What company wouldn’t kill to have their name in the press as often as Apple? The thing is it is possible, even if you are not coming out with a new product that boasts a 90 percent market share like the iPad.
Lessons Learned From Apple
- Apple constantly talks about the changes they are making to their current products, products they plan on debuting, and products that they are discontinuing, etc.
- They don’t shy away from saying that their product has a few bugs or doesn’t work the way they want it to.
- They don’t filter what people say about their product, instead, they respond accordingly.
- They are constantly developing new products, ideas, and ways to involve themselves in the constantly evolving marketplace.
- They market their products with the consumer’s purchase process in mind. For example, naming their third iPad “the New iPad.”
You might be thinking that it is easy for Apple to be featured in the press because they have a lot of new products coming out with a loyal customer base, however, even if you’ve just started your business taking a look at Apple’s overall strategy can help any organization.
Apple is following the simple mantra of PR, to get your name in front of as many people as possible so that there isn’t a single person who doesn’t know who you are. And they are doing it by using every possible method including online PR.
What to Say
Of course people like to read stories that are interesting, but if you look at most of the stories on Apple you will start to realize that the only thing that is interesting about them is the company in and of itself. The stories aren’t necessarily amazing, in fact they are sometimes negative. A recent headline concerning the company was “Apple’s iPad has problems – so what else is new?”
This headline was featured on CBS news, a fantastic news source that thousands of people see, if not tens of thousands of people. Put your company name in the title, “[your company]‘s new [product] has problems – so what else is new?” Perhaps you would go into a cold sweat if this showed up on CBS news, but it shouldn’t.
But why shouldn’t it? Because people like to read about things that are negative, not working, a problem or generally speaking, that are bad. Not everyone likes to read articles that are about good deeds done in the world. If you are skeptical try the test on yourself. Go to your favorite news source and see which articles you want to read the most. Don’t be afraid, just be ready to respond and build your reputation.
It’s Not All About You
One last tip, the story doesn’t have to be about you. All you should really care about is getting your name in front of the highest number of people. If there are 70 million people reading articles about the New iPad and you are a company that makes apps, take a hint and write a story about the iPad and get your name in front of that audience. Even if your company only contributes a quote about how excited you are that your apps will function smoothly on the new iPad. That is 70 million more people that have a chance of hearing your name than if your story was titled, “Joe’s Apps launches new cross browser app.”
While I have my own opinion about whether you should go to where your audience is or if you should try to make your audience come to you, tell me which method has worked best in your experience.
Apple has so much money they don’t even know what to do with it. The company has clearly grown tremendously and as proof, in December they marked a whopping $97.6 billion in profits. According to the Wall Street Journal, they could have bought major companies such as Hewlett Packard or even Goldman Sachs. However, the company instead took a different approach with their great sum of money and decided to do a $2.65 per share dividend and a buyback of $10 billion in company stock from shareholders. Steve Jobs usually didn’t take this form of action because he liked to have a sum of money set aside for security. 
