Marketing Apple (Pdf)

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APPLE DOESN’T HAVE SOME selling your product for you. Just as Apple special place where their marketing secrets has harnessed this power more than any are kept, unless of course you count their company in history now you can too. So charismatic CEO’s brain. The ﬁve secrets I even though these really aren’t Apple’s offer here are careful deductions, empirical secrets these just may be even better. Here results and the product of my career as an are my proven ideas to help you market like engineer, sales rep, product manager, Apple and improve your business and your marketing executive, parent, son and avid reputation at the same time. All I ask is that consumer (although not necessarily in that you share this eBook with everyone and order.) These secrets are super condensed please come to MarketingApple.com to learnings from my nearly decade-long tenure share your thoughts, ideas and comments to at Apple about how and why people spring improve on our collective ‘secrets’. to action. Since that time, I’ve uncovered OF COURSE THE REAL SECRET many ways that can enable any company to tap into people’s innate desire to share their is there are more than just ﬁve secrets. But passion for products and help create “lift” - you’ll have to visit my website - or hire me - the irresistible force of millions of customers to learn the rest. Enjoy.

Copyright holder is licensing this eBook under the Creative Commons License, Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Please feel free to post this eBook on your blog, email it, or link to it with whomever you believe will benefit from reading it. People buy what other people have.

PRODUCTS DON’T player. They are inviting you to headphones and you are a Figure out how to add SELL. PEOPLE DO. experience the Apple lifestyle member of the club. Think back something to your product that Look carefully at Apple’s iPod and to become part of the iPod to the first PowerBook - it was a does for you what Apple’s white commercials. You’ll see lots of community. Use any other MP3 unique dark grey color (it was headphones do: give people an while happy, energetic people dancing player and you’ll hear good patterned after a color easy way to sell for you in silhouette against a colorful music. Use an iPod and you’ll designed by Whirlpool’s making them feel like they are feel and ever-changing background. good. You’ll fit in. Product Refrigerator research to part of an exclusive club. More Notice the distinctive white features don’t create fans. Focus hide or eliminate fingerprints) In about this in Chapter 3. headphones flowing in unison to on what people do and show both cases, the distinctive grey the owner’s movements. What how they feel using your stuff. PowerBook case and the more you don’t see is a focus on iPod. recent white iPod headphones SHOW WHAT MATTERS. No close-ups of how you select are status symbols (and uniquely Those white iPod headphones a song or adjust the volume Apple.) Even the glowing Apple were not designed by engineers - level. Why would Apple take all logo was fixed to be right-side they are a pure Apple marketing the time to make a great user up for others (it’s upside down trick designed to make the interface only to not show it on to you when you open your new visible part of their product a television? The reason is simple: MacBook because you are selling status symbol. Wear white Apple isn’t selling you an MP3 the brand to others for Apple. )

IMPROVE THE WORLD. not the mobile phone. The Mac, iPod, iTunes Assistants - and failed miserably. Even the and iPhone are all successful because they Mac improved on Apple’s Lisa. Just ask Steve. Conventional wisdom says being ﬁrst to were late to market and improved on existing market is advantageous and that Apple is a designs and functionality. Apple does one IPOD DOESN’T MAKE THE leader in creating new categories. thing very well: making complex things easy MUSIC SOUND BETTER. Conventional wisdom is wrong on both and elegant. The iPod is successful because it As an Apple employee and engineer by trade counts. Apple has never really invented makes getting your music into your pocket expecting a miracle in 1997 (when the anything new. They didn’t invent the PC, the dead simple. Apple took existing MP3 player company was near bankruptcy) I was let MP3 player, downloadable music, and certainly designs and applied their experience and down when I ﬁrst saw the iMac. On paper it technology to improve it. Plug your iPod in was no better a computer than the Performa its cradle and it takes care of moving your it replaced so we promoted it as the easiest music to your iPod, organized the same way it way to get on the Internet. That marketing is on your computer. You’re done (and your saved the company, not better technology, iPod is charged at the same time - bonus!) Today, the iPod doesn’t make your music Other MP3 players are still trying to catch up sound better, provide better battery life, or with this elegant brilliance. On the other save you money, What it does is make Apple hand, Apple’s Newton tried to carve out a fans. whole new category - Portable Digital

EARLY ADOPTERS two things at once: hide grime your product than your own world, make part of your website while differentiating its owner. polished collateral ever will. embeddable* on any MySpace or ANT TO ELP OU W H Y . Having a PowerBook was a FaceBook proﬁle and make it Early adopters are taking a status symbol so owners were STICKERS & T- S HIRTS. easy to cut and paste your chance on you and want you to proud to show them off and help How can happy early adopters HTML code anywhere. succeed. iPhone users feel what win converts. Apple earned market for you? Simply provide early PowerBook users felt in nearly 40% marketshare on the something with the product that 1993. If you walked down the back of early PowerBooks users. does it for you. Come up with aisle of an airplane then you’d your own version of Apple’s notice those distinctive grey Look at how iPhone users today white headphones to make your Apple laptops standing out in a are adding their voice to Apple’s product stand out. Or borrow sea of unremarkable beige ones. own marketing efforts. I decided another Apple trick - give away Track balls and palm rests were to purchase my iPhone only after stickers (I’ve lost track of how real Apple innovations in the day reading a blog from one early many Dell’s I’ve seen sporting (other laptops had the keyboard adopter who tried to scratch his Apple stickers) or make T-shirts on the front lip - Apple ﬁxed screen and failed. Real user’s available from your website so that) but the grey color was unbiased, heartfelt reporting will owners can proudly display your more important because it did convince more people to choose logo for you. And in the Web 2.0 * Go to TubesNow.com for a solution

MARKETING ISN’T ABOUT WHAT YOU SAY. MARKETING DIFFERENT. Before the Internet, marketers reached Look at how Apple focuses the message. Mac was “The Computer potential customers via print, billboard, for the Rest of Us.” iPod was “1,000 Songs in radio and TV ads. Marketers had 30 Your Pocket. “ iMac was “3 Steps to the seconds to tell their story and competition Internet.” And Pepsi challenged Coke only was limited to brands with multi-million after “Choice of a New Generation” These dollar budgets. But the web changed all messages are memorable and transcend that. Today attention spans are only a few product features. Lift occurs only after seconds long and anyone with an AdSense account can vie for the prospects and customers can easily repeat same customers as big brands. And while a company’s website is your message to their friends and colleagues. now the primary place to tell a story, many Great marketing marketers push so much drivel at people that most entices people to visitors leave without taking action. Webmasters consider your product and purchase it. call it the “bounce rate.” Make sure everyone who Apple’s marketing is so good it creates comes to your website leaves with clarity about purchases even before people see it. That you via a tight, memorable message or image, even happens when people do your marketing for if they don’t purchase. Only then can they spread you - 250,000 first day iPhone sales proves your word. Marketing isn’t what you do to reach the point. Remember, Marketing isn’t about your first customers, it’s what you do to help your what you say, it’s what others say for you. first customers reach the rest. Tight messages are Make sure you equip them with the right required. words.

FOCUS ON THE FEEL. So start with the packaging. Look at the important white Apple stickers) The Marketing is all about the complete package. iPhone box: finely crafted, with extra experience of opening an Apple product Walk into an Apple store and you’ll feel less touches like velvet-lining reminiscent of a becomes one more thing to share with the like you are in a store and more like you’re fine watch box. The iPhone rests in a tiny world - Google the plethora of “unboxing” in a museum. This gives future customers a lucite bed, cradling the sites dedicated to sharing the experience of chance to experience the product among object d’art. Included is opening a new package. Only Apple and other like-minded people in a safe and fun a tiny pamplet called Sony rate a high number of people eager to environment. Make your website feel like an “Finger Tips” (cute, huh) share with the world. Make great packaging Apple store - surround the product with and a cleaning cloth (along with the all- and you’ll have earn your own fans. And testimonials and customer feedback. remember that fan is shorthand for fanatic. The Mac was not just easier to use than the TART ITH THE ACKAGING S W P . PC - it also had style. Style is Apple’s brand. Many marketers forget that their relationship Creative people gravitate to it because it with the customer really starts after they buy frees their brain from having to “use” a from you. Make their first experience computer. Designers, authors, artists and memorable. Remember, you are counting on your customers are all fans of good design and your customers to help spread the word - respond to those extra, thoughtful touches. and they need positive experiences to share.

need to know.

ONE MORE THING... How does a huge company go from the brink of bankruptcy to worldwide success and 1000% stock growth seemingly overnight? The answer is simple, yet surprising: Better Marketing. And the company is Apple. This eBook teaches you 5 of the most important Apple-style marketing tips and tricks you can apply to help your business. Learn some of the marketing secrets that propelled Apple from the backwaters of the PC market to the worldwide leader in consumer electronics, music, video and mobile. Everyone - not just marketers - will beneﬁt from these simple rules. This eBook is a free public service from a former Apple employee and current practitioner of MarketingApple viral marketing. Please share this eBook with all your friends and visit www.MarketingApple.com to learn more and post your comments and ideas for the community. Together we’ll build a valuable resource to help everyone market as well as Apple.

- Steve

Apple, PowerBook, iPod, iMac, MacBook and other product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of Apple, Inc.. Sony, Google and other company and product names are trademarks of their own companies. All rights reserved. This eBook created entirely on a Mac using Pages 2.0 Copyright 2007