Apple Doesn’t Tweet or Blog and I Still Bought a Mac.
Ignore social media at your peril.
Beware pricing your products at a premium.
Pour your marketing budget into television and magazine advertising and you will miss the boat on internet advertising.
How does Apple do it? Jonathan Weber’s article in The Big Money points out how Apple’s marketing decisions break many of today’s “rules” for business. He demonstrates how Apple’s remarkable success rests squarely on their excellent products and their creative, relentless branding.
While Weber points out that Apple ignores many of today’s accepted ideas on social media marketing, internet advertising, etc., he certainly doesn’t suggest we should all ignore these practices. Rather, he argues we shouldn’t forget about the product in all of this.
Which brings me to my own computer-buying decision this past spring.
I decided to switch back to a Macintosh after tiring of paying yearly anti-viral subscriptions for my PC. I had lost all patience with Windows at that point and could not justify the time I spent searching the web trying to decide if my PC was just acting wonky or if it had contracted a virus.
I justified the added cost of buying a Mac based on how easy they are to use and the greatly reduced risk of computer viruses.
That is how one customer decided to purchase a more expensive product in a crowded market. I never consulted Twitter, Facebook or a blog. I didn’t even visit the company website.
And, I felt kind of cool when I bought it.
Columbus AMA
December 17th, 2009
Another emphasis Apple makes is on the staff in its stores. I just met a fellow today who used to work at the Apple store at Easton. He had worked in many retail operations and he said the Apple hiring process was easily the most intensive – even going to the point of having applicants prepare skits (10 minutes to prepare a PC vs. Mac ad from the current series). He also said he’d never worked in a retail environment where he’d felt more at home.
Investing in people selection is part of branding, too.
Paul Dumouchelle, Management Consultant, ADVISA