Executive summary
Social media, Apple Pay, and email marketing are three major digital marketing tools employed by Apple to improve its sales and the market share growth. Although Apples does not engage directly in social media marketing campaigns, the company maintains a huge group of insanely loyal customers in virtual communities like social media so as to speak in favour of the company and thereby promote its products and services. Many of those fan-boys are tech-savvy, and hence they are able to authentically talk about Apple products/services in social media. They unite their voices in social media websites like Facebook and Twitter to defend the criticisms against the Apple and to vie with competing firms like Samsung and Microsoft successfully. Similarly, Apple Pay is another digital marketing tool used by Apple to foster contactless payments. Market reports indicate that the introduction of Apple Pay brought revolutionary advancements in the e-business sector. Another potential feature of Apple Pay is that it assists the organisation to obtain boundless volume of customer data conveniently and inexpensively. Finally, the company is not much successful with the use of email marketing approach because of a number of technical issues associated with design and formatting.
A Brief Overview of Apple Brand
Apple, Inc. is US based multinational technology company having a strong presence in computer hardware, computer software, consumer electronics, and digital distribution industries. Apple is well known for the innovation and aggressive market expansion strategies of its late CEO Steve Jobs. The company attained a significant position in the technology sector over the last two decades, and its major competitors include Samsung and Microsoft. Currently Apple is a globally recognised brand holding a massive market share in the smartphone industry. This paper will critically evaluate three digital marketing tools such as social media, Apple Pay, and email marketing used by Apple.
Digital Marketing Tools
1. Social media
Apple has been prominent for its creative social media marketing for many years and this digital marketing technique has greatly assisted the company to obtain a significant edge over its major competitors like Samsung. However, Apple does not engage so actively in social media marketing activities like other leading tech companies. Instead, the company maintains an insanely loyal group of customers who would fight for the company in social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. A regular follower of social media, particularly Facebook, knows how enthusiastic or passionate the Apple’s fan-boys are in defending the company in social media forums. They initiative massive campaigns in favour of the company in the event of a new product/service launch and engage actively in defending the criticisms against the firm or its products/services (Doctoroff, 2014, p.38). The most interesting aspect is that many of the Apple’s fan-boys are tech-savvy people who can comment authentically about the features or technologies used in the product.
On the strength of this active fan base, Apple does not need to engage directly in intense social media marketing efforts (Moe & Schweidel, 2014, p.82). Here, the company simply employs the tool of mouth-to-mouth advertising, which is a powerful tool of modern marketing. The Apple’s policy with regard to social media is that feedbacks and opinions of a satisfied customer would bring more business for the organisation than direct social media campaigns. The company’s argument is true in the sense that people are likely to trust the words of real customers more than message of traditional advertising campaigns. Unlike its competitors such as Microsoft or Samsung, Apple never discloses the details of its new product launches through social media, but it simply promotes overhyping indirectly through its fan-boys on social networking channels. Hence, one can undoubtedly say that Apple uses the infinite scope of social media more creatively than its competitors.
2. Apple Pay
Apple Pay is an innovative digital marketing tool introduced by Apple in United States in 2014 and subsequently in United Kingdom in 2015. Apple Pay is the digital wallet service of the company so as to allow customers make their payments Apple products such as iPhone 6, 6 Plus, iPad, and Apple Watch devices (Apple Pay). The introduction of this digital marketing tool created revolutionary changes in the online business sector, and the increase in the rate of contactless payments since the launch of this tool has been astounding. To illustrate, contactless payments amounted £2.5 billion for the first half of 2015 whereas it was £2.32 billion in 2014 (Mporium, 2015). As this new digital marketing tool was widely accepted in the market, the company recently increased the spending limit on this technology from £20 to £30 (Ibid). Market research data indicate that the launch of Apple Pay and thereby the rapid increases in sales assisted the Apple to increase its UK smartphone market share notably.
A potential feature of Apple Pay is that it can greatly assist the company to gather customer data that could be incredibly beneficial for the business in the long term (Ferrell & Ferrell, 2016, p.555). There is no doubt that collecting customer data is really helpful for the organisation to evaluate customers’ purchasing habits precisely, and to plan its business in such a way to meet customer needs adequately. In addition, the Apple Pay benefits the company to interact more closely with customers thus leading to the creation of loyal relationships with customers. Since this digital marketing tool is capable of saving a fair amount of time and money for customers, it can really aid the organisation to keep customers loyal to the business in the long-term. Furthermore, this innovative marketing technique can give the company a competitive edge over its rivals in the global marketplace.
3. Email marketing
When it comes to email marketing, it seems that Apple’s efforts to communicate its marketing messages to the target audience are not competitive. This is absolutely frustrating for a big group of loyal customers who are really excited to know about every bit of little news regarding the company. One of the significant flaws associated with Apple’s email marketing is that the main message and the ‘Call to Action’ button are appeared in image formats so that they may not be visible to people who have set the ‘images off’ option, which is currently the standard for many email clients (Rijn, n.d.).In addition, many Apple customers complain that it is difficult read the firm’s emails that appear in white text on a light blue background. As a result, many people just skip those promotional mails sent by Apple, and therefore the company fails to achieve the desired outcomes from email marketing.
It is identified that lack of preparation and testing contributes notably to the failure of Apple’s email marketing. I strongly believe that Apple can enhance the interactivity of its promotional emails if the organization pays proper attention to the emails’ design and layout. At the same time, it is important to note that Apple’s promotional emails contain every bit of information that a customer wants to know. Digital marketing analysts say that the content of the Apple’s promotional emails may be adoptable for other marketers too. It seems that Apple extensively relies on the email marketing approach to support its massive promotional campaigns as the company values every individual customer. The company believes that email marketing is a potential strategy to build a stronger relationship with its loyal customers in the long-term (Thomas, 2014, p.9).
References
Apple Pay. (n.d.). “Secure, simple, and even more useful”. [online] available at: http://www.apple.com/apple-pay/ [accessed 04 March 2016].
Doctoroff, T. (2014). Twitter is Not a Strategy: Rediscovering the Art of Brand Marketing. US: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ferrell, O. C & Ferrell, J. F. (2016). Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making & Cases. Cengage Learning.
Mporium. (22 Dec 2015). “Contactless Payment in 2015: What Retailers Need to Know”. [online] available at: https://mporium.com/blog/digital-marketing-innovation/contactless-payment-what-retailers-should-know/ [accessed 04 March 2016].
Moe, W. W & Schweidel, D. A. (2014). Social Media Intelligence. UK: Cambridge University Press.
Rijn, J. V. (n.d.). Where Apple went oops on Email Marketing. Email Audience. [online] available at: http://www.emailaudience.com/why-apple-sucks-big-time-at-email-marketing/ [accessed 04 March 2016].
Thomas, L. W. (2014) The Perfect Storm: Poetry Lobby. US: Louis Willie Thomas JR.
