Over the last couple of years, the Internet of Things (IoT) crawled its way deep into the core of the modern business world and completely changed the way we think about the sectors like construction, industrial production, communal planning, etc. The topic that is not so frequently discussed is the impact the IoT had on the marketing landscape, which is a bit of an oversight.
Namely, modern marketing is extremely data-driven and the IoT can provide a plethora of valuable information modern analytic systems can process and use to steer future marketing decisions. And the IoT market keeps on growing on an annual basis. According to recent research, this lucrative sector will reach a $75 billion mark by the end of 2025.
So let us see how these two worlds will correlate to each other and how IoT gradually transforms the marketing industry.
Importance of real-time customer data
As we mentioned in the introduction, one of the main goals of modern marketing is to gather as much digital data that speaks about the consumers' habits as possible. Internet of Things offers one very novel benefit that was until recently impossible to imagine and that is the real-time information about the way our potential clients interact with the world around them. That gives marketers an excellent insight into their psychology, decision-making process, and nature of real-life interactions. As a result, we are able to reach an entirely new level of understanding and design much more segmented marketing strategies.
Seamless exchange of critical sales data
The quick exchange of sales data is critical for the success of any company. Without instant access to the information on how, when, and why are clients buying and using the company's products we would never be able to make necessary adjustments. The collection of this valuable usually required a complex process of aggregation and processing. The change that came with the rise of IoT is that, since the data is generated autonomously by smart devices the exchange of data occurs even without a complicated infrastructure or the involvement of IT experts. That considerably speeds up the entire process.
Low maintenance
This is one of the cases where we can find a lot of examples throughout the business landscape.
For instance, the construction organizations that use the services of professional IoT companies to integrate their processes and streamline workflow can use this very IoT system to run troubleshooting and notice the problems at their inception. The same principles can be applied to the field of marketing where the advanced IoT systems are fully capable of running the maintenance and diagnostic procedures which, virtually, makes them self-sustainable. These capabilities are only going to develop as time goes by.
Real-time in-store advertising
When talking about marketing, we often fail to consider the displays and other types of advertisements that are utilized in-store and generate a considerable chunk of the total revenue.
The brick-and-mortar premises are also the environment where the Internet of Things is allowed to demonstrate its full potential by interacting with the devices with all the people who are entering the store. This communication is usually performed through the low-energy Bluetooth signals the marketers. Through this channel, the visitors get location-based marketing prompts and engage in an interactive shopping experience.
More efficient intent marketing
If you are not familiar with the term, intent marketing describes targeting customers based on their intents or motivations towards a specific brand. For instance, if, during some shopping session, a client expresses an interest in a specific brand and doesn't pay the attention to the other brands that are selling the same type of product, the marketer will adapt the marketing message to play up the card of brand loyalty. Usually, this form of highly effective marketing took a great deal of research of resources. Using the benefits of IoT, intent marketing can be performed in a matter of seconds.
A path for the future
Last but not least, we would like to mention that even though data access has, pretty much, become granted the marketing is making huge steps outside the traditional online model, and putting a stronger emphasis on the sensor-based communication that makes the backbone of the IoT technology. As time goes by and the tech continues to evolve, the Internet of Things will get an even greater autonomy interpreting the consumer data and making on-the-go decisions regardless of the back-end infrastructure. So, you can expect that IoT will become one of the marketing spearheads of the future.
In conclusion
For the very end, we can only summarize that even though the Internet of Things is usually associated with workflow management and industrial processes, this tech can serve as a huge contributor to the marketing landscape as well. The entire marketing sector is built around the understanding of how and why our clients behave in some specific manner. This important piece of info can’t be provided by one specific channel. But, the modern society is adopting the IoT tech at a relentless pace. The data we can harness form this development may help us finally find the missing piece of the puzzle and push the marketing on an entirely new level.
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