Technology

Marketing strategy for iPhone

As with all Apple marketing, the iPhone’s marketing strategy is very clear, simple, and smart. With the plain and simple apple icon, Apple focuses on the pure and innovative style of its products without all the “fluff.” The iPhone was launched by Apple in June 2007. The innovative style of the iPhone was touted for months before the initial launch and has remained the best of the best when it comes to mobile phones for the past several years. Before the official launch of the iPhone, Apple ran four television commercials promoting the new cell phone.

The first of the commercials portrays the new iPhone as the next step to the popular iPod. The iPod was all the rage up to this point, and the iPhone was supposed to be the next generation iPod – oh, and it’s a phone too! The ad shows all the enhanced features available on the iPod, and more, the point is “There has never been an iPod that can do this.”

“So let’s say you’re watching Pirates of the Caribbean”

The finger clicks on the video and displays the movie on a wide screen.

“Mmm, did someone say squid?”

Finger returns to the menu and selects the Maps application to search for ‘Seafood’.

“The closest thing would be …”

The map shows all seafood locations and highlights the location closest to you.

“Ah!”

The finger clicks on the location of the seafood and the restaurant’s phone number is displayed. IPhone dial.

The first four iPhone commercials flaunted the convenience, innovation, and usefulness of a single product with the functionality of not just a phone or music device, but a product that can, among other things, listen to music, watch videos, view photos. , conduct conference calls, check email, surf the web, and view maps.

Apple not only uses television for its marketing strategy, it also makes use of its website by publishing videos, but also published a handful of press releases that could have been published in a single document. Apple often uses this tactic to generate publicity and leave the consumer wanting more.

With Apple’s short press releases, which gave the audience little, “Apple took advantage of a law of social physics: News, like nature, abhors a vacuum. In the absence of real information, those who care about a product They’ll Catch Any Rumors Apple may publicly disavow rumors from websites seeking drafts of the company’s plans, but secretly its marketing department must be delighted. It would cost a lot to buy that kind of web advertising. ” (Silverman, 2007)

The official iPhone website does more than provide product information. The website provides the best tips and tricks for using an iPhone, as well as a great focus on applications. Almost the entire iPhone page displays app images, offers the “App of the Week”, the website also contains sections titled “Apps for Everything” and “Top Apps”. The Apple website is an excellent marketing tool for current iPhone users and consumers who are interested in purchasing an iPhone. App promotion will create a stronger revenue stream for Apple. As customers see the top-rated apps, they are more likely to download the app, rather than searching through more than 25,000 apps to find one that may be of some value to the consumer.

Successful young men were the target audience Apple had originally targeted. Apple had hoped that with this target audience, and the fact that 48% of this audience did not yet own an Apple iPod, would allow them to reach their forecast of 10 million sales by the end of 2008.

A month before the launch of the iPhone, Solutions Research Group outlined a representative sample of those who were familiar with the phone. The forecast of potential buyers for launch day ranked the majority of customers of T-Mobile, AT & T’s only GSM-based product competitor, at 15%. The second-largest group expected to buy the new iPhone was AT & T’s existing customer base, at 12%. The Solutions Research Group also found that 72% of men, versus 28% of women, were more likely to research the phone at its $ 499 low price. (Malley, 2007)

The obvious current target audience for Apple’s iPhone includes young people in their 20s and 35s, wealthy teens, jet-setters, and “mobile” employees who work outside the office.

Apple is known for its simplistic but catchy commercials. In recent television commercials for Apple’s iPhone, “There’s an app for that” is the new catchphrase that places a heavy emphasis on the applications available on the App Store. The applications or applications are in “all categories, from games to business, education, entertainment, finance, health and fitness, productivity and social networks. These applications have been designed to take advantage of the functions of the iPhone such as Multi-Touch, the accelerometer , wireless and GPS “(Apple, 2009). Apple currently claims to have more than 25,000 apps available and counting.

The focus on the variation of the offered applications opens a lot to the target audience. Basically, there is an app for everyone. As some of the iPhone commercials advertise, you can find the snow conditions on the mountain, track the calories in your lunch, find exactly where you parked your car. You can find a taxi in a strange city, find your share of the bill for a table of 5, or learn how to fix a wobbly bookshelf. You can read a restaurant review, read an MRI scan, or just read a regular old book. These are just a few of the features that Apple has promoted through television commercials. IPhone applications offer all the functions one can imagine.

When the iPhone was initially launched, it was priced at $ 599. Still, hundreds of thousands of people rushed to buy the new phone, spending more than a third of what they would have expected if they had waited 3 more months. 3 months after the initial launch, Apple slashed the price of the iPhone to $ 399. This angered Apple’s loyal customers and consumers who bought the new phone a few months earlier. A year later, Apple reduced the price of the iPhone again to $ 199, 66% less than the original price.

In July 2007, Apple’s iPhone was all the hype. I think Apple’s decision to launch the phone at $ 599 was based lightly on greed. However, their product was the most innovative on the market, giving Apple the freedom to price the iPhone to whatever they wanted. Many believed that Apple had cut the price after discovering lower-than-expected iPhone sales. Apple, however, claims that the price cut was made “to stimulate holiday sales and predicted that Apple would meet its stated goal of selling its 1 millionth iPhone by the end of September.” (Dalrymple, 2007)

As with the product life cycle of any Apple cell phone or product, including Apple’s iPod, prices are often drastically reduced months after the initial launch. Technology products always compete against “the latest and greatest” while maintaining a relevant price in the market. If Apple hadn’t cut the price of the iPhone, the customer base would have shrunk quickly as many consumers are unwilling to spend $ 599 on a cell phone, no matter how many useful features the phone may have.

As the iPhone remains the number one smartphone, the product continues to grow, increasing size capabilities, increasing the number of applications available, and providing new features that are released through new iterations of the phone, continue to provide greater value. to the iPhone, while the price is still relevant.

At this point in the product life cycle, Apple continues to release improved iterations of the iPhone. Since most of the iPhone users are unwilling to buy a newer version of the iPhone due to the price, the target audience for the new generation phones is the new iPhone customers. With Apple’s installed base continuing to grow, they have found a way to generate recurring revenue from their existing customers through the sales of their app downloads. As more and more people buy the iPhone, Apple’s audience of new customers continues to decline. Fortunately for Apple, they have added another revenue stream that continues for the life of the product.

References

(2009). Apple iPhone. Retrieved April 26, 2009 from Apple

Dalrymple, J (2007, September 11). Lessons Learned from iPhone Price Cuts. PCWorld, Retrieved April 26, 2009, from http://www.pcworld.com/article/137046/lessons_learned_from_the_iphone_price_cuts.html

Silverman, D (2007-07-10). Apple’s silence helped the iPhone hype. Chron.com:Computing, Retrieved April 26, 2009, from http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4954824.html

Malley, A (2007, June 6). Apple, AT&T neophytes to define iPhone audience: report. AppleInsider, retrieved April 26, 2009, from the AppleInsider website

Mukherjee, A (February 28, 2007). iPhone under attack. Business Today, retrieved April 26, 2009, from the Business Today website

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