In our offices at Sunrise Marketing we have long maintained a separation between Macs (for graphic work) and PCs (for accounting and web). While there were times of frustration where I wanted to throw the PCs out the windows, I was always reluctant to add more Macs because of the cost. Just adding the necessary software to the Mac (MS Office, Quark, Dreamweaver, Adobe, etc.) would effectively double the price. It did bug me that buying a Mac meant you still might have to add Office in order to work on spreadsheets, Word documents and PowerPoint. It has always been a luxury of sorts for me to have both a Mac and PC on my desk and when my Mac died a few years ago I didn't replace it.
However, when I decided to get more involved with creating digital media for the web my research pointed me back to my old favorite - a Mac. Although I could have purchased a PC for significantly less, I found that the capability of the Mac far outweighed the savings on the PC. When I factored in what I could accomplish with Garage Band (for generating podcasts), IMovie (for video production) and Keynote (for Powerpoints) the decision to buy was a slam dunk. In addition I learned about the one-to-one service at my local Apple store. With this service (a $99 purchase for the year) I could schedule an unlimited amount of one hour tutorial sessions with a Mac genius.
I am about the leave for an appointment this morning for my second session. Getting this type of support is rare these days, but I think it can serve as a model for any size business when you understand you are a service company. After all, with most products reaching a commodity status, the only thing that can separate you from your competition is your expertise and customer service.
So as you plan out your 2010 marketing strategies keep in mind that you will rarely, if at all, find Apple products 'on sale'. Rather they have built a business paying attention to every detail of the development and execution of their brand development. Your brand is the accumulation of the experience of your customers. Theirs is the only perception that matters. For me, I am sold on the Apple products since it goes far beyond the box I took home when I bought the Mac.
