7 Lessons from a Marketing Genius Pt.3

5. Strive for simplicity. Apple chief design architect, Jonathan Ive, said Apple’s products are easy to use because of the elimination of clutter. The same philosophy applies to Apple’s marketing and sales material. For example, there are forty words on the average PowerPoint slide. It’s difficult to find ten words in one dozen Apple slides. Most of Steve Jobs’ slides are visuals — photographs or images. When are there words, they are astonishingly sparse. For example, in January, 2008, Jobs was delivering his Macworld keynote and began the presentation by thanking his customers for making 2007 a successful year for Apple. The slide behind Jobs simply read “Thank you.” Steve Jobs tells the Apple story. The slides compliment the story.

6. Reveal a “Holy Smokes” moment. People will forget what you said, what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel. There’s always one moment in a Steve Jobs presentation that is the water cooler moment, the one part of the presentation that everyone will be talking about. These show stoppers are completely scripted ahead of time. For example, when Jobs unveiled the MacBook Air, what do people remember? They recall that he removed the computer from an inter-office envelope. It’s the one moment from Macworld 2008 that everyone who watched it — and those who read about — seem to recall. The image of a computer sliding in an envelope was immediately unveiled in Apple ads and on the Apple website. The water cooler moment had run according to plan.

7. Sell dreams, not products. Great leaders cultivate a sense of mission among their employees and customers. Steve Jobs’ mission is to change the world, to put a “dent in the universe.” According to Jobs, “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” True evangelists are driven by a messianic zeal to create new experiences. When he launched the iPod in 2001, Jobs said, “In our own small way we’re going to make the world a better place.” Where most people see the iPod as a music player, Jobs sees it as tool to enrich people’s lives. It’s important to have great products, of course, but passion, enthusiasm and emotion will set you apart.