“Sent from my iPhone”

Cribbed from the “Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device” message that was presumably designed to alert the recipient that typos and brevity were to be overlooked and forgiven, the “Sent from my iPhone” message doesn’t even need to identify the handheld by category—all it needs to do is name it.

And this brilliant bit of brand messaging, seen by (I assume) millions of eyeballs each day (especially when considering the “posted wirelessly” counterpart for message boards and blog posts) goes to an important lesson in marketing:

Go for the low-hanging fruit. Sometimes the most direct way to plant a branded message is the most effective and affordable.

I once worked in-house for a packaged goods company and we would spend countless hours poring over CPMs, CPCs, and pass-along rates to try to get a bead on getting our message in front of the right audience at the right time for the least amount of money.

Despite shipping tens of thousands of products globally each year, we had overlooked the power of a simple packaging insert that says to the excited new buyer, “Hey, we appreciate your purchase. Did you know we also offer X, Y and Z?”–with a corresponding coupon to sweeten the deal towards a subsequent purchase.

There wasn’t much that could touch our bang for the buck. We were seeding the message with a welcoming audience (someone who had already pledged some allegiance to the brand with an initial purchase), the timing was perfect (the message landed while the customer was still excited about the new acquisition), and we were talking to the right kind of buyer (someone already predisposed to liking what we had to offer). The coupon redemption was proof positive that the message either did, or didn’t, influence subsequent purchasing behavior.

Compare this to spending money on a TV commercial, a print ad, an online banner, or a glossy direct-mail piece and it becomes obvious that from a prospecting perspective, the cheap, old-school packaging insert was untouchable.

Another great example is the ”factory filled with Mobile One” message that’s printed on the oil filler caps of high-end performance cars like Porsches and Mitsubishi’s stonkingly fast Lancer Evo.

No doubt Mobile Oil pays for this placement in the form of free or subsidized oil to the manufacturer, licensing rights, or some combination thereof, but there is little doubt that in terms of placing a message in the right place, at the right time, to the right audience, a tiny branded message with a logo (generally the only one in the entire engine compartment) is the best bang for the buck in terms of influencing future purchasing behavior.

So when the sea of metrics and spreadsheets becomes a blur, remember to take a step back and think about this question for a moment: Is there something obvious you could be doing that you aren’t already doing to connect with your customers?

To that extent, we’re going to make it easy for you marketers to combine your profession with your portable. We’ve rounded up some of the best iPhone apps that marketers should have on their phones, everything from the real-time searches of social media to Web analytics. We’ve left few stones unturned–with more than one billion apps in the Apple iPhone store, it’s always tough to find the gems. Here are a few of the best:

SEM Calculator
(Free)

This application builds in a number of calculators that you can use to evaluate different parameters of a Web marketing campaign. You can evaluate potential cost-per-thousand and cost-per-action figures in a number of different ways, including direct cost-per-click to cost-per-thousand analyses and an evaluation of the maximum amount of money you should be spending on CPC based on your goals and conversion rate.

Analytics Pro
($3.99)

Want the power of a Google analytics database at your fingertips? Analytics Pro is perfect for the marketer who just can’t get away from the stats and figures: Carry your website’s traffic measurements, target goals, and visitor details wherever you go. For a slightly pricer version with a different interface and feature-set, you can also check out Analytics App ($5.99).

SalesForce Mobile
(Free)

If you rely on the comprehensive databasing functionality of the SalesForce platform to manage your business relationships, then you’ll appreciate the ability to pull this information onto your mobile device. Navigate customer records, send emails, call contacts, and create queries, amongst other features–all you need is an unlimited SalesForce account or one with a working mobile license.

TweetDeck
(Free)

If you’re serious about marketing, it’s imperative that you know exactly what your customers are thinking and saying about your brand at any given moment. Enter TweetDeck: Unlike most other Twitter clients for the iPhone, TweetDeck allows you to structure incoming Tweets in a column-based format. You can set up real-time searches for specific words and phrases in addition to the general Twitter functions like friends lists and customized groups. It’s the easiest way to know exactly when JoeSmith01 is hacked off at your customer service or, for that matter, when he’s praising your efforts to all of his 341,402 followers.

Pokeseo
($0.99)

It’s not extremely comprehensive, but this 99-cent iPhone application does deliver a quick way for checking the page rank of any website on Google. You can also see just how many links are funneling into your site on Google, Yahoo, MSN Live, and AOL. For access to Alexa data as well, check out the Domain Tracker app (free).

Domain Scout
(Free)

Looking to build out a new Web presence? Have a great idea for a new website on-the-fly, but you’re not sure whether the name is actually available for purchase? Check out Domain Scout, a free application that tells you if your potential domain name idea is free or purchased. A full history of your searches allows you to go back and stalk old ideas that might have lapsed past their renewal dates.

Ember
($9.99)

Contribute to your company’s Campfire network with this helpful application. This application (and Campfire) is a great way to save and archive corporate communications from anywhere in the world–a solution that’s far more elegant than your typical instant or text messaging conversation. Keep your team on the same page without having to scroll through endless email replies in your already overflowing inbox.

OmniFocus
($19.99)

This expensive organization tool is the crème de la crème for keeping your busy life in order. You can keep track of your tasks by categories, locations, involved people, or dates. And like the iPhone’s native calendar integration, you can synchronize OmniFocus wirelessly via Apple’s MobileMe or a WebDAV-supported server. Never miss an engagement again.

Scribble
($0.99)

Ever find yourself having trouble articulating a concept in a business meeting or lunchtime discussion? Can’t find your pen? Wouldn’t you love a way to diagram your thoughts without having to turn to the back of an easily lost napkin or non-existent whiteboard? That’s where Scribble comes into play. Draw your thoughts into a quick, finger-scribbled diagram, then email your doodle to all interested participants.

Air Sharing Pro
($9.99)

Transform your iPhone into a portable storage device by connecting it to your company’s wireless network and mounting it via your laptop computer or any connected Internet browser. From there, you can transfer files to your device and–better still–view these files on-the-go. The application supports documents like PDFs, Microsoft Office files, iWork files, and more. It’s a perfect tool for practicing your PowerPoint presentation sans laptop.

Have any favorite apps of your own? From marketing to games, what tickles your iPhone/iPod Touch fancy? Let me know, and I’ll feature your submissions in a future article!

BRAVO

The website follows the same sense of visual simplicity as the company’s products. The home page ensures that the featured product takes center stage with lots of white space, limited copy, and large images. Apple displays restraint by focusing most of the home page’s attention on one product at a time, usually its latest release.

The site places a heavy emphasis on visual design, blending colorful imagery with bold headlines and copy to create balanced compositions on each page. It’s a pleasant departure from the usual column format with pictures in boxes.

The copy is short, decisive, and punchy (if a tad smug at times) and does a good job of tapping that emotional response to Apple’s products that makes its fan base so loyal. And just like all of Apple’s branding, it’s carried out consistently across the site, from the copy to the look and feel.

Because Apple has fewer products to sell (as compared to Dell or HP, which sell hundreds of products to a variety of market segments), the site is easily divided into six segments: the store, three product categories (Mac, iPod/iTunes, and iPhone), downloads, and support.

TRY AGAIN

While the site offers seemingly rich and varied product info, including video and galleries of dramatic product photography, most of it offers more style than substance. Many links on the site, such as the “iPod Your Life” link, lead to pages that are little more than additional branding experiences, yet provide no additional value.

Top-level navigation, such as locating your desired product or service segment, is easy. But cross navigation, i.e. moving from one segment to another without using the top navigation, is unclear, if it exists at all. Beware the hapless user looking for clear links to iPod support in the iPod product segment.

Apple offers a ton of self-help product support on its site, but finding the specific info you need can be extremely difficult. Basic problems are easy enough to locate and solve with the support content, but it ends there. Need to find information on problems that are more complicated? The answers are usually buried deep within the discussion forums.

We have to throw some props to Apple for supporting and maintaining such a robust online community of users, but navigating the vast discussion boards is like entering a labyrinth. Cross–navigation to other discussion boards isn’t possible, and if you do find some useful information, you’d better copy and paste it into another document because you may never find it again. While the moderators do a decent job of responding to posts (and providing links to other posts or other areas of the site that may answer questions), the discussion boards mainly work because of the persistence and helpful nature of other Apple users who have encountered—then solved—a multitude of problems.

Overall, Apple’s site is a branding powerhouse that is presented beautifully and consistently. It stands apart from other consumer electronics e-commerce sites. But also true to Apple’s tendency, a little more polishing beneath the surface would make for a user experience that matches its sleek design.