Want To Know What is Great Marketing, Read Apple’s Example.

On August 20, 2012, Apple surpassed Microsoft to become the largest public company in history. It’s a fact that makes it easy to forget that, not that long ago, Apple didn’t even exist.

What’s contributed greatly to Apple’s success is great marketing. As most people know, Steve Jobs was a big believer in great, smart, creative marketing. It’s something he believed in from the very beginning of Apple.

Back in 1976 when Apple was just starting, Steve and his two partners had some big decisions to make. One, was about marketing. Unlike other startups and small businesses who see marketing as a questionable or unaffordable expense, Steve saw it as an important investment that was absolutely necessary to get the word out and grow the business – even with limited funds.
So, just months after incorporating, Jobs hired ad agency Regis McKenna. The agency designed Apple’s logo and handled all of Apple’s early advertising, marketing, and branding. Apple took off.
A few years later, after Regis was sold to Chiat/Day, Apple continued a close relationship with Chiat to produce some of the most brilliant advertising of all time. Steve Jobs will go down as one of the greatest marketers in history. Yet he’d be the first to tell you that most of the credit belongs to the great advertising and marketing people he hired.
Because Steve was such a dynamic front man for Apple, it’s easy to think he deserves all the marketing and advertising credit. He was involved with all of it, and he had the final say, but he didn’t create it. Steve came up with the Apple name and that’s about it. The iconic “1984” and “Think Different” campaigns were created by the agency. The name “iMac” was created by the agency. All the advertising and marketing for the Mac, iMac, iPod, iPhone, including the brilliant “Mac vs PC” campaign was created by the agency.
And, what many people will find hard to believe is that some of the best marketing ideas for Apple were ones that Steve didn’t even like…at least initially.

Recently I had the opportunity to speak with adman Ken Segall who worked directly with Jobs for 12 years as his ad agency Creative Director. In Ken’s book, “Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success,” he describes an episode with Steve in 1997 when Ken’s team was given the assignment to name the innovative, new, candy-colored Mac that Apple was about to introduce.

Steve informed them that the name that he had in mind was “MacMan” and they had two weeks to come up with something better. Confident that “MacMan” would not be hard to beat, Ken scheduled a meeting with Jobs the following week. At the meeting he presented a handful of names including “iMac.”
As Ken tells it, “Steve hated them all” and informed them that they now had one week to justify their jobs and come up with something better than “MacMan.” Not the reaction that Ken was expecting.

A week later, Ken and his team presented some new names, including “iMac” again, with stronger arguments as to why it was the best name. Listening to Ken’s strong conviction Steve paused thoughtfully and said something like, “Well, I still hate it. But, I hate it a little less this week.” The rest is history.
It’s a great story because while everyone knows the names iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad, few people know how close we came to MacMan, PodMan, PhoneMan, and PadMan. It’s also an important lesson in marketing and management. Because as smart as Steve Jobs was, he was also smart enough to know the areas where others knew more than him — like creative marketing.
It takes a certain amount of guts for any business owner to trust the ideas and direction of outside marketing experts, especially when there’s no guarantee those ideas will work. Steve obviously had the guts and trust in the people he hired. So did Ryan Blair — a small business owner who followed Apple’s example by creating a great product and investing early in the best people to get the word out. Ryan’s company, ViSalus, is now valued at over $600 million.

In a recent interview, Ryan was asked about his most valuable business lesson: “Hire the best possible people that money can buy.” Like Steve, Ryan had the guts and vision to choose that path even when he was a startup with little money – and even when he had to pay some people more than he paid himself.
While I’ve never worked with Steve Jobs, I and my partners, have had the pleasure of helping other savvy business owners like him. One was an ambitious young shoe designer who left his dad’s shoe business because his old school dad didn’t believe that spending money on marketing was a good investment.

That young man was Kenneth Cole. And what started as a few attention getting ads became the foundation for what is now one of the most successful fashion brands in the world. We’re happy to continue helping other savvy small business owners who, like Steve and Kenneth, understand the value of investing in smart, creative marketing.

Apple makes the perfect case study. As a small business owner Steve Jobs understood that regardless of how great Apple’s products were, his business would fail if the marketing didn’t connect with, and emotionally resonate with, the regular people he was trying to reach.

Apple’s marketing success is the combination of great products, a relentless desire to tell the world about them, and Steve’s ability to find the right, talented people to help do that.

Gather A Larger Audience At Your Events

Success of a marketing campaign depends on the response of your target audience. For any professional event planner, convincing the audience is a top priority to deliver a successful event. They achieve this by drawing a larger audience to witness the event so that their clients get to sell their products and services in greater numbers. However, event management to capture a big crowd requires advanced strategic considerations that are different from those required to deliver a small-scale event. Therefore you should mold your event planning skills accordingly, to successfully draw a big crowd to your event.

1 - Choose the right venue and location

One of the first things to consider is the overall setup of the venue where you plan to host this event. Choose a venue that is large enough to accommodate the crowd while maintaining comfort and security. The venue must also be decorated with a theme that compliments the message of the event. Such an ambience would increase the convincing power of the campaign and eventually result in larger sales for your clients. Event planning should include prior commitments and invoice payments to make sure that you won’t require a plan B when the delivery day approaches. After confirming these important details, you should seek various modes of advertisement to reach a wider target audience.

2 - Advertise to a wider audience

Event planners should advertise with the help of social media sites and the World Wide Web for immediate response. Introduce a proper registration process to confirm the amount of people willing to attend, so that you can manage the event accordingly. Give them reasons to attend; include special incentives and benefits for the attendees. This strategy is a proven technique to successfully manage an event. Planning for a large-scale event without such a process can result in chaos on the delivery day. Make the arrangements just about perfect with respect to the strength of attendance; otherwise the setup and investment might result in excessive spending or leave a negative impression among the audience due to improper event planning.

3 - Benefits and incentives

Another key strategy to gather a larger audience is to provide the crowd with post-event incentives. As long as your client allows, including discount coupons and recruitment incentives to attract the crowd. Event planners should also consider making this event a fundraising campaign. This would make the event management process easier and you would attract a larger audience and sponsorship with little effort. Think differently and come up with new, better solutions to every issue that hinders your efforts. These strategies guarantee a successful marketing campaign no matter how tough the competition gets.

The 5 Most Popular Events In The Market Today.

Events are not only limited to weddings, annual dinners or product launches. The trends in the market today are more focused on events that generate an income for the host or organizers in return for holding the events. This would make sense as huge amounts of money are spent on venue rentals, food and beverage, set ups and advertising campaigns. So what are the five most popular trends in events in the world market today?

List of the 5 most popular events by order of popularity

1. Conferences and seminars – are usually short events where it can last anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Revenue from these events comes from participation fees paid by the attendees. A host can employ an event management company to host such events several times a year making it one of the most lucrative events to organize. A seminar is organized based on key speakers and make use of only one venue such as conference or seminar rooms for the duration of the event thus keeping the cost low. Conferences are held in slightly more lavish settings such as hotels or convention centres and the opening includes a keynote speaker session with intermissions in between program topics and multiple concurrent sessions.

2. Trade show events – are held for the purposes of lead generation and include such industries as tourism, property and development, electronics, food products or automobile manufacturers. Revenue from trade shows are generated via the participants who rent space in the trade show to display and brand their products. The more successful a tradeshow higher is the participation.

3. Events for executive incentive programs and retreats – are held for organizations to reward their management teams or hold important discussions such as organization strategy meetings in a non-formal manner. Such events last over 3 to 5 days and include venues that are exotic or exclusive. These are considered extravagant events that are paid top dollars to organize and event organizers who are reputed for such events will be much sought after.

4. Golfing cum business events - is a highly prized event to organize. These are networking and relationship building events held by high level management of organization for company networking purposes. They can stretch over 3 or 4 days and hosts will expect top notch organizing capabilities from the event organizer.

5. Appreciation and loyalty reward events - are held as reward incentive programs by organizations for members or clients. These bond and relationship building events allow a host to spend time with their guests to develop mutual opportunities in business.

Getting into the best practices for these events can be accomplished with an event management system where the event management solution helps the organizers keep track of developments and work flow. Building your reputation in hosting such events is a breeze when you have the right event solution in hand to help you in the event planning stages. Event Malaysia companies can be just as competitive with the international market with the advantage of a great local tour destination.

Event Planning Industry & Its Services Explained

The event planning industry has paved its own way and achieved a niche for its own. The expensive and complex services which mostly served the elite section of the society for decades, is now converting into a simplified service. With the advancement of technology, event planners can now take help of various online event management services which eliminates the headache of planning an event. In short, event planning services has witnessed a significant shift in the past few years.

Event Planning: Corporate and Personal

Much of the expected growth in event planning industry is the result of various business meets, parties and conferences of the corporate world. Yet there are also certain contribution of the private events such as birthday parties, anniversaries and weddings, where organizers are availing the services extensively. Thus, the industry is becoming more trusted, more recognized and more cost-effective. Though the economy is witnessing a downward trend, the event planners are capable of protecting themselves from hurdles and are surviving, by marketing their services in the vast marketplace. Event planners are getting multiple scopes to develop, where the options are increasing and the cost of event planning is minimizing.

You, as an organizer, will always want your event to be unique and memorable. For this you will always need to hire a good and experienced event planner. The event planner will assist you in planning and executing your event. However, you must coordinate with the event planner regarding the following factors, while planning:

Budget:

Budget is a very integral part of an event, and must be dealt with care. An effective budget planning will ultimately result in a good event. Being an organizer, you must discuss the planning cost and other expenses with your planner. Also clear up the cost to be charged by the planner.

Event Venue:

 You may select your venue for the event before discussing with the planner. But other times, choosing the right venue can be the biggest task in the event planning list. So, you need to discuss every detail, expectations and the capacity of the probable venues with your planner.

Dates and schedule:

Selecting a date as well as an alternate date for the event must be given a top priority. But you should also discuss your schedule with your planner for smooth coordination. Event planners are professionals and not mind readers, so effective communication is a must.

Logistic arrangements:

You must sit with your planner and list down the supplies and equipments required in the event. Items may include tables and chairs, microphones, speakers, electricity arrangement, etc.

Thus, event planning services offered by planners can now assist you in performing various activities required within an event, with ease and simplicity.