About a year ago I sat out on a mission to search for a video communication program for my small Web Design and Digital Marketing business so I started researching the tools that I’ve used in the past when I worked in corporate. Tools that we’re all familiar with such as Go-To-Meeting, Teams, Webex, and the less known product at that time, Zoom. From my research, 

I found out that Zoom was the only company that offered a free limited-use account. Excited about my finding, I reviewed the features and without any hesitation, I signed up.

If we would look at this from a marketing perspective, Zoom successfully penetrated an already crowded market using a freemium business model. If you are not familiar with the term, investopedia.com describes freemium as “A combination of the words “free” and “premium,” the term freemium is a business model that involves offering customers both complementary and extra-cost services. A company provides simple and basic services for free for the user to try; it also offers more advanced services or additional features at a premium.”

Now that demand for video conferencing tools has skyrocketed because of social distancing, overnight Zoom became a household product and the default name for video conferencing programs. It became The Google for searches and the Xerox for copiers.

One would be tempted to dismiss Zoom’s success as an accident; however, I believe that Zoom had a long-term strategy in place that gave them a competitive advantage when demand peaked for this type of service.

Here is something to think about, does your long-term marketing strategy position you for success for a Zooming by opportunity? Think about it.

Samer Farraj – Founder of Standout 360, a multimedia digital marketing and web design Agency.