Everyone’s talking about Apple Live, the much-hyped launch event for the iPhone 6 and Apple Watch. Creating hype for a product release is no easy feat, yet Apple has mastered it year after year. We dissected Apple’s marketing philosophy to understand how event marketers can also pull off the magic. Here are five lessons we learned from Apple Live.
Lessons from Apple Live
Obsess over your attendee’s experience.
Empathy is the first principle of Apple’s philosophy. Surveying your attendees post-event can be helpful, but you can learn a lot from watching and observing their reactions throughout an event. Do attendees know where to go after check-in? How many questions does the site staff get asked? Use this feedback to gauge your attendee’s experience and adjust accordingly.
If you’re trying out a new concept that you plan on premiering at a large event like Apple Live, talk to the experts beforehand. Before creating the new Apple Watch, Apple consulted with numerous Swiss horologists.
Eliminate unnecessary event details.
You know how your TV remote has a million buttons, some of which you’ve never used and some of which you have no idea how they work? That’s feature creep. It starts off as adding every good idea to the table. Soon, your team loses focus and the experience becomes overwhelming.
Apple chooses key products to focus on (this year at Apple Live: the iPhone 6 and iWatch) and make them overwhelmingly excellent. Instead of acquiring Square and having to integrate technologies, Apple built its own NFC payment system, Apple Pay.
Create a great first impression.
People DO judge a book by its cover. Apple obsesses over its package design because of that fact. Your event website or front-facing registration page is often your first point of interaction with potential attendees. To better serve your attendees, you’ll want a site with a clean layout that is also mobile accessible. Choose a site that lets you incorporate your branding, so your attendee’s experience begins from the day they hit “Register”. At Message Blocks, we’ve created custom event registration pages that put your organization’s information front and center.
Make your attendees your evangelists.
People who love your event will not only keep coming back every year but will line up year after year and also tell their friends to go. Reward repeat attendees with special early-bird discounts. If people are saying positive things on Twitter, re-tweet them. Make your content easy to share by providing a boilerplate about the event. If you have the resources, create an event feed like Apple Live to share live updates with your fans.
Don’t be afraid to try something new.
It's easy to say "this it the way we've all done it," but don't be afraid to experiment with the tried-and-true, like your venue or theme. As Henry Ford and later Steve Job famously said, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." Your attendees can't always tell what they're looking for in an event, so you have to figure it out. Stay current by following the #eventprofs conversation on Twitter, reading event blog like this one, and attending industry events, e.g. MPI, ISES.
Have you been inspired by Apple’s marketing philosophy? What tricks have you tried?
Photo Credit (all): Apple Live