You’re Holding Our Newest Location

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You know how sometimes you’re struggling to find a way to explain a marketing concept, then someone else just NAILS it? That’s how I felt when I was reading Seth Godin’s blog over the weekend.

It’s one of the most important marketing trends to take place in marketing in the last five years and I’d been searching for a simple, powerful way to say it… until now.

Here’s what Seth wrote: “Stores went from being buildings to becoming websites… and now to devices.”

There it is. The best new strategy is about more than just having a mobile-friendly site (although that’s also crucial). It’s about realizing that mobile devices are becoming actual storefronts.

There are hundreds of a grand openings every single day for Apple, Google, and Amazon. Every time someone takes an iPad, Kindle, or Android out of the box, these brands just opened a new location. At this new type of store, you don’t have to pay with cash or swipe your card… you just put it on your tab.

And your credit card stays on file. So all you need to do is click one time and your transaction is done. And the apps, what are they? The sale associates?

You typically don’t have to shop with a particular app, but it’s usually more convenient. The credit cards that Amazon, iTunes, etc., have on file? They’re really no longer credit cards, but a new brand-specific currency.

In a nutshell, these brands are attempting to achieve what text books often refer to as “vertical integration.”

Now, I’m not saying they have evil, monopolistic designs on the internet, or that consumers have a lack of choices. Far from it.

What I’m saying is that, as marketers, we have our share of choices to make as well… about how we deal with the increasingly personalized marketplace.

The big winners will be the ones who figure out how to use these new tools efficiently. The ones with the smartest apps that deliver the best experiences. The ones who can leverage iTunes and Amazon to build their own business, and use these online giants to reduce their own overhead.

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