The Success of OnePlus One Marketing
The OnePlus One is a smartphone made by the start-up company, OnePlus. As a new company, OnePlus wanted to gain some market share of the cell phone market. Although the smartphone market is mainly dominated by companies like Apple and Samsung, the OnePlus One was still able to successfully compete with these companies and sold 1.5 million units, within 1 year of the debut of this phone (July 2014 to July 2015) [1]. How did this startup manage to succeed in such a competitive market? According to an article, the success of the OnePlus One can be attributed to several factors. These factors include its low pricing, invite-only system, and marketing towards the tech community. [2]
The strategy of pricing the phone at a low price was intended by OnePlus, as they did not intend to have high margins of profit by selling the phone. OnePlus’s intention was to price the product to make it very attractive to consumers, in order to get them to try their product. This is an effective marketing strategy because OnePlus was originally a new start-up company, and this smartphone was its first product. By pricing the phone at a minimum price of $299, this price point made the phone attractive to a large population of the market who was looking to purchase a new phone or upgrade their current mobile device. This is also a price where people felt that they were willing to justify the risk of trying a new phone, rather than purchasing a phone from popular companies such as Apple and Samsung.
The invitation system allowed the company to meet the demands of its consumers at a gradual pace. As a new manufacturer, they had to learn how to deal with their manufacturing techniques. The invite system also made this phone “exclusive” and thus created high anticipation for consumers. Once a person got an invite, this person also received other invites to share with their network. Thus, through this referral type invite system, the OnePlus One allowed its consumers to share their experiences with members of their network. By doing this, OnePlus One gains free advertising of their product by their customers, and thus gains more sales of their phone. Furthermore, the exclusivity of the product created much discussion on social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, resulted in the product’s increased popularity.
Lastly, the phone was mainly marketed towards members of the online tech community, which was a network of their “early adopters.” The members of the online tech community on various forums allowed OnePlus to get people to try the product. The OnePlus One phone was also different from a normal phone, such that its software made it highly customizable and allowed people to tinker with its various functions. After gaining its “early adopters”, OnePlus was able to gain some of the market share of cell phone users, reaching the “tipping point”, and eventually was able to penetrate the market of the everyday cell phone user who was looking for a great product at a reasonable price. The OnePlus One ultimately fit all these descriptions, and once it acquired its popularity though these marketing techniques, they were able to gain a significant share of the market.
The OnePlus One can ultimately be deemed as a successful product, and recently released its next model, the OnePlus Two in July 2015. By their marketing techniques and the power of social media, this start-up company was able to successfully infiltrate the network of cell phone users and sell over 1.5 million devices.
[1] http://www.androidauthority.com/oneplus-one-1-5-million-units-sales-627816/