Volume 1 | Issue 1 | January 2021
Customer Insight and what it can do for organization
The secret of successful content marketing
Gamification and how it drives behaviour
A.I - A gift or a risk?
Getting excited about reading a magazine created by young marketers for young marketers?
Editor’s notes Who knows its target group better than someone who is actually part of their own target group? We are very proud of presenting “Light On” to you! A magazine series from young marketers for young marketers, all around the topic “The world of experience” with a focus on customer experience for this particular issue.
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e are four Business Communication students in their final year at the HAN International School of Business in Arnhem, The Netherlands. This means that we have already gained a few insights and experiences into the world of business and hence also into the world of experience for customers. It was very important for us to bring those interesting but also very important topics for future marketers to you, as we have learned during our studies that they are of great significance. Added to that, it was our main goal to bring these sometimes quite practical topics to you in an informal, simple, and appealing way. A super interesting fact about this magazine is that we do not only have a lot of different angles and facets, topic wise but also writers-wise, as we consist of a quite international group. The authors of these articles are Aldair Haseth from Curaçao, Linh Nguyen from Vietnam, Larissa Eve Groteloh from Germany, and Ajeng Putri Bastiani from Indonesia. This diversity is visible throughout the magazine as no article is like the other! Moreover, this magazine is the perfect basis for inspiration when you are trying to think about new and innovative ways to create a great experience for whomever your target group is, whether you are targeting internally within an organization or externally. Our topics provide you with inspirational ideas applicable to many different situations. Without any further ado we wish you happy reading and that you will take valuable lessons with you for your future marketing activities. Yours sincerely,
The Light On team
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In this issue
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Customer Insight
and what it can do for organization
14 of successful content marketing The Secret
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Gamification 20
and how it changes behavior
A.I. 25
a gift or a risk?
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Customer insight and what it can do for organizations By Aldair Haseth
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onsumer insights are used to gather information about customers and markets. It mainly focuses on actions that will help an organization with its growth. Firstly, the gathering of data is what’s needed to create a strategy to improve the organization’s customer experience.
Furthermore, research will give the what as a reason something is happening, nevertheless, consumer insights will give the why it’s happening. By knowing why organizations will be able to make changes to their business to improve customer satisfaction, customer retention, and increase their bottom line. Consumer insights have a great benefit to it that will help companies map their customer journey and identify any gaps where there might be some, as well as to finding what works best, and what can be improved for a greater user experience and customer journey, which goes from awareness to purchase.
What works best?! Customer insight has different approaches or views on it. One of them is finding out what works best to create a greater experience for the customer. In this case, I took an example from Nike to talk about what they did from a customer insight point of view. At the beginning of the 2012 Olympics in London, Nike unleashed its athleticsencouraging campaign called ‘Find Your Greatness’. The campaign aimed to promote aspirations of being an athlete, but not just with high-performing athletes but with all people regardless of their physical capability
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What consumer insights showed Nike was that most of their target audience are not professional athletes, but people who strived to be more like them. Nike decided to start this campaign that was aimed at inspiring all their audience members to achieve their greatness. Nike’s main message was, “Pushing your limits isn’t only for top-level athletes”. As I already explain customer insight is not just guessing, it is data that was carefully analyzed before Nike decided to do start this campaign. To analyze customer data to find patterns it requires the support of advanced technologies (such as customer modelling, predictive analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence) to predict their next steps, their wants and their needs. Next to that, it is necessary to craft the message and offers that perfectly match each customer’s unique affinities, timing and channel preferences. The main reason companies use customer insight is to recognize behaviour patterns, trends and opportunities. These activities combined with marketer’s creativity can lead to an endless set of customer campaigns that maximize customer loyalty and spend. This happens because the organization already has a grasp idea of how and why the customers behave as they do and what are their desires and needs.
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Customer Insight Marketing Examples Customer insight examples from different companies on how they have used customer insight to improve their customer relationships:
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Insight
3 is a global brand name under which several UMTSbased mobile phone networks and Broadband Internet Providers operate in Hong Kong, Macau, Austria, Denmark, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The brand was founded in 2002 in Hong Kong.
Three was motivated by the collected insight into its customers’ holiday behaviour. The campaign was based on the knowledge they gained, that people love to brag and show off.
Event Three’s praised Holiday Spam campaign was allowing customers to use mobile phone services while abroad at normal, no-roaming prices.
Three analyzed the amount of mobile data usage of a test group devices abroad and found out that they used 71 times the amount of data they would have used if that service was charged at the usual roaming tariffs. The main reason this number increased was that they wanted to share holiday photos and selfies on social media. Therefore, the creative planning team of Three embraced this finding and created a funny ad which warmed its UK audience. They showed their audience the struggle they would have if they did not have a good internet connection or had to pay a lot of money for it.
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Apple The company Apple, as you may know, needs no introduction. They are the most unique and creative company when it comes to crafting marketing campaigns.
Event Apple had the most heartwarming commercial of the 2016 holiday season. This gave them a unique image in comparison to their competitors.
Insight Research that was done showed that people got easily tired of stats-and-numbers advertising approaches. According to Tor Myhren, vice president of Apple marketing: companies in America, and probably in many places around the world, still tend to do the real hardsell, price-based retail advertising around the holidays. Therefore Apple wanted this to be something in which, during this time when people are being inundated with these hard-sell messages, we can give people a minute or two of just a nice piece of entertainment that ties tightly to something we believe strongly in at Apple said the vice president of Apple. Apple stands for uniqueness and it shows. Therefore even though you do not own an Apple product, you will still know what the company sells or does.
As a young professional, I think that existing or upcoming companies should make more use of this customer insight strategy since it is a good way to know what you should focus on to satisfy your target audience.
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Unbox yo
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Galaxy S8
our phone
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The secret of successful content marketing By Linh Nguyen
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o you use ad-blockers? I bet you do. In fact, 47% of Internet users globally use an adblocker today. (GlobalWebIndex,2019) It is understandable, right? We cannot talk enough about how we are so fed up with the information coming from everywhere on a daily basis. If you are a young marketer like me, you must have seen how modern marketers turning to content marketing when applying inbound marketing. Content marketing is delivering valuable content to reach your target audience, and to reach them naturally, an inbound approach is what we need. (Baker,2020) The principle of successful content marketing is providing information or materials that are useful for people.
“What helps people, helps business.� Leo Burnett, advertising executive and the founder of the global advertising agency Leo Burnett
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3 simple yet useful content marketing strategies How exactly can you create valuable and attractive content? It depends on the business and your audience. However, here are three tactics to inspire you in your progress of creating the right content that serves both your business and audience.
If you have a knowledgeable brand, aiming for the thought-leadership position, consider original research contents. Many brands have been using this approach by investing in doing some research or compiling useful data that are useful for their target audience. Some examples you should Google to learn from right away are HubSpot, Orbit Media, LinkedIn, or Buzzsumo. The effectiveness of this approach is undeniable. According to a recent study by Buzzsumo and Mantis Research, 94% of marketers agree that original research elevates a brand’s authority. What if your audience prefers day-to-day language? Then look no further but testing out the power of simplicity. Especially if you are in an industry with complex information and terms like data, finance, or medical, consider presenting your content in a simple way. Your audience will appreciate you and it would also strengthen the image of a thought-leader brand because “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”. One place you can learn from is Investopedia, a
site that provides answers to complicated topics in plain English with strong content architecture. Last but not least, how about a strategy to keep the conversation going with your followers while you have limited time for content creation? You can learn from how Glossier is doing on their official Twitter page: retweeting their fans. You don’t have to stick to Twitter. This tactic works on every social media platform. Some ideas you can consider are: responding to comments, sharing brand mentions and if possible, turn the social accounts into a place to build up your community. It is a fun and engaging way to connect with the audience.
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Something you should know: Content marketing Something you should know: Content marketing is not only about content is not only about content I myself have been digging in and testing out different I myself have in and testing out different strategies to been applydigging content marketing in different strategies to apply content marketing in different communication plans. The most important thing I’ve communication plans. The most important thing learned about this marketing technique is we haveI’ve to learned about this technique is we Content have to look further than themarketing production of the content. look furthernowadays than the production theas content. marketing is not as of easy it usedContent to be marketing nowadays is not as easy as used to be when it all started with a couple of nice itblog posts or when it all videos. started More with athan couple nice blog posts or instruction half of (50.33%) of searches instruction videos. thana half of searches on Google now endMore without click(50.33%) on a result. (Fishkin, on Google now end without a click on a result. (Fishkin, 2019) 2019) The challenge goes from attracting customers to become The challenge from attracting customers to become good enoughgoes to be remembered. Therefore, content good enough to be remembered. Therefore, content marketers now need to look at the whole process and marketers now need to lookcustomers at the whole process and situations where potential encounter the situations where potential customers encounter the brand. It is still based on the basic principle of Marketing brand. It is still based on the basic principle of Marketing – the customer’s journey and finding customer’s insights, – thethe customer’s and finding but relation journey between pieces of customer’s Marketing insights, effort is but the relation between pieces of Marketing effort is stronger than ever. stronger than ever. It is is not not only only about about creating creating good good content. content. It It is is about about It creating the the perfect perfect content content experience. experience. creating
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Let’s talk about experiences Let’s talk about experiences You can start building a content experience by standing You can start building a content experience by standing in the audience’s shoes. What elements influence in the audience’s shoes. What elements influence your experience with content? Is it the format? How your experience with content? Is it the format? How information is organized? The possibilities of finding information is organized? The possibilities of finding the information you need as well as other relevant the information you need as well as other relevant information? The user-interface? information? The user-interface? All of these are parts of a good content experience. Think All of these are parts of a good content experience. Think of it as if you are serving VIP guests in a 5 stars Michelin of it as if you are serving VIP guests in a 5 stars Michelin restaurant and the dish of the day is that specific piece restaurant and the dish of the day is that specific piece of content. The environment is important. The content of content. The environment is important. The content does not only need to be valuable but it has to look does not only need to be valuable but it has to look appealing. According to research by Forrester, a good appealing. According to research by Forrester, a good user-experience designed website got a conversion rate user-experience designed website got a conversion rate of 400% comparing to a poorly designed one. (Ramos, of 400% comparing to a poorly designed one. (Ramos, 2018) 2018)
Mobile friendly: the most basic as well as the most important element Did you know that 59% of shoppers surveyed say that shopping on mobile is the deciding factor when choosing who to buy from and 39% of smartphone users are more likely to browse or shop because it’s easier or faster to make a purchase (Hubspot,2020)? Furthermore, we cannot talk about mobile-friendly without mentioning the importance of creating a streamlined experience for potential customers. It is proved that 60% of smartphones user contact a business directly using the search results with a call to action. (Hubspot,2020).
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Personalization: is your content worth people’s data? We know that everyone wants personalization, but what about personal information privacy? A survey shows that in fact, users are willing to provide information if it means a better personalized experience. (Sterling, 2015) Personalization is more than sending out an email with people’s first names. It’s about how you can tailor the right content for the audience at the right time. The closest examples of great personalized experience are how Spotify and Netflix work. They focus on solving the problems of each user by providing personalized content. I like how Spotify does not only generate personalized playlists based on listening history but also their brilliant categories. The effort of going one step further in categorizing makes it easy for the user to search for music according to moods, situations, or purposes. It is the perfect lesson for us content marketers to learn from and apply to our own strategy of organizing and publishing content.
Doing content marketing can be both challenging and exciting, especially when you have to take into consideration how your content consumers experience your content. Nevertheless, it really worth the effort and you will become more efficient in doing Marketing.
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Gamification and how it drives behaviour By Larissa Eve Groteloh
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elieve it or not but Gamification elements can be found everywhere since the start of the digital era. They have been implemented on many websites and a lot of people are not even consciously aware of this. Especially for young communication professionals it can be unclear in the beginning what exactly gamification is and what it is good for. Often there are misleading definitions, which result in lots of confusion. If gamification is implemented based on confusion it will lead to big failure. So, what exactly is gamification and why is it even possible to use it to drive and change behaviour? According to Gartner Research, the leading research and advisory organization in the industry, the definition of gamification is as follows: “the use of game mechanics and experience design to digitally engage and motivate people to achieve their goals�. This is a quite recent definition and the term gamification has only gained in popularity in the last few years. However, gamification is a concept that is among us since the start of civilisation. It is said that games, particularly dice games, were invented hundreds of years ago in a Kingdom called Lydia during a time of famine. Since, people were suffering they had to come up with a solution. Therefore, they decided to eat on one day and play games on the other day in order to be so amerced and engaged into the game that they will forget they hunger. Apparently, this led to surviving 18 years of famine and it is a great example for how engaging and influential games can be.
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Now you might be doubting if gamification is actually having such a big impact on our lives as back in the day in the Kingdom of Lydia. And the answer is, yes! Gamification can be used in many different sectors, whether it is in marketing, education, websites or the health sector. Moreover, gamification generally includes certain game elements, such as for example: points you can collect, badges that are an indicator of achievement or even leader boards that stimulate competition. To make this whole topic a little more tangible, I would like to share this maybe quite relatable example with you. The other day I was cooking my favourite lentil soup again and when chopping the vegetables, I had cut my finger. The days after the wound started healing, but I kept noticing this itch in the affected area and I was left wondering why small open wounds and burns get itchy when healing. Now, we probably all know this scenario, you have a random question and you end up googling the answer to it, in my case it was about this itchy wound. And after scrolling a bit I found this thread about the exact same question on my favourite social media platform Reddit. In case you are wondering why I like Reddit so much, it is simply because Reddit is this platform all about knowledge-sharing. Many knowledgeable (sometimes also pseudo knowledgeable, so beware) people come together and exchange information about various interesting topics. It feels like there is a SubReddit (that’s what they call sub-threads) about nearly anything. So, when clicking on this post I immediately saw a highlighted answer in this post because many people have decided that this answer is so good, that it deserves awards. These awards may just be some small digital icons, but they have great meaning and can be very handy when searching for good answers to any random questions. And it is as easy as that, thanks to gamification I could immediately find a quite accurate and easy understandable answer to my question. It is almost possible to say that in some cases, gamification can be seen as a little everyday hero, which makes our life easier. By the way, in case you are still wondering why small open wounds and burns are itchy, it is because the sensory nerves in the damaged area are still intact and able to transmit signals. The cellular construction work going on as your tissues generate, are sometimes triggered by all the activity nearby enough to send a signal to the brain. Now back to gamification, these gamification elements stimulate intrinsic motivators as users on Reddit usually discuss topics that they are interested in or passionate about and you can clearly benefit from that!
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However, as a communication professional who wants to implement gamification elements into their work, it is important to know who the target audience is, what their attributes are and to be able to allocate with which kind of player type you are dealing with. An interesting model that can be used for this is Bartle’s Player Types for Gamification by Richard Bartle. This theory divides players into four different player categories, which are the Achiever, the Explorer, the Socializer, and the Killer.
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Even though it is not set in stone that a player fits into only one category, it is possible to figure in which categories they are dominant in which is a good basis on figuring out how to appeal this particular target group. The Achiever is a player type which is highly interested in gaining points and status. Added to that, they also like to collect badges and be on top of leader boards in order to share their success with friends and family. The explorer is a player type that is highly driven by discovering new things within a game, may it be unlocking new items or areas. It is the surprise-effect that is within the process of unlocking something that appeals to this player type a lot. Many player types belong to the Socializer player type, who enjoy games due to the social interaction with other players. They prefer to work together in teams in order to achieve something bigger rather than being in a competitive setting. Lastly, there is the Killer player type, who is quite similar to the achiever in the aspect that they want to gain points and status. However, there is a significant aspect, which differentiates them and that is the fact that they want to see their competitors lose. Those players are highly competitive and aim to be one of the best if not even the best in the game. Which player type are you? Overall, it is important to do careful player research in order to create suitable games for specific target groups. Therefore, it is important to not stereotype and to focus on the bigger picture. Of course, as a communication professional it is important to research deeply into the topic of gamification before actually creating and implementing gamification elements into your work. However, it is clear that games are something that have engaged many people for many years already. We know that people who play can be categorized into different player types and that there are different aspects that motivate each player type. So, once you have allocated the dominant player type of your audience, you are enabled to create a game that engages them and possibly even provides them with the information you want them to learn. As games provide the player with constant feedback, individually tailored to their own success, it is easy to have an overview on their process and their performance. This data will ultimately enable an organization to analyse and if necessary adjust or reinvent the game elements in order to influence the target groups behaviour towards the behaviour that was set as an ultimate objective. In conclusion, gamification is not only a very engaging tool for any chosen target group but is also a good way to monitor data and to take away learnings from it. Overall, gamification might be something that takes place in the virtual world but can have a huge impact on the real world if used effectively. For example, during your daily life when you are urgently searching an answer to one of your random or maybe not so random but important questions in the internet again!
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A.I A GIFT OR A RISK? By Ajeng Putri Bastiani 24
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or the past couple of years, people all over the world have been discussing data convenience and data security. The discussion surrounding AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Machine Learning keeps rising, as in order to learn, their algorithms require a lot of data. It was said to help people in the future by giving them better experiences as consumers. But can AI and Machine Learning coexist with Data Privacy? Should people fight for data privacy as consumers? Will people give up data privacy for a better tomorrow? AI and Machine Learning are using tremendous amounts of big data. Businesses amd governments that use consumer data, claim that after utilizing data analyses, these data could not be traced back to the consumers. Anonymity is what all these organisations that collect consumer’s data claim. So according to them, people do not have to worry. But is this true? Some people will say the answer is no. Common arguments are that some organizations or individuals with an expertise in hacking could steal this data making us the target of information theft, piracy, blackmailing, or other forms of exploitation. Although the initial companies aim to better their products or services for consumers, in the end the collected data is not safe enough. Should we give up the advanced future for our security?
Although this is definitely an important argument it is important to talk about the benefits of data convenience focusing on giving better consumer experience. AI and Machine Learning empower people to do self services, this can be seen by the amount of people that use the chat box on some websites. On those chat boxes, people tend to talk with a Bot. Today, some people might feel that these Bots are not that effective yet, but they can answer various simple questions, like those customer service questions and eliminate the needs for consumers to wait. This enables sales reps to work for more complicated tasks.
May A.I Help you?
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Moreover, AI and Machine Learning never have the need to sleep which means that they are 24/7 available for the consumers. As nowadays consumers do not just want easy access but also a quick one. Furthermore, it is impossible for customer service workers to be always available both physically and emotionally for the customers. Let’s face it, some of these customers encountered some bad experience with customer service workers and led them to quit communication with those companies. While AI and Machine Learning would never get upset. This will lead to satisfied customers while also giving those companies some peace of mind that their agents will always be accommodating and kind to their customers. What about the closest AI that surrounds us? The automated life assistance at the corner of people’s living room and kitchen, as most people use Alexa to do mostly everything with just a voice command allowing their customers live easier. Alexa, Google Home and other robotic AI jobs not only turn on some music or dim the lights but they can also help customers to schedule their day, bill, even purchase some items such as products, tickets, and etc. What about the autonomous car? Another automated assistance on the wheel. Driving safely on the road with very little to no human input. Every Marvel fan must know that Iron Man suit is an autonomous suits. F.R.I.D.A.Y. , also known as Female Replacement Intelligent Digital Assistant is a naturallanguage user interface created by Tony Stark and she served as Stark’s main user interface computer system. During battle, F.R.I.D.A.Y updates Stark on the numbers of damage and count the possibilities to each plan. Imagine the possibilities for such a suit exist in this world?
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AI and Machine Learning are not only used for making life easier but they are also managed to better people’s future. Within the healthcare industry, AI and Machine Learning have helped us in advancing medical treatment with less time and a fraction of the cost. Not only does AI simplify the lives of patients, doctors and hospital administrators by performing tasks that are typically done by humans. It could also lead us to a new discovery of treatments but also make treatments more personalised. This is all possible by AI that uses centralized big data collected by different organizations such as pharmaceuticals, medical professionals, hospitals, health organization. All of the above are perfect examples of ways AI and Machine Learning transform the customer experience. The objective of having AI and Machine Learning is to better the experience of customers so then they feel known and valued. With a trend towards tailoring personalized customer experience across multiple touch points by anticipating their needs as more data is gathered at a large scale. Those are ways of AI and Machine Learning upgrading the customer experience and these use cases will continue to grow as AI expands outward.
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Unfortunately, AI is being put in a bad light by the media, while Big Tech companies improve their AI and Machine Learning for the sake of customers and finding new discoveries for a better tomorrow. There has been a lot of recent discussion about data privacy and AI increasing privacy concerns. Not so long ago, news broke that Amazon had live personnel listening to recording from Echo devices (Alexa). This news struck fear into many people’s minds in regards to security of their privacy and information. However, for AI to work, they need required training. This means Amazon was trying to improve their AI. The issue here that the writer is trying to understand is that most of these customers do not realise that their conversation could be used for AI training. As mentioned above the main concern for AI is the privacy of the end user. This issue is not to be ignored, but it is only one problem which can be fixed in various ways. For example, governments could enforce stricter laws, AI could learn how to defend itself and companies could be more transparent regarding this topic to reduce uncertainty. In conclusion, the many pros and endless possibilities that AI brings to the table heavily outmatch the one issue that AI currently has. This issue is only temporarily and when resolved one can only imagine how AI will shape humanities future.
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