Marketing – Lessons from Steve Job
Of all the inspirational business people from the last 50 years, perhaps no-one has made a bigger impact than Apple’s founder, the late Steve Jobs. His career is one I followed closely over the years, and I rarely failed to find something worthy of emulating.
Steve Jobs led probably the greatest turnaround in corporate history – taking a company on the brink of bankruptcy and transforming it into one of the most iconic and profitable brands in the world. Above all, the secret of his success was marketing. Here are just a few things he taught us. Make a great product Everyone who has ever owned an Apple product will be familiar with the incredible customer experience. Even the packaging is a work of art.
All that would be nothing without the product itself, but Steve Jobs also knew that customer expectation were themselves only part of the picture. He said: “It’s not about pop culture and it’s not about fooling people, and it’s not about convincing people that they want something they don’t. “We figure out what we want. And I think we’re pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it too.” Turn consumers into evangelists
One of the key reasons behind Apple’s phenomenal growth has been their ability to get their consumers to effectively endorse the brand. ‘Apple fanboy’ is commonly used to describe the people who use the products and who are passionate advocates for the brand. Think of the huge queues outside Apple stores whenever there’s a new iPhone launched – even if it’s just an incremental upgrade.
When was the last time you saw that for Samsung or Google? And here’s the thing. They’re not just there for the phone. They’re there because they want to support the brand. Their team. It’s almost like football in that respect. No brand has inspired such deep and abiding loyalty as Apple has managed over the years. Stay tuned for the next instalment of this column, when once again we will be picking some ripe Apple lessons from the tree of business knowledge.
