How Tesla made me a fan
Tesla’s plan (Just between you and me)
Tesla shares rose almost 190% over the past year. Strong earnings and rising deliveries grew Tesla’s shares to a point that even Elon Musk himself commented.
But, the reason for the stock and the company’s success is not just because of those 2 reasons.
There is another reason why it’s happening, and it’s found right in the intersection of user experience and marketing.
Tesla as a brand is more than just a car manufacturer, it’s a vision of the future. The face of the brand for Tesla is the CEO himself, Elon Musk. There’s no way to separate Elon Musk’s brand from Tesla, and it’s because he is so “alive”, funny and responsive on social media. Leveraging all of his social equity, his 30M followers, and those guys aren’t just users; they are already fans, his presence is largely felt, and the Tesla fans who reach out to him almost always get his attention.
Traditional advertising is less effective than ever before. We’ve already learned to ignore large amounts of it. The guys at Tesla knew that and thought that having fans sell your product is more effective (they are not the first to have noticed it). The focus is on turning customers into fans. Instead of asking: how many views or clicks? Ask yourself: how many fans?
Tesla doesn’t have $0 as its marketing budget. They likely invest significant money into their marketing strategy on branding, guerrilla marketing in some way. Instead, what it means is that the company spends $0 on paid advertising. This means you won’t see ads for its cars on the subway, during the Superbowl, or on buses. Elon is a great storyteller, the “$0 marketing budget” story is great marketing itself.
How can we tell the difference between the two of them? Imagine that you are staying at a very nice hotel, a big chain hotel, imagine that the hotel has no branding at all. Can you tell it apart from a Marriott or another big chain hotel? Does it look different somehow? The answer is quite clear, NO. Now imagine that you are staying at the Tesla hotel. You can probably describe in detail how the hotel vibe is, the design, and overall what the lobby and rooms look like. That’s the difference, hotel chains use advertising but have no branding or distinction.
Tesla’s attention to user experience helped to shape public perception about the brand. Word of mouth has been a powerful driving force for Tesla’s growth with passionate supporters who don’t even own a Tesla but support the idea and vision of Tesla (yes, I’m talking about myself here).
“The Secret”: what I’m going to share with you is top secret.
In 2006 Elon Musk published “The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan” and like with any other thing he does he did it using a lot of humor.
In that secret plan, Elon shared his “why” for backing Tesla. Back then, Tesla only had its first car: the completely electric “Roadster”. The Roadster is a premium, top-notch sports car that performed better than a lot of its competitors.
Elon’s main goal was to make the electric car a commodity, the next “iPhone” if you will. According to him when someone purchases a Roadster he is contributing to the development of the next electric car by Tesla.
Or as he put it in the Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan:
Build a sports car.
Use that money to build an affordable car.
Use that money to build an even more affordable car.
While doing the above, it also provides zero-emission electric power generation options.
The strategy was top-down, the segment of choice was the lower volume and premium product, with a price tag that enabled them to establish premium pricing, targeting the rich who are willing to spend more. Whoever buys this car is not someone who cares or is supersensitive about the price; he could easily go and buy his next Ferrari.
” The Secret” content and how he was told a story was part of the perfect and simple equation: user experience + branding = Fans. And this is how I became a fan.
Please, Don’t tell anyone. Elon ask me not to.
