads allow you to collect data, and if you integrate a mobile payment system as we mention above, you’ll know the time of day, day of the week, etc. “when” your customers are most active, and when they are least active, in terms of buying your products and services.
How – Are customers purchasing your products at the cash register? Are they using cash, credit cards, etc.? Are they leveraging your in-store mobile payment system on an iPad? All of this can be answered when you leverage an iPad in your store to allow customers to purchase products and services.

The data captured through these sorts of iPad marketing initiatives is extremely valuable. Again, with one simple initiative such as setting up iPads around your store to showcase your products and let customers purchase those products on-the-spot, you can answer the 5 Q’s of marketing. This will allow you to learn more about your customers, and thus roll out more effective marketing strategies and tactics in the future.

Using the iPad for Marketing Combines Push & Pull Tactics

“Push” and “Pull” are two marketing terms describing the way in which a marketing tactic gets served up to customers and prospects. Push tactics get “pushed” to the consumer, via some sort of vehicle, like an email, a text message, etc. A “pull” tactic is something that draws a consumer to the marketing collateral. It could be an iPad as a digital sign which catches the consumers’ attention and draws her to the iPad. It could be a flyer sitting in a kiosk that has a coupon attached to it. What’s great about the iPad, as Sutton mentions in the Forbes article, is “the iPad is the embodiment of push and pull in one device. It empowers consumers, enhances the customer experience and gives marketers invaluable insight into buying behaviors.”.

Take OnSpot Social for example, you can use OnSpot Social, you can leverage our digital signage features to capture your customers’ attention, display new products, or advertise a sale. When that customer approaches the iPad (is “pulled” to the iPad), it says, “tap here to connect”. Perhaps you’re running a promotion whereby if a user gives you their email address, you will email them (“push” an email) a coupon, and the user can open that email on their smart phone to take advantage of the coupon in order to make a purchase right at that moment. So the iPad has effectively pulled a customer in, and pushed a coupon to that customer, with the result being an increase in sales & the collection of that individual’s email address which can then be used for future marketing communications. It’s beautiful. It’s art. It’s using the iPad for marketing…