This is a good question. I looked at mailboxapp.com and I noticed a few things right away. 1. It's beautiful to look at.
2. It's simple. It's easy to understand. 6 words describes each of it's selling points. This is important from a marketing perspective. It's the difference between marketing a super-specific product targeted especially for hackers and a product that everyone can use and understand. One is more likely to gain popular attention.
3. They did something similar to Groupon, where they created a mechanism that encouraged (in Groupon's cased "forced") people to begin discussing their product in a natural way. In Mailbox' case, they created a reservation list. I'm not sure if this was entirely necessary, but it seems to be talked about a lot, and it has the effect of reassuring potential users that the product is worth it. This is so important, especially for a startup that claims to reinvent an age old system such as email, which has been around since before AOL. When a potential user sees that X users already reserved the app, the user believes he/she has actually stumbled upon something useful, especially when they see also the Y users that will reserve it after them (another feature mailboxapp wisely included). By showing the Y people behind, the app is implying that there are a limited number of spaces. Potential users see X and say "huh, it's worth it" then see Y and say "oh I better get it now." That's how people get enticed to get the app and tell their friends "before it's too late." Besides, "reservations" are always for something important; dinners, Broadway shows. That facet of this mechanism shouldn't be ignored either.
4. Judging by the number of articles that pop up after search, mailboxapp also has good PR. Funny enough, the reservation mechanism is so interesting that most headlines start with how many reservations mailboxapp has. It's an especially good marketing tool when you can break some key marks "half a million," "one million," "two million reservations."
5. I see that it's also been bought by Dropbox. That also creates good publicity, and it may also be a big reason that there's been so much good press about mailboxapp.
:) Hope that helped. I'll keep looking so if I think of or see anything else, I'll make sure to include it. :)
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2. marketing on the reservation list - as what human behavior, the things that you can not have, that's what make it most desirable. Invite list / reservation list is a perfect example. Think of gmail back then when people needs to be invited to use
3. great product. if you have great product, words will spread out on itself.
Oh and also lots and lots of social marketing.
2. Have great visual design
3. Social media marketing, targeting influencers in the area
