With 10 million devices sold in just three days, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus launch is a record-breaking success.
Apple reported four million pre-orders and on top of that,thousands of the Apple Faithful (and those who profit off of Apple’s fans in global grey markets) lined up to purchase the device upon it’s debut on September 19th. There’s no doubt that the tech press and mobile competitors are closely watching the iPhone 6’s adoption but there’s another group of Internet folk who need to pay close attention to Apple’s new device: Marketers.
Apple reported four million pre-orders and on top of that,thousands of the Apple Faithful (and those who profit off of Apple’s fans in global grey markets) lined up to purchase the device upon it’s debut on September 19th. There’s no doubt that the tech press and mobile competitors are closely watching the iPhone 6’s adoption but there’s another group of Internet folk who need to pay close attention to Apple’s new device: Marketers.
If there’s one thing that marketers love, it’s a hit.
Got a hit TV show? Marketers will pay top dollar for commercials. Got a hot destination online? Marketers are all over it. They’re in the business of converting those users into consumers and a new hit iPhone means new opportunities to do just that.
1. Larger screens obviously mean more display space
With the advent of the iPhone 6 and its big sister the iPhone 6 Plus, marketers have more screen to get their messages across. Previously, marketing designers had to ready themselves for a single new iPhone resolution every two years. This time around they have more display resolution breaks to code for — one for the iPhone 6 and one for the iPhone 6 Plus.
It’s true that banners, pop-overs and pop-unders may all become more robust with this new real estate, but sophisticated agencies that influence their clients’ app designs will have better uses for the improved screens. They’ll use the new space to show off the burger deluxe and other menu items in that restaurant app, or lay down higher resolution images and video of that vacation condo rental. In order for marketers to take full advantage of these larger screens they’ll need to update the media assets within their rich content in order to dazzle and delight users.
2. Larger screens also mean bigger virtual buttons within app and web pages loaded on mobile devices.
Not only can marketers show off their wares better as we discussed above, they can also drive more types of engagements on screen without cluttering the display or worrying that the user will misfire by pressing the wrong target. Larger thumb and targets allow more latitude for A/B or split testing among consumers. Big and bright are always advantages for marketers. As one time-honored marketing adage goes– When in doubt, make the logo bigger.
Above: Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus
Image Credit: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat
3. Better targeting
With the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus, sophisticated marketers keen on segmenting their audience may have have an new type of opportunity to more easily and properly target their audience.
In addition to the demographic metrics that firms like Conversant and Tapad provide, paying attention to how behavior skews when (a) the user agent shows iOS 8 and (b) the responsive design of their content breaks in the direction of the iPhone 6 Plus’s resolution is the key. While the iPhone 6 fits easily into a pocket and is easier to run or cycle with, the iPhone 6 Plus may be a device that spends its time in a purse or in the hands of an older user, who can see it better.
Building usage profiles over time may help the savvy marketer to anticipate pertinent information about a user, allowing them to load the most appropriate interactive content on each type of device.
4. Big iPhones also say something about changing trends in mobile device usage — especially payments
As we discussed earlier this month, Apple hasn’t exactly been a first mover to this format. It seems that it’s taken time for them to understand the attributes which make the large format phone popular.
It’s no secret that these large mobile phones are less about telephoning and more about reading, writing, playing and sharing. These user activities are the engagements that marketers quantify and assign value to every day. They pay their vendors or get paid by their clients based on how many views, comments, shares, likes, etc. their apps, ads, and social media campaigns generate.
If these types of engagements are the bread and butter that keeps marketers in business, the meat they’re after is driving the user down a path to conversion (AKA payment). That’s where the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus shine. These devices, equipped with Apple Pay functionality, will not only allow users to purchase products in physical retail locations as Apple displayed during their recent product blitz; they will also allow users to purchase items easily and quickly online via their mobile device — if web pages are coded to support the functionality.
Put another way, marketers running online retail presences who take advantage of Apple Pay may be able to significantly reduce occurrences of cart abandonment.To better illustrate, users are already going through the annoying motions of pulling out their credit cards and using the small mobile keyboards to input their credit card numbers; a remarkable barrier to entry for online purchases. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will make this hurdle little more than an annoying memory if marketers move to take advantage.
As we approach another holiday season, the importance of Apple Pay’s online retail capability cannot be exaggerated. Mobile-based online retail sales during Black Friday grew 600% during the four years including 2010-2013. With employment on the rise and a holiday season full of new Xboxes, Playstations, tablets and other toys, there’s a lot of online retail money to be made.
But wait — why all the fuss now? The large screen Galaxy Note first came out in 2011! The truth is that while Apple certainly wasn’t first to bring these larger mobile devices to consumers, Cupertino has rarely needed the first mover advantage to succeed. Recall that there were popular MP3 players before the iPod and popular smartphones before the original iPhone. The first movers who launched those product categories couldn’t stop Apple from later defining those very categories.
With analysts expecting Android users who are interested in big-screen devices to move over to the iPhone 6, the savvy marketer is in a great position to positively affect their clients’ bottom lines.
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