iPhone 4 welcome email – I’m in shock!

DISCLAIMER: I’ve been meaning to write this post since I received this email in August 2010.

I got my iPhone 4 when it first came out and registered it immediately, but I was shocked when I actually received an email from Apple about how to use the phone and the new features. For all of the Apple products I’ve purchased (there have been a few….), this was the first product and related welcome email that I’ve received about enhancing my experience with the iPhone. I didn’t even get one when I purchased their server product – which is definitely more involved and tricky than the iPhone.

So you could imagine how happy I was when I received this. I clicked straight through to look at what was different and expore the landing page. See the email and the landing page below.

Apple iPhone4 - Welcome email - August 2010

Apple iPhone4 - Welcome landing page - August 2010

LEARNINGS:
There are a few learnings that can be taken away from this Apple example:

1. WELCOME EVERYONE – the best experience anyone can have is to be welcomed to a brand, service or product they have just purchased and taken the time to register. If you are selling anything, you should ensure that you are sending an email that will provide the user or your new customer with some information about how they can get the most of their recent purchase. You already have all of the information for the selling, it is just completing the process and reusing it so you are continuing the sales process in the iniital few weeks of their purchase.
2. CHECK IN – an enhancement to what Apple are doing would have been to send a survey a month after purchase to see how I was doing with the phone, specifically looking at how I’m using it, what I’m using the phone for, the good, areas for improvement and any other enhancements. This is the perfect testing ground for future new product development and a cheap market research for the company.
3. ONGOING UPDATES – Apple are starting to get better at this, but there are still areas they can improve. Any updates to the software should be communicated via email rather than just via iTunes. For the bigger updates, Apple are communicating with there consumers, but the smaller ones are a self discovery.

 

Overall, I was very happy that Apple sent this email. Let’s just ensure that they continue on this process and welcome new people/customers to all of their products moving forward.

 

ASSOCIATED APPLE & EMAIL MARKETING POSTS I’VE WRITTEN:

• Apple does local area marketing (LAM) – OMG!
• Air NZ email update – simple, but I love it
• T2 – the best tea, but the worst newsletter program (emails)
• How companies are recognising customer’s birthday? Sephora email
• How to make an email look great but work from a template – Air NZ
• What’s working in emails? MailerMailer email marketing report (June 2009)
• Who has the best designed emails? Air NZ
• How to make the most of email templates? J.Crew
• Do you need a welcome? J.Crew thinks so
• How to encourage sales by email? Bluefly
• What else could Apple be doing in their emails?

PRESO: Future of digital engagement

Early in November I presented at a company conference on the Future of Digital Engagement, particularly focusing on what is happening in Australia.

The presentation covers four key areas:

1. History of the Internet (quick timeline)
2. Australian online habits
3. 3 Game Changers – Google, Steve Jobs and Apple, and Social Networks
4. Key take outs (summary).

The preso is available for view below and download at my slideshare page. I only uploaded it last night on slideshare and it’s already made it to the home page. YAY!

Enjoy and welcome feedback!

What’s working in emails? MailerMailer email marketing report (June 2009)

I’ve just found a great email marketing report from MailerMailer (published June 2009) that provides an overview of what is happening with email stats for emails sent through their system. I’d recommend a quick skim over the report, but if you don’t have time I’ve done it for you (see summary and key stats below).

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WHAT DOES THE REPORT SAY?

Most people will open their emails in the first 24hrs, but only a small percentage will click through to the content (less than 3%). It’s best to send emails on a weekend or Monday with a subject line under 35 characters. Personalisation needs to be more than just the subject line.

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WHAT ARE THE STATS?

As a top line summary, here are the key findings:

1. How Soon Do People Open Their Email?
74.5% of opens occur within the first 24 hours and 84.3% occur within the first 48 hours.

2. Open Rates
The overall unique open rates stand at 12.52% which is a marginal decline from the 13.20% open rate experienced in the first half of 2008.

3. Click Through Rates
Click rates held steady. Subscriber clicks in the second half of 2008 were comparable to those in the previous six months, rising a mere 0.08%.

4. Best Days to Send
Though weekends and the beginning of the week outperform the other days, Monday is the clear winner having both the highest open rate and click rate.

5. Subject Lines
Yet again, emails with subject lines shorter than 35 characters were opened more than emails with subject lines longer than 35 characters.

6 .Personalization
Personalization can be good. Data shows when only the message is personalized, there are more opens and clicks. However, emails with only the subject line personalized garnered the least amount of opens and clicks.

7. Deliverability
For the second year now, deliverability continues to increase and bounces continue to decrease. This means more messages are reaching recipients’ inbox.

8. Number of Recipients
Messages delivered to small and medium lists have far greater open and click rates than messages delivered to lists containing 1000 or more subscribers. A smaller list does not directly affect open and click rates, but mailings to smaller lists may be targeted better, contain more relevant content or have more recent subscribers.

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WHO HAS THE BEST OPEN & CLICK THROUGH RATES?
Here are the trends in open rates and click through rates by day, you can see that Sunday and Monday are the most popular.

Email Open & Click Through Rates

In previous reports, it has been recommended to send emails on Tuesday at around 11am. Obviously this trend has changed.

Having a look at the click through rates by industry shows that religious and spiritual emails have the highest click through and travel related emails are next.

Email Click Through Rates by Industry

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WHAT WORKS IN SUBJECT LINES?
Below is a word cloud of the most popular subject lines. They centre around news, party, free, holiday, weekend and night.

Popular Subject Lines in Emails

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DOES PERSONALISATION MATTER?
It’s interesting to look at personalisation and how it effects open rates and click through rates.

Email Open & Click Through Rates based on Personalisation

Key take out is that you need to do more than just personalise the subject line.

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HOW MANY LINKS MATTERS?
The more links in an email that subscribers can click through to, the more likely they are to click through. I know it sounds pretty straight forward, but not sure if I would want over 20 links in an email just to encourage me to click through.

Email Click Through Rates based on number of Links

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RELATED POSTS:

• Who has the best designed emails? Air NZ
• How to make the most of email templates? J.Crew
• Do you need a welcome? J.Crew thinks so
• How to encourage sales by email? Bluefly
• What else could Apple be doing in their emails?
• Overview of Apple’s email marketing
• What are the commen elements in Apple’s emails?
• Why does everyone love Apple’s emails?
• How many emails is too many? Qantas Frequent Flyer, Air NZ and Apple
• What questions to ask consumers to tailor email communications?
• What are email best practices?
• How to ensure subscribers see HTML emails?
• What & when retailers send emails? Tesco, Coles & ALDI
• Coles Supermarket – great email communications & templates

Who has the best designed emails? Air NZ

I hate to say it but airline newsletters are boring. All they focus on are pushing deals and deals with little or no personality included. This is true for all airlines except Air New Zealand.

It doesn’t matter if it is a domestic or international email/offer, every piece of communication has been designed really well. There are elements of every email that are the same, but each have their own idea and design, all represented in the email header (see screens below).

Air NZ Domestic Sale Take Off email

Air NZ Domestic Deals email

Air NZ Gotta Go Domestic Deals email

Air NZ Gotta Go Domestic Deals email 2

Air NZ Get Packing email (holiday deals)

Air NZ Great Aussie Deals emails

Air NZ Best of the West email

Air NZ Quick Aussie Escapes email

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OBSERVATIONS:

• Email header: all emails provide the ability to view the email online or to manage your email preferences.
• Preview pane: the most important part of the email is what is visable in the preview panel. This is what will encourage consumers to click through. The preview panel of each of the above emails is very engaging and encourages opens.
• Logo: the Air NZ logo appears on the top left-hand side of every email. The only exception is for the holiday deals email (see above Get Packing example).
• Headline driven: each of the email is headline driven. All of the headlines relates to the offer or element that is being promoted in the email.

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Stay tuned for more Air NZ email review posts. They are coming through soon.

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RELATED POSTS:

• How to make the most of email templates? J.Crew
• Do you need a welcome? J.Crew thinks so
• How to encourage sales by email? Bluefly
• What else could Apple be doing in their emails?
• Overview of Apple’s email marketing
• What are the commen elements in Apple’s emails?
• Why does everyone love Apple’s emails?
• How many emails is too many? Qantas Frequent Flyer, Air NZ and Apple
• What questions to ask consumers to tailor email communications?
• What are email best practices?
• How to ensure subscribers see HTML emails?
• What & when retailers send emails? Tesco, Coles & ALDI
• Coles Supermarket – great email communications & templates

How to make the most of email templates? J.Crew

While doing an email review of J.Crew, I came across three key templates that they use for all of their email communications.

1. Sales email: this is a headline (text) lead email on a block of colour (usually pastel) promoting an upcoming sale or the final days.
2. Single product email: this is a single product/image lead email with a strong headline supported by minimal copy. The image is usually of a female wearing the products. It focuses on one product or feature (new online catalogue).
3. Mulitple product email: this is an email that promotes multiple products from within the J.Crew range. The products/images are the hero and can either be worn or are product shots. There is minimal copy to support the images.

The great thing about J.Crew is they use these templates, but they are not restricted to them (see screens below).

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1. SALES EMAIL

J.Crew 30% Discount Woman's Swim email

J.Crew Summer Sale Starts email

J.Crew Summer Sale New Additions email

J.Crew Private Sale email

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2. SINGLE PRODUCT EMAIL

J.Crew Dress up your Boyfriend email

J.Crew New Online Catalogue email

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3. MULTIPLE PRODUCT EMAIL

J.Crew Jenna's May Picks email

J.Crew May Additions email

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OBSERVATIONS

• Email header: in every email header there is an overview of the offer, a click to view images and viewing on a mobile device. This is standard across all of the emails.
• Navigation: the key navigation is consistent across all emails. The logo appears at the top and all key sections are constant. The forward to a friend option is highlighted.
• Unsubscribe: this is constantly included at the bottom of every email.
• Headline driven: all of the above templates are headline driven. Very different to most email programs, where the images drive all communications.
• Minimal copy: even in the multiple product emails, there is very little copy. The images and the headlines are the heroes.

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RELATED POSTS:

• Do you need a welcome? J.Crew thinks so
• How to encourage sales by email? Bluefly
• What else could Apple be doing in their emails?
• Overview of Apple’s email marketing
• What are the commen elements in Apple’s emails?
• Why does everyone love Apple’s emails?
• How many emails is too many? Qantas Frequent Flyer, Air NZ and Apple
• What questions to ask consumers to tailor email communications?
• What are email best practices?
• How to ensure subscribers see HTML emails?
• What & when retailers send emails? Tesco, Coles & ALDI
• Coles Supermarket – great email communications & templates

Do you need a welcome? J.Crew thinks you do

As part of most email or newsletter programs, there is a confirmation or activation email that is sent after you subscribe online. The next email you receive after that is the first newsletter from the company.

I subscribed to the J.Crew newsletter in mid-April and was shocked to see a Welcome email from them in my inbox the following day (see screens below).

JCrew Welcome to The Club email

Even though there is not much in this email, I like that it welcomes me to The Club. It’s a positive experience.

The other positive thing about J.Crew is that they don’t spam like other retailers. Since signing up to the program in mid-April, I have only received 16 emails – which is about one every few days (see emails received below). With Bluefly, I receive at least one a day pushing me to buy something.

JCrew Emails received - 12 April - 6 June 2009

There are a few common themes with the email details sent by J.Crew:

• Time: all emails are sent in the morning (or in the afternoon US time), usually between 3.30am – 7.00am. There was only one sent later, but majority are within that timeframe.
• Subject lines: there is no consistency in the treatment of subject lines – some are in CAPS, others are normal text, some promote sales, others promote products. The common element is that majority are reasonably short and aren’t consistent.
• Frequency: the first and last 10 days of the month are the most active. Within this period, there is an email sent every other day.

Stay tuned for some more J.Crew email learnings.

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RELATED POSTS:

• How to encourage sales by email? Bluefly
• What else could Apple be doing in their emails?
• Overview of Apple’s email marketing
• What are the commen elements in Apple’s emails?
• Why does everyone love Apple’s emails?
• How many emails is too many? Qantas Frequent Flyer, Air NZ and Apple
• What questions to ask consumers to tailor email communications?
• What are email best practices?
• How to ensure subscribers see HTML emails?
• What & when retailers send emails? Tesco, Coles & ALDI
• Coles Supermarket – great email communications & templates

Overview of Apple’s email marketing

OK, so I have become a little obsessed with Apple’s email marketing and understanding what they are doing and not doing.

Below is a presentation showing Apple’s email marketing or a collection of all the images used in the previous posts, as well as a screen grab of the email visable in the preview panel. It’s an interesting journey and has definitely helped me understand more about their ongoing communications and why clients love Apple so much.

QUESTION:

Are there any other company emails/newsletters that you think are doing a great job? Would be really interested to read anything else?

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RELATED POSTS:

• What else could Apple be doing in their email?
• What are the common elements in Apple’s emails?
• Why does everyone love Apple’s newsletters?
• How many emails is too many? Qantas Frequent Flyer, Air NZ and Apple
• What questions to ask consumers to tailor email communications?
• What are email best practices?
• How to ensure subscribers see HTML emails?
• What & when retailers send emails? Tesco, Coles & ALDI
• Coles Supermarket – great email communications & templates

How to encourage sales through email? Bluefly

Bluefly is one of the best email retail marketers. They do send very frequent emails, but they have encouraged me to order from them twice in the past month due to the great discounts and sales they constantly have.

On Friday and Saturday, I received an email from Bluefly promoting their handbags and shoes sale. The great thing about the two emails is that they are very similar with only very subtle differences (see if you can spot them below). The email sent on Saturday pushed the limited time remaining and urgency around the offer – it also provided an even bigger discount.

Bluefly email - FINAL DAYS (Friday email)

Bluefly email - FINAL HOURS (Saturday email)

There are a couple of differences between the emails:

• Discount rate: changes from 55% to 60%
• Final hours image on the second email
• Subject lines: highlight the urgency of the offer (see below)

Bluefly email overview

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OBSERVATIONS

• Adapt rather than create – if an offer is time dependent, it is best to ensure that there is another communication to highlight the urgency. Rather than developing another piece of creative, why not just adapt or update the creative you have. A very cost effective way to remind the customer base to engage.
• Subject line updates – use caps within the subject line to highlight the key message or offer.
• Relevant frequency – even though I received two emails within 10hours of each other I didn’t mind. The key reason was the second email offered me an added incentive/bonus/offer. If emails are going to be sent frequently (or within 24hours of the previous one) ensure there is something that the customer base will want.

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RELATED EMAIL POSTS

• What else could Apple be doing in their emails?
• Overview of Apple’s email marketing
• What are the commen elements in Apple’s emails?
• Why does everyone love Apple’s emails?
• How many emails is too many? Qantas Frequent Flyer, Air NZ and Apple
• What questions to ask consumers to tailor email communications?
• What are email best practices?
• How to ensure subscribers see HTML emails?
• What & when retailers send emails? Tesco, Coles & ALDI
• Coles Supermarket – great email communications & templates

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Written by Dominique Hind

What else could Apple be doing in their emails?

As a summary to my review of Apple’s email marketing, there is really only one thing to look at: what else should Apple be doing with their email communications? Overall, like everything Apple does, it works. It is clean, simple and effective.

There really aren’t too many other things they should be doing. I have thought of three things they could be doing more of:

1. Bundling: Apple have got their product emails sorted, they are clean and very focused, but there is a huge opportunity for bundling. They have started this with the latest uni newsletter. However, they can be doing this with so much more.
2. Asking questions: Apple have never sent me a survey or asked me how I want to interact with them. I’m getting a combination of messages: software, product and event. I’m happy to receive all types, but they are all dry messages. I want something more. More content or more relevance to help me expand my knowledge.
3. Tailor content: They know what products I have, but the messaging isn’t relevant to this, ie upgrade messaging rather than buy. Where is the accessories push or up-sell in all of these emails?

The common theme throughout these additions is the data smarts and intelligence. There really aren’t many companies getting that right within this space. Victoria Secret‘s and the other US retailers (Bluefly, GAP) are really pioneering the way. They are able to determine your site activity and marry it back to your data and actions, ie if you leave something in the shopping cart on their site, you get an email letting you know it is still there for a limited time.

Most companies think a blanket email (one email for all customers) is enough. With email being so cheap it means you can test things and really understand what works for consumers. The ideal would be to use email as a test bed before any of the above the line communications goes out. Similar to search, it gives you the opportunity to test real-time what is working with your customers before rolling it out with a bigger budget.

Due to the financial opportunity, I wonder if companies will start to realise this and place more importance on communicating to the customers they already have and using them as a test case before spending millions and millions of dollars on media and creative.

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RELATED POSTS:

• Overview of Apples email marketing
• What are the common elements in Apple’s emails?
• Why does everyone love Apple’s newsletters?
• How many emails is too many? Qantas Frequent Flyer, Air NZ and Apple
• What questions to ask consumers to tailor email communications?
• What are email best practices?
• How to ensure subscribers see HTML emails?
• What & when retailers send emails? Tesco, Coles & ALDI
• Coles Supermarket – great email communications & templates

What are the common elements in Apple’s emails?

As part of Apple’s ongoing customer communications, they send three different type of emails:

1. Product: specifically relating to a new product launch or upgrade
2. Software: similar to product, these types of emails relate to a new software launch or upgrade
3. Event: these emails are around particular times of the year – Post Christmas, Valentine’s Day and return to uni.

Below is a review of each email type and the common themes for each.

PRODUCT EMAILS

Each of the product emails is slightly different, but there are some common elements to all of them:

• Logo: the Apple logo always appears at the top. It’s only in the MacMini email that the logo appears as part of the computer screen. All other emails it appears either top left (majority) or top right with a lot of space around it.
• Header: each header contains descriptive product text with a stong, clean product image. The MacMini email is the only one where the product image appears above the text.
• Header CTA: the header has a strong call to action encouraging the user to ‘BUY NOW’ (in a button).
• Imagery: each product email has a strong connection to the copy – all very large.
• Content: under the header, the product content is diplayed in columns. Each column having copy with an image that reflects what is written. The columns vary from 2 to 4, depending on the product.
• CTA: each email has a clear call to action at the bottom of the email. Replicating the similar format of all other emails: two boxes both promoting purchase – one online and the other instore.

Apple MacMini email - 19 March 2009

Apple iPod/Shuffle email - 13 March 2009

Apple iMac email - 7 March 2009

Apple MacBook email - 26 Feb 2009

SOFTWARE EMAILS

Each of the software emails is slightly different, but there are some common elements to all of them:

• Logo: the Apple logo appears in the top left hand corner
• Header: each header displays the name of the software in a very creative way and ensures the user knows what the email is about
• Header CTA: the header has a strong call to action within it (button) either focusing on purchase or trial
• Imagery: the MacBook Pro is used to bring the software to life via three separate computer, each featuring a different element of the software
• Content: under each of the hero images there is some copy explaining the software. There are only a few lines, which are enough to read before moving down to the software features.
• Features: the software features are highlighted with an image and then supporting copy. Both emails start with the image on the left hand side with copy to the right and for the next software feature it is reversed (copy on the left, imagery on the right).
• CTA: each email has a clear call to action at the bottom of the email. Replicating the similar format of all other emails: two boxes both promoting purchase – one online and the other in-store.

Apple iLife email - 30 January 2009

Apple iWork email - 16 January 2009

EVENT EMAILS

Each of the event emails is slightly different, but there are some common elements to all of them:

• Logo: the Apple logo appears at the top of the email, either top left or top right
• Header: each header is a little different, but it heroes the product
• Header CTA: the header has a strong call to action (button) focusing on ‘SHOP NOW’, which is different to the ‘BUY NOW’ buttons used in the above emails. I’m assuming this is because there are multiple products being communicated in these emails rather than just one.
• Imagery: strong product shots are used for each email.
• Content: under each of the hero images there is some copy introducing other products that might be relevant for the user. In the Valentine’s email, all of the content is iPod specific: Shuffle, iTunes Gift Cards and iPod Touch. In the December email, there is conent around the different product categories: iPod, Mac, iPhone and iPod & iPhone.
• CTA: each email has a clear call to action at the bottom of the email. Replicating the similar format of all other emails: two boxes both promoting purchase – one online and the other in-store.

Apple Valentine's email - 27 January 2009

Apple Valentine's email - CTA

Apple Post Christmas email - 31 December 2008

Apple December email - CTA

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LEARNINGS

Based on reviewing the above emails there are some learnings that we can take out of Apple’s email communications:

• Different types of communications: Ensure that you have a framework that allows for more than just product emails. There needs to be a combination of emails that are sent to the consumer. The ideal combination is product and event. Both educating and pushing sales.
• Set guidelines rather than templates: guidelines have more flexibility than templates, therefore it is important to set some guidelines for your email communications. These should details: logo treatments, header options, use of imagery, use of content, CTA, privacy, etc.
• Product shots are key: most clients don’t have the budget to do a photo shoot for emails, but maybe they should. The key to all of these emails is the imagery and it’s simplicity.

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RELATED POSTS

• Why does everyone love Apple’s newsletters?
• How many emails is too many? Qantas Frequent Flyer, Air NZ and Apple
• What questions to ask consumers to tailor email communications?
• What are email best practices?
• How to ensure subscribers see HTML emails?
• What & when retailers send emails? Tesco, Coles & ALDI
• Coles Supermarket – great email communications & templates

Why does everyone love Apple’s newsletters?

Whenever we ask a client for a competitor/company who is doing email marketing well or someone they aspire to be like, most answer with Apple. Not sure if this is because most companies what to be like Apple or whether they really are the cutting edge of email marketing. Keep reading if you want to know more.

The common reasons why Apple are perceived to be doing emails well are:

1. Design: a combination of beautiful imagery and a lot of white space
2. Content: it is always relevant to the consumer, single minded (about one product or event) and short
3. Exclusive: you feel like you are part of the Apple club as soon as you receive anything

Apple have a fluid approach to sending emails and their frequency. There is no rigid structure or routine to their sends, ie there isn’t a monthly newsletter about a collection of products. Their approach is to send an email focusing on one product, highlighting the features of that product with strong calls to action. They may send between 3 – 4 emails in a month depending on their NPD cycle.

Apple Emails - 15 January - 20 April 2009

A summary of the number of emails sent:

• January: 3 emails (2 x software, 1 x event: Valentines)
• February: 1 email (1 x product)
• March: 4 emails (3 x product, 1 x event: uni)

What do Apple do well?

• Frequency: Apple don’t have a set frequency of communications. When they have something of interest they send it out, they don’t wait to fill a monthly newsletter.
• Focus: the emails are focused on one product or event. They don’t try to include too many products into the email or tell the consumer too much. There is a focus on providing enough information about a product and then pushing consumers through to the website to find out more.
• Strong CTA: at the bottom of every email there are strong calls to action that are consistent across all areas (see screen shots below). There are two elements: shop online and come in store.
• Design: all emails have been designed so that all the information is displayed on screen if a user has opened the email. A post on this is in progress and will be live in the next few days.
• Preview: there is enough information displayed in the preview window to encourage a user to open the email. Most emails have a headline and a strong email to encourage this. A post on this is in progress and will be live in the next few days.

STRONG CTA

Apple Call to Action - 31st December email

Apple iMac Call to Action - product email

Apple iPod Call to Action - product email

Apple MacBook Call to Action - product email

Apple MacMini Call to Action - product email

COMMON ELEMENTS

There are several commen elements within these calls to action:

• Two boxes: there are always two boxes. One promoting online shopping and the other promoting coming in store. Both pushing the consumer to make a purchase
• Imagery: whether it is human or iconic, there is some consistency to the imagery used throughout the calls to action. It looks as if Apple have a standard way of using the in store ‘Specialist’, far right. The first example above was used in one of the product bundling emails.
• Consistency: every email is pushing these two calls to action. The copy may change, but they are really saying the same thing just making it relevant for the product they are promoting.

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LEARNINGS

There are three key learnings that companies can take from Apple:

• Be focused: don’t try to put everything in one email. If there isn’t a topic/theme to hold all products together it isn’t worth forcing it. Be single minded and manage content around a topic/theme. If something doesn’t work this month, try it again next month.
• Understand your audience: don’t box yourself in to sending a monthly email, know what products your customers have and talk to them personally. Use them to gauge how often they want to receive communications from them and get their feedback into what they actually want to receive.
• Set rules: rather than setting rules based on frequency, set them based on content and themes. It isn’t essential to send a monthly newsletter, but it is to communicate regularly. What are your rules around communication?

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RELATED EMAIL POSTS

• How many emails is too many? Qantas Frequent Flyer, Air NZ and Apple
• What questions to ask consumers to tailor email communications?
• What are email best practices?
• How to ensure subscribers see HTML emails?
• What & when retailers send emails? Tesco, Coles & ALDI
• Coles Supermarket – great email communications & templates

500 million Ap Store Downloads – Apple marketing messages

iTunes has changed the way we interact with musc, movies and TV. It makes it easy for us consume so much more wherever and whenever we want to.

Apple celebrated the 500 million app download on its website (see screens below) in January 2009, one of the many milestones for the iTunes store.

It’s great Apple openly share their milestones with consumers. It makes people feel part of the success. I definitely know feel part of the special community because I have helped contribute to the downloads across apps, music, movies and TV.

Apple 500,000,000 downloads messaging

When users clicked through from this page, they arrived at an overview of the App store on the Apple page.

Apple Applications download

OBSERVATIONS

1. Clean – these pages aren’t cluttered. They are beautifully designed with a lot of white space.
2. Simple – as a user, you know where to click and what buttons will give you more information.
3. User focused – the header and copy is written in a consumer friendly way.
4. Openness – sharing the success helps build a community. It makes people feel like they are involved.

APPLE INTERESTING FACTS/TIMELINE

2001

• January – iTunes launched

2003

• April – iTunes Music Store launched in US
• April – Launched in United States
• May – One million songs sold
• May – 2 million songs sold
• June – 5 million songs sold
• September – 10 million songs sold
• October – iTunes goes cross-platform
• October – Available for windows. 13 million songs sold
• December – 25 million songs sold

2004

• March – 50 million songs sold
• April – 70 million songs sold
• June – Available in UK France Germany
• July – 100 million songs sold
• October – 150 million songs sold
• October – Available to music lovers in the European Union.
• December – Available in Canada
• December – 200 million songs sold

2005

• January – 250 million songs sold
• May – 400 million songs sold. Custom stores for music fans in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland
• October – iTunes Australia store launches
• October – iTunes movies launches
• October – 1 million videos sold
• December – 3 million videos sold

2006

• January – 850 million songs sold
• February – 50 million videos sold
• February – 1 billion songs sold
• September – iTunes now provides games
• September – 45 million videos sold
• November – iTunes created Latino and Hispanic content

2007

• January – 2 billion songs sold
• July – 3 billion songs sold
• July – 2 million feature length movies sold
• September – iTunes wi-fi store launched

2008

• January – 4 billion songs sold
• June – 5 billion songs sold
• June – iTunes music catalog 8,000,000 tracks
• June – iTunes has over 20,000 TV episodes, over 2,000 films, 350 or so of which are available in high definition.
• June – iTunes sells/rents an average of over 50,000 movies each day
• September – 100 million apps downloaded
• October – 200 million apps downloaded
• October – 200 million TV shows sold
• December – 300 million apps downloaded

2009

• January – 500 million apps downloaded
• January – 6 billion songs sold
• January – 15,000 third-party apps available