Apple Dad’s 10 Marketing Skills That Won the “Outstanding Marketing Award”!

In the CMO Survey of global marketing executives, Apple once again won the "Outstanding Marketing Award". This is the fifth consecutive year that the company has won this honor. Why is Apple so good at marketing? When Apple was founded in January 1977, its investor and consultant Mike Markkula had laid out three marketing concepts. Amazingly, 35 years later, these concepts are still at the core of Apple's marketing skills and have helped it attract a large number of loyal users. This is a powerful annotation of Apple's strong marketing capabilities. They are as follows:

①. Resonance - We must truly understand the needs of users better than any other company.

②. Focus - In order to do what we are determined to do, we must give up all unimportant opportunities.

③. Indoctrination - People do judge a book by its cover. We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software, but if it is presented in a shoddy manner, it will naturally be seen as a shoddy product. If it is presented in a creative and professional manner, it can instill the quality we expect in the minds of users.

Apple used these three principles to become the world's most valuable company (by market capitalization) and one of the world's most valuable brands . Here are the top 10 marketing techniques that made the company the world's greatest marketing company:

1. Recruit employees who can resonate with customers

Steve Jobs had a unique and accurate insight into people’s desire to interact with technology. Jobs liked to quote Henry Ford to explain the importance of this insight: “If you ask people what they want, they will answer: faster horses.” In other words, users’ thinking may be limited to what they already know, and they will not jump out of the present and think about other possibilities.

Therefore, Jobs and his colleagues think more deeply about user experience than users themselves. Jobs once said: "The key to Apple is that we must develop truly exciting products." For users, this is a blessing. It is precisely because Apple attaches so much importance to user experience that it has developed products that truly meet user needs.

2. Repeatedly attract user participation

This obsession with user experience makes serious market research seem unimportant. However, it is well known that Apple spends a lot of time every year carefully observing how users use Apple and other companies' products. In this so-called "participatory design" or "usability testing", Apple integrates user experience into the product design and development process to find deficiencies and opportunities. Of course, Jobs himself is usually the most important user, but this does not prevent the company from systematically introducing user participation models throughout the process.

3. Prevent feature bloat

As we all know, engineers only want to work on creative, challenging, and exciting projects, while businessmen only want to work on projects that can make money. Anyone who has worked in the technology industry understands that there is an inherent conflict between these two types of people. The result of compromise between the two sides is that the scope of application of products spreads and the functions expand, thus giving birth to confusing and unfocused products.

The MP3 players before the iPod and the smartphones before the iPhone all had the same drawbacks, but Apple's innovation lies precisely in refining these products, returning them to their fundamental purpose, and then giving them simple and attractive ways to use them. As Jobs said, "Subtraction makes people progress."

4. Create a compatible experience

Users are eager to use their devices as a system in a simple and intuitive way. Apple is well aware of this. Therefore, in the process of launching a series of products, it has positioned them as a "digital center" and then an "entertainment center". Regardless of the concept, the compatibility of software and hardware can be achieved within the system. Of course, Apple's products are not compatible with those of other companies. However, the synergy between Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad and iTunes does bring great value to users.

5. Allow users to explore and provide a unique experience within the Apple retail store

Retail stores provide Apple with another stage to showcase its design strength. When users enter the store, they can experience the beauty and ease of use of Apple products firsthand, and even feel the large-scale solutions provided by a series of interconnected products.

Apple carefully trains its retail store employees to encourage customers to try Apple products firsthand, taking what former Apple Store executive Ron Johnson called a "short, fun and engaging" journey.

Finally, Apple retail stores also provide "Genius Bar" customer service, creating another selling point that touches the hearts of users. The result is: Apple has become the retail company with the highest sales per unit area in the United States.

6. Highlight brand status

Apple has done this in three ways. First, the company's unique products are communicated to users through new and exciting advertising. The Macintosh ad released during the 1984 Super Bowl football game is a perfect example. Apple contrasted its independent ideas and status with those of the aging giants in the computer industry (such as IBM). In 1997, the company highlighted its independent status with the "Think Different" campaign, praising rebels and lunatics as the source of great ideas and inventions. Apple's target market is not large enterprises, but artists and design-oriented industries.

Secondly, although Apple's product development relies on the help of many brand partners, it has also gone against its norm and rejected all kinds of financial temptations, insisting on letting users focus on Apple's own brand rather than highlighting the status of component suppliers. Since the mid-2000s, Apple has brought in new hardware and software suppliers such as Intel , Microsoft, and ATI for many of its products, but the company has not engaged in joint marketing (for example, adding Intel stickers to the device casing), although this has become a common practice for other technology companies.

Finally, Apple's insistence on crowding out other brands in its retail stores has also greatly helped the company's brand building.

7. Design a business model that can continuously create value for users

To create user value, it is necessary to design a business model to ensure that this value can be created repeatedly. Hiring employees who value user experience and opening retail stores are two main channels for Apple to create user value. However, iTunes should also be regarded as an integral part of its business model. Although iTunes itself does not generate much revenue for Apple, the iTunes desktop software and iTunes Music Store still increase the value of Apple's hardware products.

From the consumer's perspective, this integration of hardware and content provides tremendous value, improves user loyalty , and increases revenue for various businesses.

8. You can revolutionize yourself when necessary

For companies that are well versed in marketing, if they have better products, they should be brave enough to revolutionize themselves. Apple did this at least twice: the first time, Apple abandoned the iPod Mini and instead promoted the iPod Nano; the second time, although the iPod could still provide unique features, the iPhone also had music playback capabilities, so it might have an impact on the iPod, but Apple still took the risk and released the iPhone. Many companies may worry that new products will have an impact on existing pillar products, but Apple understands this truth: if you don’t revolutionize yourself, other companies will revolutionize you.

9. You don’t have to be an all-rounder

Many companies fail because they are hesitant in choosing target users and products. However, Apple dares to make bold decisions and focus its strategy on limited product lines while limiting the number of products in each product line. Jobs introduced this concept when he returned to Apple in 1997 and cut Apple's product lines from 15 to 4 in one go. This strategy has been adhered to to this day.

A few years ago, Tim Cook , then Apple COO, described Apple's philosophy as follows: "Diversity is a traditional management concept taught in many business schools, but it is not suitable for us."

Apple stands out from the crowd in technology by pouring its unparalleled focus into a handful of products that create tremendous value for users. The result is that users know what to expect from Apple, and usually their dreams come true.

10. Create an ecosystem that provides value

The success of the iPhone is largely due to the App Store. However, the App Store must be supported by developers to truly work. Apple has launched many development tools to attract developers to create simple and consistent application experiences for the IOS platform. This has accelerated the speed of application development and increased user interaction. It is a win-win strategy for developers, users and Apple. The total number of applications in the AppStore has exceeded 500,000, with cumulative downloads exceeding 24 billion times. This has not only increased the conversion cost of iPhone and iPad users, but also brought considerable revenue to Apple.

After winning the "Outstanding Marketing Award" for five consecutive years, Apple has proved that it is not only an outstanding technology company, but also an outstanding marketing company. Apple's marketing strategy is very unique, integrating traditional and non-traditional factors. However, in the final analysis, Apple has found a way to attract and retain users, which has generated a huge word-of-mouth effect, greatly increased the brand's attractiveness, and also gained a strong competitive advantage through a unique business model, channel structure and brand image.

Green Gua Media Comments:

Integrated brand promotion is developed on the basis of integrating various types of marketing communications. Brand is the core of integrated marketing communications. All brand promotion activities of an enterprise should focus on the brand, manage and strengthen brand relationships through integrated marketing communications, and thus accumulate brand assets. The focus of integrated brand promotion is to create brand relationships, not only to expand brand awareness, but more importantly to enhance consumers' trust in the brand. The customer-centric marketing philosophy can utilize various media and adopt various methods to enhance brand value and accumulate brand assets.

The author of this article @马海祥 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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