Foundations of Marketing 5th Edition by Ferrell,William Pride

Exercise 13

RogueSheep's Postage App: The Postcard of the Future
That 25-cent postcard in the gift shop may soon become a thing of the past. RogueSheep's postage application is giving the traditional postcard a run for its money as it allows users to send a digital postcard to their family members quickly and efficiently. RogueSheep is a software development and consulting company based in Seattle. Cofounders Christopher Parrish, Daniel Guenther, Matt Joss, and Jeff Argast founded RogueSheep as an Adobe Development shop. The company specializes in graphics and publishing software while acting as a consultant to clients with their software development projects.
By far the company's most newsworthy product is its mobile app "Postage," iPhone's first postcard application. The idea for Postage came from a business conference when Parrish's business partner wanted to send a postcard back to his wife. The founders of RogueSheep thought this would make a great iPhone app, and development of this app began.
For $4.99, iPhone users can purchase the app, choose from more than 60 postcard designs, customize the design by inserting their own photos, and send the postcard to their friends or relatives. What takes a few days by regular mail can now take only seconds. Connectivity based on digital communication keeps people connected in an instant. Social networking sites provide a way that consumers can connect and express their feelings, emotions, and opinions. In the case of the RogueSheep app Postage, it provides better and more personalized connects than a traditional postcard.
RogueSheep has become a major success in the software design world, winning Apple's 2009 Design Award and Macworld's 2009 Mac Gems Award for best e-mail app. Much of its success likely comes from the great care that RogueSheep puts into its Postage designs. Each pixel in the app is created by the application designer, and designs are continually added to give customers a range of options to choose from. Additionally, RogueSheep has broken into the social networking world by creating ways that users can share their customized postcards with friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter. Now that social networking is more popular for personal communication than e-mail, RogueSheep's app is perfect for social networks.
To create awareness of the product, RogueSheep uses a combination of digital and traditional media. By using social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, RogueSheep encourages users to become fans or followers and share information about RogueSheep with others. RogueSheep also uses web advertising and traditional magazines like Macworld as promotional tools. Finally, RogueSheep encourages trials of its Postage app by giving out promotional codes through Twitter to enable free trials of its product. RogueSheep's Postage app could also be utilized for businesses that send postcards to remind customers about their products or special events. This application could potentially be customized to be a less expensive, more useful business-to-the-consumer promotional postcard.
As more and more people become familiar with iPhone apps, RogueSheep must constantly adapt its products to anticipate and meet customer needs. In addition to its update to allow for Facebook sharing, RogueSheep is also offering product apps such as SnoGlobe-which allows users to turn their iPhones into a snow globe with falling flakes that move as the iPhone moves-and Holiday ~ Postage for seasonal postcards. By creating a new, efficient way to meet a consumer need, RogueSheep's Postage app may supplant printed materials to become the future of postcards. The business applications of sending RogueSheep postcards are unlimited. It can be just another form of digital marketing. RogueSheep's postage application, like all digital marketing activities, should be integrated into a marketing strategy that relates to the target markets' ability and interest in digital communication.
How do you think businesses could effectively use RogueSheep postcards in their communications program