Steve Jobs was the backbone of Apple. Without him, Apple would never have existed, let alone reached the heights it still has today. In October 2011, we lost not only an iconic and visionary founder, but an inspiring human being who changed the way billions of people do things every day.
My purpose today is not to mourn the loss of a legend; the idea is to celebrate his achievements and learn from the revolutionary lessons he shared.
The three words that changed marketing
In June 2011, Steve Jobs took the stage at Apple's WWDC and delivered his final keynote address. In that speech, he repeated a single phrase that has always been a defining characteristic of Apple's products under his leadership:
«It just works.»
"It just works."
At the time, he was referring to iCloud and how users never have to interact with it. It works silently in the background, the apps on your phone interact with it for you. You don't have to partition anything, you don't have to allocate resources, you don't have to hire a developer to set it up for you. It just works.
And while this was referring to a single gambling data mexico Apple service, this simple phrase actually extends beyond that and across all of the company's products. It's one of the main reasons why so many people own multiple Apple products (including me of course).
Why spend $2,000 on a MacBook Pro when you could just spend a quarter of that on a similarly specced HP laptop? Because… it just works. It works with the iPhone I spend an average of three hours a day on (based on my weekly screen time reports). It works with my iPad. It works with the Apple Watch. It works with the AirPods Pro. It just works.
But wait a minute.
Why do I have all these Apple devices in the first place? Why didn't I just buy Android or PC or the equivalent of each and save myself a ton of cash?
The answer to that question is actually quite simple. And your answer is probably similar to mine.
It all started with an iPhone
When it came time to buy a smartphone, I naturally wanted the “cool” option: the one with a sleek design and interface, the one with an intuitive user experience, the one I’d been eating up with my friends ever since it came out. The obvious choice for me was an iPhone, the gold standard of smartphones. Although, admittedly, there are plenty of very good high-end options these days.
And once I got my first iPhone , I officially took my first step into the Apple ecosystem. I became the proud owner of an Apple product, a new member of the cult and a loyal follower of the company that embodied everything I dreamed of becoming.
And just like me, once I had an iPhone, the decision to buy the other devices was probably just as simple. Buy the laptop that’s completely isolated from my new best friend living in my pocket? Or buy the one that talks and syncs directly with it? It even features a lot of the same design elements, so it flattens the learning curve. How convenient. What’s an extra $1,500 anyway? Right?
And when I wanted a tablet, I obviously wanted an iPad. It does communicate with my iPhone, after all. It even downloads iPad-optimized versions of all the apps on my iPhone, automatically!
And when it comes time to buy a smartwatch, again, the choice will be obvious: buy the one that syncs with my phone.
The best marketing lesson from Steve Jobs
In all of these cases, my purchasing decision was heavily influenced by convenience . The biggest motivator for each was that it just works… with my iPhone.
And that's the big marketing lesson we can learn from Steve Jobs : convenience is the best marketing strategy. Make things easier for your customer. As long as the perceived value of that convenience is high enough, the price of your product/service will simply be a guiding factor in which customer buys.
“It just works” may have only been explicitly referring to cloud service that day. But when you step back and look at everything Steve Jobs did, it’s clear that those three words were a compass he turned to again and again to build and market Apple’s wildly successful products.
And this simple concept is the exact reason why you have happily purchased eight different Apple devices. Each of those purchases was driven by one simple mantra:
