Let Harry Potter teach you Marketing!

We are all a part of Harry potter Revolution.14 years, 7 books, 400 million copies and blockbuster films and now Harry potter, a brand with a value of $15 billion.

As we all know the marketing and Branding of Harry potter was as Magical as the story itself. The strategic approach J.K Rowling took when marketing and writing the books that was beyond the story of a wizard in a magical world; Harry potter has a lot more marketing lessons to offer than we’ll ever know.

Harry potter the multibillion dollar brand reached this level of success by following a lot of key strategies I have listed a few interesting ones that could help you build your business

Meet the expectation

Clever marketing and savy practices of business can only sell a bad product to an extent. If consumer’s expectation isn’t met there won’t be a repeat purchase and even word of mouth marketing will come to an end. Harry Potter books always had the consistency and the met consumers’ expectations. In order to save your product from failing, the same strategy has to be done.

A Strategic Approach

When J.K. Rowling first started to write Harry Potter, she exactly knew how the characters and story was going to evolve. For decades, fans were curious to know how the story was going to end, if Harry was going to die, or if Voldemort will be defeated. But she never revealed a word; all that she ever said was that that she knew the answers to it. As a marketer, it is important to have a strategy.  Creating goals and executing your strategy with those goals in mind, you will have more success with your strategic approach from the beginning until the end than when you just make it up as you go.

Online buzz

J.K. Rowling did not do much promotion for harry potter. Her fans took over and created many viral online campaigns on her behalf talking about the excitement they had over the books and the upcoming releases. Harry Potter is still a trending topic on Twitter, Facebook and all other social media. There are many events and page for Harry Potter till date and thousands of bloggers create posts on her behalf.

 These promotions are more authentic because they come from fans, instead from the person who makes profit.  In the same way, you need to utilize inbound marketing to create the buzz over your product, company or service. Reviews and promotions that are positive and those that come straight from consumers are more valuable than content that comes from the company. Utilizing social media tools that are available online to create the hype will in turn make your company more successful.

Playing your Audience’s Personality

J.K. Rowling started to know how to reach her audience, after a few book releases.  She knew that by creating anticipation about her new books or movies, sneak previews and subtle hints made her audience go wild and anxious.  In the next few years, she used this knowledge to generate more buzz about topics relating to Harry Potter.  You need to do a lot of research to understand and connect with your audiences. To execute your strategy more knowledge about the customer is required.  If your audience is attracted by a certain channel, certain message, certain spokes person, use it. Knowledge about your audience will put you miles ahead of your competitors.

A Distinct Brand

The moment you think of Harry Potter a few words come to mind.  That could be Hogwarts, wizard, magic, lightning bolt scar or the boy who lived.  The words are recognized by people who aren’t even fans of Harry potter. J.K. Rowling has created a unique brand for Harry Potter that can be compared to huge companies like Apple or Nike. You need to follow the leads and create a specific and identifiable brand for your company or cause.  Find out if your brand has a message or if your brand symbolizes something and how people connect to your brand and what your brand means to your audience.  Identifying these aspects of your brand is important at the start any campaign.

Bottom-line

Whenever there is hype for a brand always analyzes their marketing strategies, the ideas behind their strategy could help you build your business.