Charlie Moger's ADmissions | Strategic marketing and advertising advice

The three invisible contributions of Steve Jobs

Seldom does an era come to an end so clearly as with Steve Jobs’s resignation as Apple’s CEO. His life’s work changed more than the fortunes of one California fruit company. He also showed us all how to infuse a brand with magnetic power through his three invisible contributions.

As a business decision-maker, how could you not be a fan of Steve Jobs? He launched the personal computer revolution, gave us the graphic interface and mouse now taken for granted. His iPod changed how we listen to music and the industry that creates it. The iPhone redefined the very idea of a smart phone. And then, he changed how we interact with information to begin the post-pc era with the iPad.

Along the way, one thing remained unaltered, undiluted, and undeterred.

Invisible contribution #1: Set a bold standard and stick to it

Apple today bobs atop of the ocean of company valuations, the biggest fish in the sea—worldwide. Product sales is just one metric, the magic is the result of Steve Jobs’ singleness of vision; he saw the invisible and pursued it without compromise.

Insanely great

Look past the Mac, or iPod, or even the iPhone and iPad. Job’s more significant contribution came in the hundreds and thousands of products we never saw. For every successful Apple product, there were hundreds to which Jobs said NO because they were merely great without hope of rising to his standard of insanely great.

Invisible contribution #2: See it bigger than anyone else

Apple has a penchant for going left when the world turns right. Some ideas were derided as mistakes along the way: Lisa, Newton, the MacCube, etc. But, how could they be mistakes when each left a DNA trail ultimately connecting to the products selling by the millions today.

Every step, even while seemingly making no sense at the time, later revealed a straight-line advance in pursuit of something that would ultimately make perfect sense—and money.

String theory of Steve

It’s a kind of string-theory leadership. Start by accepting there are patterns in the universe too big for our minds to see; parallel realities, possibilities. Except, Steve saw them for Apple. And, he led the company to them repeatedly.

Invisible contribution #3: Create a culture of belief

Apple’s successful boldy-going-where-no-computer-has-gone-before approach bred within the company a culture of belief that will live on long after Steve is gone. The media made it about Steve. Internally, he made it bigger. He made it about belief.

Knowing is good. You can get by with knowing. But, believing is knowing on steroids. Belief gives Apple its magnetic world-changing swagger.

What are you waiting for?

Success in business, branding, and life is the byproduct of intentional, consistent action over time. But, remember, time is finite; ours comes in limited supply.

Therein lies a fourth more personal contribution on Steve’s part: urgency. His do-it-now nature was only sharpened by the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. He came to work every day with a sense of now.

“Death is very likely the single best invention of Life,” Jobs said in his Stanford University commencement address. “It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”

What will be your invisible contribution today?

Do you buy advertising like you buy gum?

Samantha: It was an impulse purchase!
Carrie: Gum is an impulse purchase… this is more than gum!

Samantha trying to justify her cosmetic chemical peel decision
as an impulse purchase she has on Sex and The City.

Carrie has perfectly expressed the reasonable expectation of an “impulse purchase.” Much the same can be said about impulse purchases with your business’s marketing – they should be strictly reserved for stands in grocery shopping lines.

There are many scams, tricks, sneaky tactics, dodgy offers, (you get it…), out there – victims often being new businesses. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”.

The issue you face when making an impulse purchase is that you aren’t efficiently thinking about the resulting consequences of this decision, resulting in actions that aren’t working towards the needs of your business as well as wasting a huge amount of money… You need to ask yourself every time, “Is this the highest and best use of my money?”

Stoking your impulses

Sales reps use a lot of tactics in order to sell you something. Some of the common ones include:

Offering “free” editorial with your print Ad purchase, therefore making the “package” more appealing. It can be appealing to have the opportunity to write more about your business, but be warned – the publication usually will have no obligation to print your editorial exactly as you have supplied and may change if they wish. You haven’t paid for the editorial space so it leaves the door of your business wide open.

The allure of “distress rates” which are the rates that are discounted at the 11th hour just before the publication needs to go to print, whereby spaces need to be filled and therefore prices cut. The main issue is you will most likely not have sufficient time to produce a well-structured message and attractive Ad, therefore you are really just placing an Ad for the sake of it.

With broadcast media, (i.e. radio and TV), bundling a schedule with a lot of bonuses. Bonus spots are not paid for by you; therefore the station has no obligation to actually run them. They are the push up bras of the broadcasting world – FILLERS that are all for show – used to make things look bigger, better, and more attractive but when it’s time for action, they seem to disappear… Also, bonus spots cannot be scheduled to the time slots/shows as paid spots can – they can play at any time and therefore you aren’t getting the consistency and repetition required for effective advertising.

Advising you “your competitors are doing it.” This is an all time pet hate tactic used by reps which comes back to the old adage your Mum would have said to you, “If little Jimmy was going to jump off a bridge, would you?” Just because your competitors are, doesn’t mean you should or have to. And being in the same places as your competitors can often work AGAINST you.

If you don’t have an effective marketing message and strategy the above sales rep tactics will cause you to make impulse purchases. The result being, more wasted marketing dollars.

So, keep impulse purchases for the grocery store and out of your business – even if it does sound amazing, as chances are, your impulses will stifle your business’s growth.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Sarah Ripley, Wizard of Ads Australia

Sarah is a young marketer who attempts to challenge the “grey hair syndrome” where you need to be middle-aged and balding to know how to market a business.

Be principled
Know your boundaries. Follow your north star.

He is arguably the best recognized corporate mascot on earth. He is a marked man–or, more accurately, a marked clown. Turns out Ronald McDonald’s Svengali grip over mommies and daddies is leading them to feed kids too many Happy Meals. Absurd as it seems, that’s essentially the charge against him.

Despite pressure from nutrition activists to kick the yellow-clad clown to the curb, McDonald’s is standing behind Ronald McDonald, thereby exemplifying one of The Ten BE’s of Better Branding: Be principled. Know your boundaries. Follow your north star.

“He is an ambassador for good,” McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner proclaimed at the height of the controversy. “Ronald McDonald is going nowhere.”

Customer-focus matters. But, there’s even greater value in defining what your brand stands for in the first place. Family friendly, affordable food (not necessarily in that order) could easily be McDonald’s core values. How could there be golden arches without the red-headed clown? Knowing your north star brings clarity to marketing decisions of very size.

What is your north star?

Tactics change, principles don’t. Principles are your north star. What five words or less describe your company? Take a minute. Write them down. Then, look at them once a day for two weeks. Make adjustments until those words clearly describe your company or brand. Once you’re satisfied, run marketing choices past them. Good ideas will touch every word. Ideas that fail to connect would probably lead you off course.

While they hung tough for Ronald, McDonald’s responded to nutritionists by, among other things, adding apples to Happy Meals and reducing the fries. Of course they did: doing so made them a family friendly, affordable food choice.

Five marketing mistakes you can’t afford

That competitor across the street is plotting to steal your customers right now. Could your marketing be making it easy for them? Typically, it’s not big things that lose customers; they’re too obvious. Costly mistakes are usually the little ones, easily overlooked in your daily buzz of doing business.

How clean are your trays?

Customers see things you don’t. Dirty tray-tables left airline passengers wondering about engine maintenance. “If they can’t get the little things right, what about the big things?” surveyed passengers told Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr. in their 1982 book, In Search of Excellence.

While some of the so-called “excellent” companies have gone by the wayside, their principles of excellence still apply. Learning from the customer, for example, helped expose these marketing mistakes:

These little things will cost you customers

1. Stale advertising
Running an ad too long is like not running any at all. Once it reaches a customer more than three or four times, an ad quickly loses effectiveness. Easy fix: update copy regularly. Instead of one ad, create a campaign of three. Add a new one monthly while deleting the oldest. A high-frequency campaign demands updates more often.

2. Out-of-date website
Does your site still promote a spring special in August? Does it list products or services no longer available? Your site often makes the first impression. Keeping it current is critical. Generic “evergreen” content won’t help either. We launched a new client site this year that gets updated weekly. A lot of work? Yep. But, it’s worth it: site traffic increased 155%, store traffic is up, receipts too–all in a down economy.

3. Freemail address
Using gmail, hotmail, or other free email for business tells the world you’re not serious. Anyone can get a gmail account, order cards, and call themselves a business. You’re better than that. Emails should be an extension of your web address. It’s easy and you’re probably paying for it already: most web hosting packages include email. Fix this today.

4. After-hours voicemail
Advertising 24-hour service but using after-hours voicemail literally chases customers away. I don’t call at 2:30 in the morning to leave a message. I need a human now. So, forward calls to a tech. Or, at least hire a service. Then, advertise it. We tag one client’s ads with “you always get a person, never a machine.” Even if they never call, customers know you’re always there.

5. Slow response
If you solicit inquiries on your website, be prepared to respond–quickly. Web leads cool in minutes. Same day isn’t fast enough. A prompt reply demonstrates commitment. Same goes for comments on Angie’s list, Yelp!, Twitter, etc. Whiners are easily outnumbered by those checking your track record. Responding promptly to complaints, even from whiners, builds trust and protects your brand.

Twenty more where those came from

There are another 20 ways I’ve seen simple marketing mistakes chase off customers. I’ll share more of them in the weeks to come. In the meantime, go address these. It will put you head-and-shoulders above most competitors—especially that one across the street.

Strategic marketing and advertising advice

The three invisible contributions of Steve Jobs