Apple IPhone Strategy and Innovation.

My company chosen was Apple. During the company background research, I learnt that Apple have products in several different markets and industries and narrowing this down to one would allow my research and strategy to become a lot more focused. Because of this discovery, I have chosen to zone in on the IPhone.

Advertising to parents and educational professionals that if you are to purchase an Apple IPhone, then in doing so, you gain access to a discounted price on all books from cooperating book stores, such as Waterstones, and can also purchase learning resources from examination boards and educational publishers. An alternative to discounted books would be to allow parents and schools to purchase apps produced by these companies that have an educational benefit at a discounted rate. With increasingly higher standards for technology use in early elementary grades, all children, particularly low-income children, could benefit from acquiring basic technology literacy skills in early childhood education settings to ensure they are ready for the classroom says Daugherty, L. and Dossani, R. (2014).

This initiative can be advertised digitally on the bookstores website, this will in turn benefit the retailer as having a partnership with such a large and prolific company can spur on their sales. Despite the fact that Waterstones would be offering a discount on certain products, this could allow an increase in sales for children’s products and would also drive in an older market who are accompanying the children, this could lead to further sales in adult books due to them being in the store browsing with their children. In return, Apple could feature the Waterstones app at the top of their suggested app list to encourage further customers towards the paid partner. AdBoom says that “Association Advertising” can save money. It costs nothing extra for Apple to place Waterstones as a leading app on their store, in return, Waterstones still makes a good profit on children’s educational resources even when offering a discount to parents and educational professionals, all whilst receiving an increased customer base.

Using banner advertising, for example; Waterstones can on their website, display Apple as a leading partner and encourage current customers to go out and purchase the new IPhone. The same can be said for examination boards and known educational resource providers.

This leads on to initiative two and the second part of the strategy. Using online public relations to build the reputation of Apple in the education community. IronPaper (2013) says Online PR is very similar to traditional PR in the sense that it’s about influencing people rather than buying placement for brand content. The influence could result in a story in a magazine, newspaper or blog. It could also result in other online pick-up, including social media. Apple, using the hashtag #ILearnWithIPhone can utilise social media to its advantage, generating free advertising to shed positive light on their wants to help the younger generation learn in what is a rapidly advancing technologically orientated world.

Using this social outreach, working with professionals and educational centres they can promote the message the parents and public influencers that they are “narrowing the digital divide”. The gap between disadvantaged students and their peers in access to and use of technology — the “digital divide” — is significant. Low-income families are less likely to have access to most types of technology, and children in low-income families are more likely to use technology in ways that are passive and isolated. In conjunction with this, Apple can then push the fact that they are expanding resources for teachers and families. With the discounted prices from Apple professionals could use technology to access virtual communities, find teaching materials, watch exemplars and create networks. Similarly, technology provides families with new opportunities to engage in their children’s education and increase communication with their children and with providers.

The strategy would begin with Apple using social media to create a media frenzy over the up and coming campaign with the hashtag #ILearnWithIPhone at the centre. Focusing heavily on the lack of technological access available to under privileged students, and the difficulty for establishments to afford materials they need for the classroom. The next step would be to unveil the partnership with leading book stores and educational materials and their providers, of course allowing these providers priority on app store searches for increased consumer traffic. This would then be partnered with the advertisement for Apple through-out educational and book related websites, promoting that Apple products would allow customers an X-amount of discount on educational resources and children’s books. The drivers of this strategy can be measured by the amount of resources bought with an educational discount applied in conjunction with Apple sales after a certain date, and the amount of resources sold before the discount date and after it. Also, when buying an Apple product, having the customer mark whether they have an interest in the educational benefit on a review could be a simple way of keeping track of the percentage of customers this affects. Finally, tracking the social media reach via interactions, retweets, likes and shares would allow Apple to determine how far the campaign has reached.

References:

AdBoom, A. (2016). B2B Advertising: 5 Advantages of Association Marketing | AdBoom Advertising. [online] AdBoom Advertising. Available at: http://adboomadvertising.com/blog/b2b-advertising-5-advantages-association-marketing-offers-2/ [Accessed 28 Jan. 2018].

Daugherty, L. and Dossani, R. (2014). The Role of Technology in the Lives of Children. [online] Rand.org. Available at: https://www.rand.org/blog/2014/10/the-role-of-technology-in-the-lives-of-children.html [Accessed 28 Jan. 2018].

IronPaper (2013). What is online PR? – Ironpaper. [online] Ironpaper. Available at: http://www.ironpaper.com/webintel/articles/what-is-online-pr/ [Accessed 28 Jan. 2018].

Digital marketing when boiled down to its most simple forms of growth can grow in two ways. The first of these methods of growth is Organic Growth. “Organic growth involves expansion from within a business, for example by expanding the product range, or number of business units and locations.

Organic growth builds on the business’ own capabilities and resources. For most businesses, this is the only expansion method used.

Organic growth involves strategies such as:

– Developing new product ranges

– Launching existing products directly into new international markets (e.g. exporting)

-Opening new business locations – either in the domestic market or overseas

-Investing in additional production capacity or new technology to allow increased output and sales volumes.

-Having a website with strong merit to increase search hits.” (Riley, J. 2015)

Organic search results are determined by search engine algorithms and are based on the merits of each site. So, a company with consistent good reviews online would be featured higher up the search engine results than one that has frequently seen complaints or just simply does not have any website visits what so ever. An example of this would be an organisation that features in the technology sector. If Curry’s PC World had many products on their website which were rated highly and had positive feedback, then the site would move up the search engines as a suggestion for shoppers looking for a new laptop or computer for example. A company can improve their hit rate and their ability to feature on a search engine, growing organically by creating high quality, popular products that members of public want to purchase, this can then be followed up by encouraging users to leave positive reviews on the site of both the products and the services provided, offering a reward such as a discount on next purchase for doing this will increase the chances of the company getting the result that helps the organisation move past its competitors.

So, evolving your website and business to allow for strong, positive organic growth is definitely one way to increase website traffic, but what is paid growth in relation to online searches? “To understand paid search advertising, you must first understand a search engine results page (SERP). When you type something into a search engine (like Google), the search engine responds with a list of web pages (their title, links, and description) that are relevant to your query. This is your SERP. The bulk of that list is comprised of organic results: web pages that the search engine algorithm determined were the best match for your search.

PPC ads are the results (web page names) that appear at the top and bottom of your SERP. While we often think of ads as visually distinct elements, SEM/PPC ads look similar to the organic listings between them, but are labelled in some way to distinguish them as an ad.” (McCormick, K. 2017)

This is how paid searches work, but how can a company use this channel and how can it benefit them? Paying a company such as Google to be a featured on the first page of a customer’s search results can allow a smaller or new company to be placed in front of a well-established competitor instantly and allow you to build quick web traffic and gain high levels of business.

Another strong argument for a company to utilise the paid searching method is to maintain your reputation. Just like organic rankings, search engines such as Yahoo! and Bing have a set level of requirements and factors for paid positions on their sites. To maintain their own reputation as a search engine, the companies it displays, both paid and organic need to be relevant and trustworthy. Google and other engines also base your positioning on how relevant your keywords are to what the customer is searching for, researching into what these words are for your industry and products can really drive a large amount of web traffic to your site.

Finally, the other main positive from paying for a higher search engine position is the paid search analytics that Google and others alike it provides. “Search engines provide marketers using their advertising platform with free real-time data and analytics. With this information, you can learn quite a bit about those who click on your ad, including:

• Where that person is located
• How much time they spent on your site
• What pages they visited on your site
• What type of device they were using (mobile, tablet, laptop)

This detailed data allows you to see exactly what you’re getting from every penny the company spends. Use it to be more efficient with advertising and continuously improve campaigns.” (McCormick, K. 2017)

As demonstrated, search engines as a channel of marketing can be highly useful and very easily attainable. It can allow for businesses both large and small to gain huge traffic and to increase the positive feedback and growth of their companies online.

A site with more useful information about how search engines, both paid and organic can be found here at this link: https://thrivehive.com/

References:

McCormick, K. (2017). What is Paid Search Advertising and Why Use It? | ThriveHive. [online] ThriveHive. Available at: https://thrivehive.com/paid-search-advertising-use/ [Accessed 6 Jan. 2018].

Riley, J. (2015). The Exam Performance Specialists | tutor2u Business. [online] tutor2u. Available at: https://www.tutor2u.net/business/reference/organic-internal-growth [Accessed 6 Jan. 2018].

Vallance, D. (2017). Digital Marketing Channels — What to Look For and How to Choose. [online] Digital Impact. Available at: https://www.digitalimpact.co.uk/digital-marketing-channels-what-to-look-for-and-how-to-choose/ [Accessed 6 Jan. 2018].