Elon Musk is an entrepreneur who founded X.com (now known as PayPal) in 1999, Space X in 2002, and Tesla Motors in 2003. After selling his startup company Zip2, Musk became a multimillionaire before he even turned 30. Steve Jobs, on the other hand, was an entrepreneur, inventor and designer who co-founded Apple Computer and in turn dictated the evolution of today’s technology.

Both of these tech wizards have made their mark in the world with their success and without a doubt, they are both great marketers. As such, we’ve put together 3 helpful marketing strategies that we’ve learned from them in this article.

Mention your competitors by name

Brands may avoid mentioning other brands during presentations or talks because they do not want to step on any toes or want to avoid looking like a bad person by doing so. However, this is something that both Apple and Tesla have already done.

In 2007, during the launch of the very first iPhone, Jobs talked down on his competitors, particularly MotoO, BlackBerry, Nokia e62, and Palm Treo. Not only did he point out each phone’s flaws, but he also proved why the iPhone was better than their products.

Musk has openly bashed Ford on stage, as well, saying their Ford Tough slogan couldn’t be true and even saying that their cars’ doors were made out of tissue paper. And the audience loved it!

Musk even showed footage of a Cybertruck pulling an F Ford-150 uphill once.

Try to turn bad publicity into good publicity

Musk does a great job at avoiding disaster, thanks to his counter actions and his strategy to always put the consumer first. This was especially evident during the Roadster launch in 2017, which he launched to make up for the delay of Tesla Model 3 deliveries.

To pacify the customers who were waiting for their Tesla Model 3, he gave them the option to drive a Roadster in exchange for having to wait another year for their Tesla Model 3. Of course, it is important to time these things perfectly, too, though.

Use social proof

If you’ve ever gotten curious after seeing a long line of people queuing up for something, that is the impact of social proof. In today’s day and age, people always seem to want what other people want, regardless of whether they had any inclination of wanting it in the first place.

Jobs was a master at this. He was able to hype people up so much that they ended up lining up for the iPhone even when the smartphone market was already overly saturated at the time.

Musk also did the same with cybertrucks, which now has a much wider audience of customers who want the design, look, sustainability, and horsepower that they have to provide.

How AM Collective can help your business in digital marketing?

AM Collective is a branding and digital marketing agency born and based in Singapore. We are also a social media agency which also owns a group of digital properties.

Our clients include Huawei, NTUC Enterprise, Grab, Starhub, Junction 8, Capitol Singapore and CHIJMES, among others.

We make every marketing idea into reality for every business.

The article was written by Soon Koon.