Archive for June, 2010

Learn from Apple’s iPhone 4 Launch

Sometimes you can learn a lot by watching a product launch, product launches are much the same across all forms of products, be it the latest movie, an authors new book and even Apple’s brand new iPhone 4.

All of the three mentioned above are launched in much the same way as you would launch your product online, and they generally do three things.

Build a buzz, I have noticed this especially applies to movie launches, most of the time movies are announced weeks, sometimes months before they are released, and it works I don’t know how many times I’ve been watching TV and an ad for the latest movie has came on and I’ve actually been excited about seeing it when its finally released at the cinema.

Build excitement, nearer the release date excitement is built in the form of more TV ads, more info, billboards etc. Or in your case with pre-launch emails, for those of you who are into teenage wizardry you will have noticed this with the release of the latest Harry Potter book, near the release date there was a lot of excitement surrounding the book and that was achieved by 1. An already popular product 2. A hunger for more information (what happens next)

Scarcity, Scarcity is an amazingly powerful tool, if you know that you only have a limited time to get something the chances are you will want it more, this applies to Apple’s latest gadget the iPhone 4, I know how much scarcity can affect a buyers mind because I am experiencing it right now, because for those of you who don’t know the iPhone 4 launches in the UK on Thursday 24th of June, now my local Apple store opens at 8am and believe me I will be there long before the shutters go up to try and get my hands on one, and I’m sure I won’t be alone.

All of the above can be applied to you product launches online and there are plenty of products out there which can show you how to do it.

So next time you see a Movie trailer, a book commercial, or a new piece of gadget mastery, just remember it’s all marketing, so watch carefully and you can learn a thing or two.

Until next time,

Alex

Office Life Aint So Bad

This week at the office has been quite eventful, the sun has been shining here in sunny ol’ England and lunch by the river has been a daily occurrence.

The office is a brand new development situated on the site of an old Sunderland ship yard. Not many people know but Sunderland was once the largest shipbuilding town in the world, and although that industry is long gone it has been replaced by another one, car manufacturing. The Nissan plant is the most productive car plant in Europe which just goes to show we still know what we’re doing :-)

But anyway, lately Dad has been working with a student on a personal level, I’m not going to reveal his name yet, but for the purposes of this blog post we will call him… “Student X”. Student X has been coming into the office a few days a week to receive personal one on one support and he seems to be really enjoying it. Although I’m not a big fan of having to make an extra cup of tea :-)

Another thing about this week which I have been thoroughly enjoying is following my Dad’s MasterClass something which until this week I had never considered doing, but as I said in my last post I was driven to it by boredom, and I’m so glad I did. As you will probably have noticed I now have my graphics up and I think you will agree they look pretty awesome (nice one Steve) so I’ve decided I’m going to continue to follow the course, and who knows where I could end up.

Well that’s it for this post, some of us have helpdesk tickets to answer :-) , so if your ever drifting down the river Wear keep an eye out for me and my Dad (sausage roll in hand)

Until next time,

Alex

Welcome to My Blog

Hi and welcome to my blog which I have just set-up today, it has taken me no longer than two hours to create and I have done it all on my own by following my Dad’s MasterClass videos.

If you haven’t already guessed by the name my Dad is well known Internet Marketer John Thornhill, now I have been working for my Dad for some time after deciding that the course I was studying at college just wasn’t for me. I had been running the PlanetSMS Helpdesk for quite a few months previous but I had to fit it around my college work which wasn’t ideal. So a couple of months ago I decided to leave college and come and work for my Dad full time in his office, using my computer for something other than online games, and its in that office now where I’m sitting writing this post.

When I came into work today I had no intention of creating a blog, but when I had finished my daily tasks (including kettle duty) and answered all the Helpdesk tickets I was stuck for things to do. So I decided to create this blog and get posting and in just a couple of hours I have already covered the first 3 weeks of the Masterclass course.

So now Ive come to the conclusion that blogging really isn’t all that hard, well at least not so far, but I still need to learn to monetize it, and that’s where Dad comes in :-)

So that’s it for my first post don’t forget to keep checking back for more posts and office antics :-)

Alex,