Journal ACK!!'s Journal: Selling Macs
Ok, Apple is doing well.
Its consumer electronics hit the iPod is the hot gift for Christmas and the stock is doing well.
So in my simple opinion, it is the perfect time to expand the market share for Macs in general.
There is something I notice about people who own Macs. They love them. An odd habit (not the only I have btw) is that when I see a person in a cafe or restaurant with a iBook or Powerbook I always ask, "How do you like your Mac?"
I have yet to have one person put down the Mac experience or even come off as middle of the road in their response.
Always, the response is pure love of this machine.
So what could Apple do to expand its marketshare?
The price break for its most loved machines the Powerbooks are still a bit steep for the majority of the world.
Appeals to Think Different in a consumer world frightened by the idea of unproven tech or not being behind the standard will not work.
Appeals to be a Switcher emphasizes the pain of moving platforms and is doomed to increase share by large margins.
But where in the iPod have they succeeded? They appealed to the consumer on the basis of the cool factor for an iPod. And its worked.
People say this approach would not work for a computer but I must disagree and I look back to history for a basis to this claim.
The Macs were as bland and nasty looking as a PC but the performance diff distinct between the first generation of Pentiums and the Power PC chips Apple lost market share. One of the biggest complaints lately is that the Apples are not as fast as the Intel based PCs but fast never got Apple major market share.
So what Mac based successes have they had recently?
Think about the marketing push during the intro of the first iMacs.
Simple commercials showing off the pure cool factor of these candy looking boxes. Might not have been for everyone but enough people thought they were cool enough to make for a success.
Did the first Apple laptops or Powerbooks makes such a splash because they were so innvative in terms of technology?
I don't think so.
They had slick marketing campaign focused on a top notch cool factor computer. They had stars talking about what was on their Powerbook.
The product was just hot cool. And the marketing focused on that.
So back to the question. How does Apple expand its market share?
Two things:
1. Cut prices enough to get good trade press. Computer pundits love to bust on the Macs in terms of cost to value. Don't eliminate the profit entirely of course but cut the prices just enough to get some good press.
2. Launch a huge marketing campaign focused on just the pure coolness of the Mac line. Slick commercials with no tech jargon showing how much people love their Macs.
Lots of handsome cool people with their Macs in different situations. The only thing that is said in the commercial is maybe a line or two from these cool people on how much they love their Macs. Then you have the big banner that they are now so many dollars cheaper.
With the stock up and the confidence high in the Apple company, now is the best time in the world to focus on expanding share in their computers.
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