On Tuesday, Apple held a special event out in Cupertino where they made major announcements and unveiled the latest additions to their product line for the 2014 holiday season. As Jason Bateman put it:

Is there a better day in the year than an Apple announcement? #AppleLive
— Jason Bateman (@batemanjason) September 9, 2014

The event was filled with celebrity sightings, a performance by U2, Bono calling Tim Cook the "zen master," and the unveiling of new Apple technologies and products including their emergence into an entirely new product line—wearables.

If you're looking for a quick recap of all the major announcements from Tuesday, check out Mashable's 90 second highlight reel from the event below. I would also recommend Jason Calacanis's key takeaways from the event as well here—he makes some really interesting predictions for both Square and Path.

The iPhone 6, the iPhone 6 Plus, and the Apple Watch clearly stole the spotlight, but one of the most important announcements to me wasApple Pay. Mobile payments have been a hot topic for years, but the technology has never quite been there for mass market adoption in the U.S.

Apple CEO Tim Cook simply put it, "Most people that have worked on [mobile payments] have started by focusing on creating a business model that was centered around their self-interest instead of focusing on the user experience." I think Apple Pay will turn that around and we will see a major revolution in the way we shop and the further control our smartphones will have over our lives.

If you're a marketer this should be extremely exciting as you think about the new possibilities to connect with your customers.

Below I have listed just a couple of the key takeaways for marketers from the keynote:

Mobile Customer Journeys
Apple Pay did to the payments industry what the iPhone did to the smartphone industry. It simplified and consolidated mobile payments and the mobile wallet into something so simple and sleek that it will easily become the new way we pay for nearly everything.

Apple Pay will help break down the broken customer journeys we see with many brands today. It keeps the customer experience intact. A typical customer journey to purchase will now look include interacting with your brand on Twitter, posting to Foursquare that they are at the mall, visiting your storefront because of an iBeacon push notification coupon to their phone, comparing prices and alternatives while in the store, and paying all from their smartphone. There is no longer the disconnect in the customer journey when they customer has to pull out their credit card to interact with your brand—mobile payments make the ultimate connection between offline and online behavior.

As more customer touchpoints and experiences are involving a customer's mobile device, now might be a good time to ramp up your mobile strategy. Consider using more push notifications, geo-targeted push messages, and even iBeacon technology to trigger notifications in-store.

Mobile Commerce
We have known that more and more shopping decisions are being affected by mobile devices as we research purchase decisions on our mobile phone and comparison shop, but actually shopping on your mobile device has not been quite as simple. It can be a very hard process and always ends up with you inputting your credit card information on a tiny keyboard. Despite these pains, 32% of all online purchases are made with a mobile device.

With Apple Pay, this number will only continue to skyrocket as apps will be able to utilize Apple Pay for one-tap purchases through the "Touch ID." Apple noted that the Target mobile app will be an early partner in this program. Soon, the majority of our online purchases will be taking place on a smartphone and not a computer—revolutionizing what we currently think of as "mobile commerce" and "mobile shopping." I would predict that over 60% of all online Christmas purchases next year will be made by a mobile device.

As a marketer, make sure your mobile experiences are seamless extensions of your brand and begin experimenting with how to provide the best customer journey—even down to the purchase from a mobile device.

Shopping experiences will continue to evolve as mobile continues to revolutionize the way we interact with brands. What Apple announcements excited you the most? Which will have the greatest impact on your marketing efforts? And if you are a retailer or ecommerce company, how do you plan to utilize the new Apple Pay to enhance your mobile customer journeys? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Image Sources: Apple

I originally wrote this post on the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Blog.