What every marketer needs to know about the Internet of Things

internet of things

By Mark Schaefer

No list of hot technology trends is complete without a mention of the Internet of Things (IoT). But as we go into a new year, how does this become real to us as marketers? How is IoT going to show up in our daily worklife?

Tom Webster and I thought this would be a fascinating topic for an episode of our podcast but frankly the subject is over our heads! Not that this has stopped us before … but we decided to try something new and actually get some expert advice on this important topic.

On this new episode, Tom and I interview Dr. Ari Lightman, professor of digital media and marketing at Carnegie Mellon University. I first met Ari through work we have done together for Dell Technologies, and through our meetings over the years at Dell-EMC World we’ve become friends. Ari is living with the realities of the Internet of Things every day and he provides extraordinary insights in this episode of The Marketing Companion.

We cover amazing topics such as IoT and …

  • personalization
  • communications with different market segments
  • market research
  • defining the stories most important to our customers
  • the coming service level that will enable new marketing applications
  • the tangled implications for privacy
  • the impact on marketing employment levels.

Ari also tells us why he teaches his students that the Internet of Things is the Internet of Threats and how new vulnerabilities occur through everyday maintenance of these nodes — at work and at home.

You won’t want to miss this extraordinary episode …

If you can’t access the episode above, click on this link to listen to Episode 93

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Many thanks to our friend Scott Monty for the awesome show intro. Be sure to check out his amazing newsletter The Full Monty and his new podcast available here: fullmontyshow.com.

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Affinio is now offering a FREE eBook co-authored with Mark Schaefer called How to Identify, Understand and Grow Your Ideal Content Audience. Check it out, as well as their new free audience Discovery tool. Affinio is an advanced marketing intelligence platform that leverages the interest graph to understand today’s consumers. Affinio believes that if we can understand individuals at a deeper and richer level, then we can fundamentally change the way people relate to one another. By understanding the interests and cultural DNA of key audience segments, marketers are empowered to take an audience-first approach to making meaningful connections with ideal consumers. Find out how at Affinio.com.

Illustration courtesy Flickr CC and Omran Jamal. Dell Technologies is mentioned in both this post and podcast episode. Mark Schaefer has served as a compensated “influencer” for Dell. 

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