The title for sure is going to express a lot of points that I want to say in this post, and for most of them this concept can be seen as obvious, but in my experience Marketing is not only about target and advertising… marketing is about all the mechanisms that a company has to approach in a way to make its client happy with his own product.

Tweetie 2 is for sure one of the most usable Twitter clients for iPhone, I loved the previous version of this app, and when the second version came out I had no hesitation in downloading it.All the marketing mechanism that they did with the previous version granted them a great coverage of this new version and of course a lot of downloads (and revenue). The first version was easy, simple and reliable, it was doing its job perfectly without problems and cause of my happy experience I decided to upgrade.

After installation I was really happy about the experience and my expectations were met, but not for a long time. After a little I discovered

that it has big issues on synchronization and also in posting new messages, lots of time I was posting old messages again an again every time I was opening the application.

After a couple of weeks of waiting for an update (that never came) I switched to TweetDeck for iPhone, waiting for the update… but now after some time I managed to get used about the software and I’m not really sure to switch back. This is a personal example that shows some important treats that has to be considering on Marketing.

1. Reliability of the Product
If the product is not reliable don’t release it. Every time a new version of something that was perfect is released is bringing with it the expectations of the customers. A product that doesn’t work is unlikely to succeed and create a bad atmosphere around the Brand.

2. Chance for the Competition
When a product doesn’t work the customer loses faith on the brand and to get things done they go to a competitor. The competitor has in this way a chance to impress the new customer showing the solution for their needs. Once the customer is acquired by the competition and get used to the new product, he becomes really a big expense for the company to have it back.

3. Regeneration of the Brand Values
For the reason before not only the re-acquisition of the old customer has a bigger cost, but also the process of Regeneration of the Brand values owns a bigger cost. This is because there is the need to make a PR campaign to have those values back in the mind of possible customers.

To the satisfaction of the customer needs and of a launch of a product, there are a lot of steps involved, steps that has to be linked together and strongly considered. A product that doesn’t work can have the best marketing campaign ever, but if it isn’t reliable is a lack on the mechanism, a lack that compromises everything.

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There is no doubt that Mobile Marketing is growing and that the new technologies are giving to business some new possibilities, giving the possibility to every user to share ideas and opinions with others via a deeply linked internet environment.
In those days I had the possibility to play after some time this iPhone App called “Flight Control” available here on iTunes. This application is very famous and became viral for its innovative gameplay and possibility to challenge friends.

FireMint, the company that created this game managed to make a lot of revenue from this game, but most important managed to embed in the further versions of the game some more features that managed to keep up the user interest in this application, and recently by integrating social media in a way to challenge other people.

Social Application
This application today is able to share the users’s score on a web site and display them on a ladder where you can see how, who nearby your position, are doing with the same game. This is important because you can meet new people with the same interest on the game, challenge them in an ability contest, and see if your actual friends are playing with that. Other important feature that the company created is to merge those results with a Facebook application, where users can link their Facebook profile to their Flight Control profile and manage to create a stronger link between your actual friends. By making a deeper connections and reference between the real person profile (Facebook) and the gaming person profile (Flight Control), the company manages to ignite a deeper psychological aspect of friendship, because it make discover to friends more affinities between them, creating in this way the possibility to create a deeper link. This means also creating the bases for a great buzz marketing and word of mouth dynamic.

Corporate Responsibility
This application inside one of the last versions insert a new map, that is the Australian Outbacks, and they managed to use this update in a way to create a perception of Corporate Responsibility for the brand. On their Blog post it’s written on how they decided to implement the map with the idea of helping the Royal Flying Doctor Service. This map not only gives a new type of game to the user, but gives him consciousness of some reality that in other ways e would never have found.

This game and company made some great marketing experiences in a way to create an addicting product that creates a great word of mouth and also create a thematic responsible corporate image. This application is pure marketing at the web level.

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