Apple: How to Put the SMART in Smartphone

I’ve loved Apple products ever since I was gifted with my lime-green Ipod Shuffle in the early 2000’s. You know, the kind you could clip to your jeans, making you feel like the coolest kid in town? Apple has become quite a phenomenon since their beginning. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, has declared the mission statement as “bringing the best user experience to its customers through its innovative hardware, software, and services” (Tim Cook, 2018). Within the mission statement arises company objectives: creating best user experience, improving the lives of people, empowering the public, and providing top-quality products (Anonymous, 2021).

As we’re passing the one-year anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic, I can’t help but reminisce on the things that got my through multiple months of quarantine- one of the first things coming to mind being Apple products like my iPhone, MacBook, and iPad, that were practically attached to my hip. Apple has done a great job at tweaking their past-year’s goals to meeting their consumer’s specific pandemic-based needs, like providing constant entertainment at one’s fingertips. The pandemic doesn’t look like it will be ending completely anytime soon, so it’d be wise of Apple to continue making SMART goals geared towards current global pandemic needs. SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-based. A goal that I would advise Apple to have at the moment would be to really push promotion of the new iPad Pro that is launching this year. Not only promoting the product, but also educating consumers on how this specific product could vamp up their pandemic experience. Listing new, unique features that this iPad brings to the table that aren’t attainable with just any other product, and recording customer testimonials relaying how this product has improved their time in quarentine. Doing so makes this goal extremely relevant and relatable. Success could be measured by tracking number of product sales before and after launching an iPad Pro campaign.

A specific social media KPI, AKA key performance indicator, that Apple should track is customer support. Apple does an amazing job with reach- there are very few people who don’t know what Apple is. With it already being an incredibly established brand, I would say the next step of indicating product performance would be customer support because this is a way to get direct feedback on what’s being done well, and what can be done better. Yes, Apple is a successful, huge company- but why? Likely one large reason is because their products are high quality- one of the company’s key objectives- and consumers are consistently impressed. This is a great thing for Apple to use to their advantage! Using real customer voice, not just intentionally paid advertisers, will create a sense of trust in the consumers, and will not only promote products well in order to reach goals, but will also be a tell-tale sign on whether or not performance is actually quality or not.

Social media is the ideal place to post these product advertisements and customer testimonials, because the reach is large (Apple has 25.4 million Instagram followers, alone), and allows for customer engagement, which is another great KPI and desired outcome from posting media. Not only this, but social media is a practical, fun place to establish and build a company’s branding. Apple is known for being sleek and high quality- not only because their products are, but because these are the vibes they give off of social media. When looking at Apple’s Instagram feed, one will be met with crisp, high-quality images and videos. Social media allows for consistency and creativity, and is known as a place that consumers can always turn to in order to find information, buy products, and form an opinion on branding (hopefully, a good one). These are all goals of what should come out of social media efforts.

Reference:

Apple Mission Statement 2021: Apple Mission & Vision Analysis. (2021, January 27). Retrieved March 14, 2021, from https://mission-statement.com/apple/