What can you learn from Tesla and how to apply it in your own business?

Tesla Motors — this name nowadays is known not just by auto enthusiasts. First and foremost, Tesla is famous for its ingenious marketing solutions. Whatever challenges the automaker might be going through currently, no one can disregard Tesla’s achievements. Company’s practices became a true manual for marketing specialists. In order to make a name for yourself on the market in a similar way, Storist suggests studying this example.

Matching the trends

Tesla models include several electric cars, which corresponds with the latest global eco trends. The CEO of the company Elon Musk often speaks publicly about striving to save the environment and urges the governments of different countries to enact the relevant laws. At the same time, he uses his company as an example.

During his speech at Sorbonne University in 2015 Musk called for imposing a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. Moreover, he based it upon Tesla philosophy. This way he puts the notion in people’s minds that his company cares about the environment. It helped to increase the sales, and by the end of 2019 Tesla put almost 250 thousand electric cars on the market.

The process of following the latest trends in different areas became a factor in the marketing strategy of the company. When the whole world was facing COVID pandemic, Tesla suggested building respiratory ventilators from electric cars. In particular, the company’s engineers proposed using parts of the A/C system as well as a central display and computer from the infotainment system.

Finding benefits in failures

In 2019, when gamers around the world were waiting for the release of Cyberpunk 2077, a new pickup Tesla Cybertruck, which resembled classic superhero cars in cyberpunk style, was introduced. It made the automobile extremely recognizable. There were even some suggestions that the pickup prototype will appear in the actual game.

Yet even the creative ideas for projects can face some challenges. The manufacturer claimed that the Tesla Cybertruck provides ultimate durability and passenger protection. In order to prove this, chief designer Franz von Holzhausen tried to damage it during the presentation. First, he hit the doors with the sledgehammer, which endured well, but then he threw a steel ball into the window and it broke. However, it only seems like a tremendous failure. If the company is as popular as Tesla, and managed by a guy loved by the public as much as Elon Musk, you may yet have a chance.

After the event, Elon Musk tweeted that the previous steel ball test went well and the glass remained unbroken. The presentation video became viral and was followed by thousands of memes. Even Lego took a shot at Tesla by publishing a photo of their own toy car on Twitter saying “The evolution of the truck is here. Guaranteed shatterproof”. At the end of the day, Tesla managed to get 250 000 preorders, without spending anything on advertising.

Promos to grab your attention

Elon Musk has one of the most successful and memorable promos under his belt, which drew the world’s attention to both of his companies – SpaceX and Tesla. In 2018, Falcon Heavy, which was launched by SpaceX, delivered Musk’s red Roadster to orbit.

This time again Elon took a risk, because the rocket could have exploded even before the lift-off. Nevertheless, already a few days prior, he started to attract the attention for the upcoming event. He was doing it in his usual style – through tweets. On the day of the launching he wrote “Apparently, there is a car in orbit around Earth” and followed the message with a live steam link. Later, there was a posted commentary that humanity does pretty well for a bunch of apes.

Another thing that made launching more popular was the numerous allusions to pop-culture. The mannequin sitting in the Roadster looked like Stig from Top Gear, while David Bowie’s Space Oddity was playing in the speakers. The dashboard in front of the astronaut/car enthusiast had the “Don’t panic” writing on it, like in Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy”. A digital copy of “Foundation” series by Isaac Asimov along with the list of the names of six thousand SpaceX employees were stored in the glove box. The highest number of streaming users came up to 2.3 million, while the video of the flight got tens of millions views.

Do just like Elon!

You still can do effective marketing even without the money and influence of Elon Musk. You often have to think outside the box! You can learn from Seth Godin in his book Purple Cow. The author tells how to make your product or business so memorable that everyone would want to talk about it. He believes that you shouldn’t strive to be liked by everyone and to just make a good product. Godin states that the market is full of just the good products and no one really needs them.

So how to make a truly unique and outstanding product? Seth Godin gives some marketing plan examples:

Analyze your target audience, your competitors, and your area, in order to find a niche, which is not occupied.
Change your product, so that it would find a small group of fans.
Think about a small possible market and create the product that would surprise this market with its uniqueness.
Communicate with your loyal customers in order to understand what they are waiting for.
Find blind spots, which your competitors didn’t discover and fill them out.

In his other book – This Is Marketing – Seth Godin tells how to offer your unique product to the market in the right way. The author believes that the main purpose of marketing is to help the client change. For instance, if the customer buys a drill, it does not necessarily mean that he only wants to hang a picture on the wall. Perhaps, he wants gratitude and acknowledgement from his wife or calmness and confidence from the fact that the living room became less messy.

“People do not buy goods and services. People buy relations, stories, and magic” – claims the author. In order to demonstrate that, you should tell a story, Seth Godin believes. A story is 22 times easier to memorize than the fact by itself.

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