3 Business and Marketing Lessons Learned from Apple

Apple is one of the largest and most powerful brands in the world today. Not only do they have billions of dollars in sales and massive market share in both mobile and computer devices, they also have loyal customers that proudly pay more for their products and show off their brand and logo in the process.

This type of branding and love for a company doesn’t happen overnight. It’s actually taken decades for Apple to get to where they are today.

With all of this in mind, let’s take a look at the Apple brand and how they can help us all become better designers, marketers, business owners and simply better engaging with our audiences and customers in the process.

‘Less is More’ in Products and Branding

If you’ve ever taken a moment to look at everything Apple has created, they’ve always tried to make things as simple as possible. This is something Steve specifically wanted when the iPhone was being created — he simply said: “I want one button”. No one knew how to do it, but he didn’t care.

The same can be said of their online and television ad campaigns. Nearly all of their commercials and ad campaigns are extremely simple in design but leave a powerful message.

Visit the Apple.com website right now and you will find just five words to describe one of the most sought-after mobile devices on the internet today “Say hello to the future”. This is just another perfect example of “less is more”.

How to accomplish this yourself:

If you were to look at content on the internet today, you would find that more people are consuming video content at a faster rate than ever before. This means your content, brand or business needs to be focused on this same mindset as well. With “less is more” in mind, your online videos don’t need to have hundreds or even thousands of dollars in budget money to create one that is effective.

A perfect example of this can be seen through the videos created with the mysimpleshow tool. With Apple having so much success with simplicity and messaging within in their ad campaigns, wouldn’t it be cool if you could create simple black and white explainer or whiteboard videos for your brand? That’s exactly what you will find with mysimpleshow, as they offer an easy to use drag and drop platform for creating any type of explainer video you can imagine.

The concept of simplicity has worked extremely well for Apple. It will like work for your brand or business when using online video as well.

Creating a Logo Design Everyone Loves

Not all great brands and logo designs just happen. For many years, Apple was a very hated brand and frowned upon by millions of people around the world. At some point, the love and customer relationship with Apple started to grow as they came out with exciting new products and technology. At the same time, the Apple logo was getting more exposure through their laptop branding, mobile devices and much more.

However, the Apple logo you know and love today isn’t the same design was with the company when they first started. Below you can find an image on the various Apple logo designs over the years. The 1976 design is quite unique, as it shows a picture of Issac Newton under a tree with an apple. It was very unique and delivered a message, but would never have worked for the company or brought that same crisp and simple “Apple” feeling that the logo has today.

 

How to accomplish this yourself:

If you want to create a successful logo or brand identity for your business, you need to understand what your audience wants. Just because you find value or like the way something looks, it doesn’t mean your audience or customers will like it as well. When creating a logo for your business or brand, it’s important to consider your options and including your audience in the process.

One of the best ways to accomplish this is to go with a logo design contest, instead of hiring just one designer. This will allow you to come across a wide range of logo designs, while also getting different styles from different designers around the world. There are also plenty of free logo design tools available online, such as Pixlr and Canva, if you’d like to try and create some draft or mockup ideas beforehand. It’s also a good idea to include your audience in the decision process, which can be done by simply posting a message on social media to get the conversation going. Grab some of your favorite logo designs from designers so far, add them to your blog or social profile page and then ask your audience for their opinion. Not only will this provide you with some great feedback, it will also make your audience feel like they are part of the brand process.

Focus on Experience and Not Just Products or Services

Anyone can create a product or service, but how often are they actually a fun or memorable experience for a user? If you take an Apple mobile device away from someone, they instant start to panic and aren’t sure how they are going to last just a few minutes without their device. Not only has Apple created an amazing product line, they have also done so through the use of storytelling and making their products memorable and customizable to their audience. Remember how fun those iPod commercials used to be when they first came out?

When it comes to storytelling, few people did it better than Steve Jobs. Whenever a new product came out, it wasn’t just about saying “here it is!”… it was a big event that everyone wanted to attend, and Steve made the experience real to every person in the room. See for yourself through the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGoM_wVrwng?rel=0]

How to accomplish this yourself:

Being a great storyteller is no simple task. There are endless hours of work in each of the ‘simple’ presentation slides and events that Steve and Apple hosted. However, Steve also knew how to relate to his audience, and made sure he touched on all of the major key points as well. This not only made him human and relatable, it also made the product loved even more by his audience and customers.

To accomplish this same feat, you first need to become a better speaker. At the same, you also need to understand your audience and customers better than anyone else. Combine these two together, and you will ultimately not only have a product and service to sell… but also a user experience your audience will die for.

Apple is Great. You can be too.

As you can see through each of the examples above, Apple has done a really great job of growing their brand, products, and business into what it is today. However, also don’t forget that it took a lot of time for all of this to come together — along with billions of dollars in sales, employing staff, having huge PR, dev, branding teams and more.

Even with all of this in place, you can still be quite amazing with your own business or brand as well. Follow these same methods and start implementing similar practices into your own personal brand or online business.