The term “wearable technology” is not new. The success of Pebble, one of the earlier players in wearable tech, with its smartwatch brought the term to the masses. And at the 2014 CES in Las Vegas, wearable tech was one of the bigger attractions with a lot of companies demoing their products under this category.
But this could all be just a hype, right? Not really, wearable technology is here to stay and we as marketers need to be prepared to use this technology to our advantage.
Wearable Technology is Here to Stay
It’s not just the hype that makes me think about the future of wearable technology or the fact that big electronics brands are betting big on it today. Growth in the wearables market, which is currently estimated to be worth $3-5 billion, is expected to be tenfold in the next three to five years.
Even the consumers seem to like wearable tech. According to a study 52% of consumers say they’ve heard of smart glasses, smart watches, and wearable fitness tracking devices. And 28% say they are likely to buy such a device.
BYOD, BYOC, BYOT and Wearable Tech
First it was the Bring Your Own Device bug that bit businesses and they scrambled to adopt it to improve employee collaboration. Then it was the rush to move to the cloud and Bring Your Own Cloud took the front seat. And then, Forrester even reported that the next wave will be Bring Your Own Technology. It stands to reason that wearable technology will play a big role in this wave.
Wearable technology today is mostly limited to health and fitness industry. Forrester predicts that it won’t be long before these devices find way into business world to improve employee productivity. And this will in turn pave way for other wearable tech in enterprises.
If you are in B2B space, this is not a wave you want to miss.
Wearable Technology and Content Marketing
Smartphones and tablets are changing the way customers consume content. These smart devices allow customers to virtually be ‘always connected’, which allows them to do so.
With these advances in technology, marketers have started to understand that the content they produce has to be accessible to the mobile devices of their consumers. This has given rise to the concept of responsive content design to allow customers to easily consume content on device of their choice.
With the strides we will make in wearable technology in the coming years, it should be no surprise that marketers will need to adapt their content production process to cater to the wearable tech that matters to their target personas.
The Future of Marketing Through Wearable Technology
It may take some time to work out the kinks before the technology really takes off. Remember Google Glass and the privacy issues? However, the up-and-coming technology does give marketers an interesting way to connect with their customers.
In fact, it is already being experimented with. Though The Tweeting Bra wasn’t exactly a mass produced wearable technology product, marketers have used custom made wearable tech to promote brands in the past. Just imagine how much marketing reach you can have with mass produced devices once they become popular.
There are a lot of unanswered questions around wearable technology. What shape will wearable technology take? Are we going to wear them as glasses as Google is proposing? Or are we going to wear them as watches as we all keep hearing is coming? Or are we going to wear them on our clothes? How will marketers use these technologies to their advantage? And there are a lot of predictions out there around the future of wearable technology and marketing. Only time will tell how it actually pans out.
However, one thing is for sure – You may not be able to carry a computer around, but you will carry your wearable tech wherever you go. And as marketers, that will give you the ultimate power to reach your customers wherever they are.
What do you think about the future of marketing and wearable tech? Please let me know in the comments.
