Final Project Presentation Draft

For my final project presentation, I will provide examples and outline how to use each of the following types of marketing campaign for a fictitious Apple iOS10 beta release. The bulleted list for each item includes some of my planning points for how to approach the presentation  and the campaign itself.

Twitter campaign

  • 5-10 great tweets
  • 140 characters each
  • use hashtags such as apple, mac, imac, ios10, beta, release, iphone, ipad, and ipod
  • “favorite” retweets, comments

Advertising campaign

  • determine budget ($0)-$5,000)
  • set target audience (young professionals aged 20-35)
  • target keywords
  • moving graphics (literal and figurative, use gifs or jpegs)

Email campaign

  • design an e-news blast
  • include a short article about iOS10
  • include screenshots of the interface enhancements
  • feature someone who is building part of the platform

Fact Sheet

  • 10 facts about iOS10
  • include enhancements
  • include changes
  • include personal information to reach an audience (such as the number of Apple employees coding the software)

Magazine article

  • write a feature article
  • should be from a personal point of view, versus just listing the facts. See this BuzzFeed feature for an example.
  • don’t make it too long or too short. aim for 1500 words.
  • use hyperlinks, linkbacks.

What I like best about this approach is that all these campaigns can tie together. I can tweet the advertisements, advertise some tweets, tweet the upcoming e-blast to get more subscribers, tweet the fact sheet, include number of subscribers in the e-blast, and so on. This will be one big campaign that ties all these concepts together.

How to Market Apple? Or, How to Market Apple.

It seems to me, Apple wants the name and reputation to market itself. While they have print and television ads, they may not be using online campaigns to the best of their ability. Here is an outline of some ways I think Apple could better market themselves.

Twitter campaign
Apple has a measly 36,200 Twitter followers, and has not provided a single tweet. On the other hand, Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, has almost 2 million followers and has tweeted only 201 times. Apple also manages a number of Twitter accounts which have millions of follower in their own rights, such as @iTunesMusic and @AppStore.

I think the Apple account could be successfully used to provide a Twitter campaign for each of its major releases. For this class, I will focus on the fictitious release of iOS10 and the goal of this campaign would be to increase the @Apple account’s follower base.

Twitter provides a campaigns dashboard with analytics that provide insight into how your campaign is doing. I would utilize this dashboard to determine which tweets are having the greatest affect.

Source: http://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/21/why-isnt-apple-on-twitter.html
Advertising campaign
Again, I would utilize Twitter’s platform to provide a successful Advertising campaign for iOS10 by incorporating the Twitter Ads program. The Ads program is set up to allow non-advertisers to use it by providing step by step guidance on how to choose an audience, have your message heard, and set a budget.

The holiday season is a great time to start an ad campaign, as messaging can be geared toward a variety of audiences using the same basic messaging. Historically there has been a huge spike in Twitter traffic during the holidays, giving businesses an edge in reaching new users.

Source: https://business.twitter.com/advertising-on-twitter-during-the-holidays

Email campaign
Every Apple customer has an Apple ID, and the Beta program which I just pushed in a news release also has a sign up. We can utilize these email addresses to put together a marketing campaign that introduces new products and releases through the Beta program.

As a long time Apple customer, one thing I haven’t received is an e-Newsletter from Apple. While this is sometimes appreciated, if our goal is outreach and a larger customer base, we can set up our first news blast by emailing our Apple ID clients to sign up for e-news. This would be step one.

Fact Sheet
Fact sheets are super versatile. A fact sheet would be a great tool for our iOS10 program because it can be provided on a variety of platforms. It can be sent as a news release, converted to PDF and tweeted, sent in an e-news blast, posted on the main Apple website, and incorporated into blog posts.

Magazine article
Writing a feature article about the tools that iOS10 will provide would be a great way to spread the word. It can be written from the user’s point of view, by inviting writers from Wired Magazine, CNET, or TechCrunch to be part of the beta program. If any of these writers were to feature iOS10 in the beta program, their article could also be shared across these other campaigns as well as reaching the magazine’s client base.

Week 1: My First Blog Post

Okay, so I have never blogged before. In order to get started, I read up on how to blog effectively.

There was also a great short chapter in our text (Everybody Writes, by Ann Handley) that includes tips on how to write better blog posts (pp. 254-256).

I don’t currently follow any blogs. d’oh. I’ll also work on that this semester. This is a Thing I’m Doing Wrong right now, and There Are More Things. I work in web development and I have a social media presence but I don’t use it to the fullest of capacity. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook.

Oh, wait! I do follow a blog! Hyperbole and a Half! and The Oatmeal!

zoidberg_hoorayhooray!

As far as class is concerned, at the time of originally posting this I’m a little unclear on what we’re doing for a final project. I’m going to look into this and probably will update my post before the final due date to reflect a better summary of how I can incorporate my blog into the final.