Yesterday iTunes announced that the Beatles collection would now be available for download.
This is a big deal because there have trademark issues etc – that prevented both parties from coming to an agreement.
For the most part – this is good news. Now Beatles fans can have their music and Apple successfully negotiated something that they have been chasing for awhile.
Under normal circumstances I would have heard this news – and in some, ever so small, remote way been, I guess the word is happy, that everything worked out for the people involved.
But Apple did a funny thing.
The day before the announcement they put up a big banner on their main site – not just iTunes – promising the following:
Tomorrow is a new day.
A day you will never forget.
And then they had a series of clocks indicating the time of the announcement across time zones.
Now Apple fans everywhere were curious, were expectant of something HUGE – something they would never forget. What could it be?
When the Beatles announcement was made – there was a collective let down. We were expecting something we would tell our grandkids about – and this was it? Please.
It is really a shame. Because if the bar had been set lower, something like “We’ve got good news” or if they had invited their customers to help them celebrate this victory “Tomorrow let’s celebrate.” – we all would have been happy for Apple for this achievement. We might have been tempted to buy that Beatles song that we like.
Instead we are left scratching our heads and wondering “What the heck?”
This mistake reminds us about that Golden Rule of business – Know Your Customers.
If you run a business – big or small – and that includes your website. Define your target audience – write for them, give them reasons to support you and your endeavors.
If Apple had done this over the past few days – the publicity would have been better, and the customers would have been satisified.
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