A little over a year ago, a little startup company named “OnePlus” broke into the crowded mobile device market by selling its “flagship killer,” the One. Since then, the company has managed to compete alongside some of the biggest players in the industry–Apple, Samsung, HTC, and more–and has now become one of the most popular phones on the market.
What set the OnePlus One apart from its competitors? Two major factors.
The first is the price. The One was offering specs comparable to some of the most popular–and powerful–devices on the market. This included the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy series’. Yet, despite these impressive numbers, the most impressive was its price: The OnePlus One sold for a little more than half the price of its competitors.
The second was its exclusivity–and this is what pertains to digital marketing. In selling its device, OnePlus did not sell the product to anyone who wanted it. Rather, they used a unique invite system that only allowed buyers to purchase the product through referral. Even though the product was extremely hard to get, the demand was extremely high and consumers were doing whatever they could to get a hand on the device.
Digital marketers can learn from this strategy–rather than trying to sell to every possible person, why not close your product off to a select group of people? Then, rather than creating hype, the product itself will create buzz on its own and become notorious within the market.
With OnePlus releasing its newest product–the X–in the near future, we’ll have to see if this strategy of exclusivity keeps working. What is for sure though, is that OnePlus knows how to really cater to the “cool kids.”
