How the Internet of Things Impacts Your Marketing

As part of an IT Company, you’re probably familiar with the Internet of Things (IoT). If you’re not quite sure or would like some clarification, it’s essentially the entire network of devices and appliances that connect to the Internet (or sometimes a more private network) to interact and exchange data.

In the modern world, this includes numerous different devices, anywhere from cell phones to smartwatches to personal assistants (think Google Home and Alexa) to ‘smart’ versions of things like refrigerators and coffee makers. There are a LOT out there, and the number has been growing rapidly: the number of connected devices outnumbered the global population in 2017, and it’s expected that there will be over 26 billion IoT devices by the year 2020!

Since this blog is for our MSP Marketing company and isn’t a blog written for our MSP Blog Service, we won’t be discussing any of the security-related issues that often come up when discussing the Internet of Things. Instead, we’ll be discussing how this ever-growing phenomenon has implications for your digital marketing.

The Internet of Things and Your Marketing

The Internet of Things changes the scope of your digital marketing by expanding it beyond its original capabilities. With the numerous devices that can access this content, your target audience could be accessing these marketing materials anywhere, in multiple different ways. They could be cooking dinner, asking Amazon’s Alexa about what their MSP marketing strategy should be. Or, they could be watching one of your MSP marketing videos on YouTube from their Smart TV. They could even be in line at the grocery store, casually reading your blog while they wait until they’re close enough to start unloading their groceries to be scanned. You need to be prepared for any of these scenarios (and more!) when embarking on any digital marketing efforts.

IoT also generates quite a bit of data that you can use to create personalized marketing communications for your target audience. Remember, with the Internet of Things, people can stay connected for more or less their entire waking hours - sometimes even when they’re asleep if they track their sleeping patterns using a SmartWatch! This data can be used to tailor your messages to the individual who is receiving them.

Taking Advantage of the Internet of Things

The above probably sounds great, but how can you use this in your own marketing? If you’re like most MSPs, you’re probably a small to medium-sized business, meaning you don’t have a large, multi-person marketing team to support your endeavors. You might have one or two people who have a part in the marketing that you do, but more often than not we find that marketing won’t be their only responsibility. Because of this, you won’t be able to take advantage of many of the IoT and marketing-related things that large corporations can - a lot of that being related to big data and advanced analytics.

The best thing for you to do that’s within your capabilities as a small business would be for you to tailor your content marketing to suit the world of IoT. This means:

• Having Mobile-Friendly Content - Many IoT devices such as phones and tablets allow users to access websites through a mobile browser. Having mobile-friendly content has been important longer than the Internet of Things has been an official thing, but it’s even more important now. All of your digital marketing, especially your website, needs to be mobile-friendly. 

• Having a LOT of Content - Decision makers from the industries that you work with have more of an opportunity to come across your digital marketing materials due to how much more often they are connected to the Internet in some way. If you have a lot of content that contains the keywords they’re likely searching for, it’s more likely that they’ll stumble across your company. The easiest way to do this is to have a company blog and write about topics related to your service offerings. 

• Taking Advantage of the Data Capabilities You DO Have - You’re not Amazon, and you can’t pool the data gathered from all of the ‘smart’ devices that you produce to compile advanced consumer profiles. However, you can still watch for people who access your content from outside of a desktop or laptop computer. For example, you can keep track of how people are filling out the forms on your website, how they’re reading your blogs, or how they are viewing your eNewsletter (e.g., from what device are they doing so). This will give you a good idea of how much you need to be tailoring your content to appeal to those who view it on a mobile device. 

• Using the Right Keywords - Voice Search through various AI technology like Google Home, Amazon’s Alexa, and Apple’s Siri have become much more popular, and will continue to as this technology advances. When you’re searching in this way, it’s done quite a bit differently than it would be if you were typing a search into Google. Instead of a few descriptive keywords, voice searches have more natural language and tend to be a big longer. Therefore, when working on your SEO strategy, you need to put more effort into tailoring your content to include the long-tailed keywords that you want to rank highly for.

If you would like help ensuring that your website (including the content on it) and your digital marketing materials are equipped to help your MSP take advantage of the Internet of Things, reach out to us!