How Apple changed their messaging (to survive)

Read time: 4 minutes

Hey there 👋 - it's Brian.

Today, Apple is the model for innovation. In 1977, half the world thought it would fail because it had a different operating system.

Apple turned that difference from their reason for failure into their biggest success.

How? They convinced customers that "different" is "innovation."

Today, let's talk about how Apple changed their messaging and grew their value 3x in 12 months. I'll also give you the tools you need to inspire customers to buy from your business.

If you find this helpful, please forward to your friends to help grow the community.

If you were forwarded this email, join our community by clicking below:

1 Story: How Apple turned their weakness into an inspiration

It's 1977. Customers around the world think Apple is dying. People are referring to their computers as “toys”  that can't compute.

Apple is promoting how great their computer is, but the message is not resonating.

Think about it. Would this phrase convince you to buy? 👇
"The APPLE-1 SYSTEM is a fully assembled, tested, & burned-in microprocessor board using the 6502 microprocessor."

Apple's market share was shrinking and they needed a drastic change to survive.

So they called an advertising agency to revolutionize their message and give one more push for the world to take Apple seriously.

They needed to move away from features and inspire customers to love what made them different: their operating system.

People thought their different operating system was worse. Apple needed to change this perspective, or the company fails.

So they decided on a new campaign: they'd show photos of movers and shakers who had the courage to be different (Einstein, Edison, Gandhi) and use the slogan: "Think Different."

It worked. Customers wanted to be seen as innovators. The conversation re-framed customers to think that this difference is superior.

This new messaging got people to rally behind the company. Apple's stock price tripled that year.

1 Strategy: Inspire customers before you help them

Apple pushed features instead of benefits and had no traction with its ads. But people are motivated to buy based on emotion.

So they transformed their messaging to speak to customer emotion.

Here's how you can do the same.

1) List your customer's motivations

Every person is looking to relieve their pain. So the more you understand what your customer's deepest motivations the more customers you'll persuade to buy your solution.

Get your customers on the phone so we can find their pain.

But ask questions the wrong way and customers will guide you to build the wrong solution.

Steal these Y Combinator tested questions to get to know their pain better than your competitors:

1) "What's the hardest thing about [doing this thing]?
2) "Tell me about the last time you encountered that problem?
3) "Why was that hard?"
4) "What, if anything, have you done to solve the problem?"
5) "What don't you love about the solutions you've tried?"

Look for patterns in customer responses:

• Are there certain customer types who experience the same pain?

• Same type of people the customer is with when the pain happens?

• Is there a specific scenario that keep occurring around the pain?

• What alternatives are the customers trying?

Detect the patterns and use their same vocabulary in your messaging.

If you want more detail on the motivations behind each question, here's a breakdown.

2) Embed their motivations into your messaging

Now, we know what pain customers are dealing with. So let's use that language in our messaging to make customers feel as though we're speaking directly to them.

Write a message that takes the customer pain and explains how you'll take the customer on a transformation to a life without the pain.

Let's get into a few examples of how companies embed the pain into their messaging:

1) Email is slow and disorganized?
Message: "People, tools and communication in one place, you can work faster and more flexibly than ever before."- Slack

2) Takes too long to set up a meeting?
Message: "Eliminate the back-and-forth emails for finding the perfect time."- Calendly

3) Your office service requests take too long?
Message: "The Now Platform® connects people, functions, and systems across your organization."- ServiceNow

In Apple's case, their problem was that customers perceived their different operating system as a bad thing. Their messaging had to convert customer opinion to make "different" be a good thing.

So they took examples of visionaries who approached the world differently and messaged that if customers approach the world differently, they too can be an innovator.

They plastered the "Think Different" slogan in all their messaging:

• TV ads

• Posters

• Magazines/Newspapers

Apple led their messaging with their why and inspired customers to embrace the difference.

To wrap up, Simon Sinek has a beautiful explanation on how Apple transformed their sales by inspiring customers. Well worth the watch:

That's a wrap!

If you have any questions, reply to this email and I'm happy to guide you.

If you found this helpful, please forward this email to 1 friend or colleague. They'll appreciate you and you'll help grow the community.

See you next Thursday 👋

Brian

Clickworthy Resources

• Book: Learn to use stories to turn customers into raving fans

• Book: Ask customers questions that don't mislead you to build the wrong solution

• Story of Think Different - from the perspective of the campaign creator