Last night at the Oscars, Apple finally unveiled the iPad to the masses. For those of us in the tech world, it's old-hat, but last night was very possibly the first time "your mom" heard about this device. For those of you that didn't see the ad, here it is:
As I've followed the pre-launch efforts around this product, one of the more interesting debates that has raged has been around it's "place" in the market. We have laptops, we have netbooks and we have smart phones - do we really need a 4th device that falls somewhere in the middle?
After watching this spot and mulling over it for 12 hours, I had an interesting thought - could this be the ultimate hardware tool for local marketing? I'm not talking about marketing via the product to the millions that will inevitably buy it (though that's a very important point - save for a later blog post).
Instead, the question that came to my mind is, "Could this be the tool that should be in the hand of every local store owner, manager and marketing professional to drive their local store marketing efforts?"
Balihoo sells local marketing software (Local Marketing Automation software to be exact). However, access to this software obviously has to happen via a piece of hardware. Today, that's typically handled by a desktop (or laptop) computer either in the back office of the store or at the home of manager or owner that handles marketing. While this works, it still fundamentally separates the act of "marketing" from the act of running the daily business. A sophisticated, and relatively affordable, piece of hardware like the iPad has the possibility to bring the "marketer" closer to the business to take action immediately. Perhaps it's best described in a use case:
The manager of local sandwich shop is at the store at 9AM helping to prep for the day. Unfortunately, it's a typical rainy March day, and from experience they know that business will be down as a result. Standing at the counter with his iPad, the manager can access Balihoo's local marketing software and create a "delivery-only" special coupon for the day and automatically distribute it via email, SMS text, Twitter and Facebook to all of their opt-in customers (total time spent = 5 minutes). Their customers, not wanting to venture out in the rain, jump on the opportunity to get this special delivery deal. The customers are happy and the cash register at the shop is active. Crisis averted.
If you're a franchisor or product manufacturer - isn't this how you want your local outlets to be able to respond to changing local conditions? Are you putting the tools in place (whether hardware or local marketing software) to make this a reality?
As I've followed the pre-launch efforts around this product, one of the more interesting debates that has raged has been around it's "place" in the market. We have laptops, we have netbooks and we have smart phones - do we really need a 4th device that falls somewhere in the middle?
After watching this spot and mulling over it for 12 hours, I had an interesting thought - could this be the ultimate hardware tool for local marketing? I'm not talking about marketing via the product to the millions that will inevitably buy it (though that's a very important point - save for a later blog post).
Instead, the question that came to my mind is, "Could this be the tool that should be in the hand of every local store owner, manager and marketing professional to drive their local store marketing efforts?"
Balihoo sells local marketing software (Local Marketing Automation software to be exact). However, access to this software obviously has to happen via a piece of hardware. Today, that's typically handled by a desktop (or laptop) computer either in the back office of the store or at the home of manager or owner that handles marketing. While this works, it still fundamentally separates the act of "marketing" from the act of running the daily business. A sophisticated, and relatively affordable, piece of hardware like the iPad has the possibility to bring the "marketer" closer to the business to take action immediately. Perhaps it's best described in a use case:
The manager of local sandwich shop is at the store at 9AM helping to prep for the day. Unfortunately, it's a typical rainy March day, and from experience they know that business will be down as a result. Standing at the counter with his iPad, the manager can access Balihoo's local marketing software and create a "delivery-only" special coupon for the day and automatically distribute it via email, SMS text, Twitter and Facebook to all of their opt-in customers (total time spent = 5 minutes). Their customers, not wanting to venture out in the rain, jump on the opportunity to get this special delivery deal. The customers are happy and the cash register at the shop is active. Crisis averted.
If you're a franchisor or product manufacturer - isn't this how you want your local outlets to be able to respond to changing local conditions? Are you putting the tools in place (whether hardware or local marketing software) to make this a reality?
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