THE ROCKET MARKETER

IoT: A Blessing and a Curse

Picture this!

You wake up in the morning when Google Home prompted you.
As you walk to the bathroom, 2 claps and the lights turn on.
A quick glance at your smart mirror, you know the weather and time of the day.
As you walk to the fridge, it automatically reminds you to drink water.
With no keys at all, your door automatically locks itself while you head to work.
Within a 5 meter proximity, your car unlocks itself.

Sounds amazing right? Well… I agree. This is the Internet of Things (IoT), where physical devices around the world are now connected to the internet, all collecting and sharing data. This includes everything from mobile phones, coffee makers, washing machines, headphones, lamps, wearable devices and almost anything else you can think of.

According to Statista, there were an estimated 22 billion IoT connected devices in use around the world at the end of 2018, and its forecasted to hit 50 billion by 2030.

With that, it changes the whole landscape of how organizations view their businesses moving forward. With the IoT in place, businesses are able to utilize data collected to generate actionable outcomes, while simultaneously monitoring and analyzing these data to make better decisions.

According to IMDA,

On an Economical level, it increases productivity through operational efficiency and addressing manpower shortage.

On a Societal level, it optimizes healthcare delivery and offer lifestyle convenience.

On a Safety and Security level, it improves food safety and safeguards security.

However, while IoT can lead to higher efficiency, it poses certain risks as well. On today’s topic, I will be discussing about specifically, privacy.

A study done by Microsoft suggested that less than 1 in 4 Singapore consumers trust organisations that provide digital services to protect their personal data. This figures places Singapore below the Asia Pacific average of 31%.

This reflects that consumers are aware and sensitive of what kinds of data are collected and what businesses do with their personal data. An example of misusing data would be how a British political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica harvested the data of at least 87 million Facebook users without their knowledge after obtaining it from people who partook in a quiz app. Cambridge Analytica then sold this data to the Donald Trump campaign, which used it to target election messages at Facebook users in the 2016 presidential election campaign. This shows how weak practices of data security could lead to undesirable outcomes.

Again, with IoT creating an endless potential for digital connectivity, organizations are more inclined and more heavily reliant on such opportunities. In turn, this gives external parties such as hackers, more chances to hack into cyber systems to acquire sensitive information. A pretty recent example would be the stolen personal data of SingHealth patients. A total of 1.5 million non-medical personal data was stolen, even the data of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Thus, there is an urgent need to protect and store such sensitive information securely to prevent any data breach.

Source: TedTalk YouTube Channel

I recently watched a TedTalk on the danger of IoT devices by Professor Yuval Elovici, the Head of the Cyber Security Research Center at Ben Gurion University, where he mentioned how people are subconsciously feeding data to organizations, and how such situations can be dangerous as these data can be used to learn many things about us. Take some time to watch it, pretty insightful I would say!

In all, with studies and researches defining how the IoT can be beneficial for the world in the future, we must also understand the risk that are exposed to us. For now, let us all educate ourselves about what the IoT is and the potential impacts that can be seen on how we work and live.

What do you think about the future of the IoT? Let me know your thoughts below!

Cheers.

Analytics = Results

In a data-driven world, it is vital for businesses to look at quantitative and qualitative data in order to improve efficiency and generate results. As the world evolves digitally, marketing just isn’t what it used to be anymore. Today, things are highly advanced and targeted hence, the focus has now shifted to being more result-oriented.

Gone were the days where generic approaches in businesses worked. In this digital age, consumers prefer a more personalized experience be it from a small-scale/large-scale business, which is why having access to the right data is exceptionally crucial for marketers today.

A Forbes article by Nicole Martin suggested that “utilizing past data and predictive analytics, businesses can now generate better return on investment (ROI) and provide insights that can lead to effective business strategies and decisions within an organization.”

A good example would be how Starbucks utilizes their data collected from their app to determine the busiest hours, most ordered drinks during certain times of day, seasonal trends, customer habits and preferences and much more. Such information were used to build marketing campaigns and promotions based on their customers’ demographics and locations.

Source: TED’s YouTube Channel

I also recently watched a TEDTalk by Gary Kovacs on how online tracking can be dangerous in today’s context. Although slightly irrelevant, the video mentioned an important point on how within minutes, businesses are already tracking consumers’ online behaviour through the sites they have visited; and over a span of just ONE day, a whopping 150 sites have already been tracking Kovacs’ information. This goes to show how saturated the business of data collection is, in the current digital era.

So now we know how valuable data can be, how can businesses leverage on digital analytics to maximize their returns then?

Here are 3 steps to consider:

#1 KNOWING YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE AND CHANNELS

Having data allows you to know who you are communicating with and who are your potential prospects. Digital analytics allows businesses to track what kinds of people visits their website or social media platforms and what kinds of interaction these users have with them.

Some useful metrics to consider would be:

1. Pages per Visit – number of website pages viewed by an average user before they left
2. Average Visit Duration – average amount of time users spent on the site
3. Bounce Rate – the percentage of users that left your website after visiting only page

As seen from the info-graphic from Hootsuite, device usage differs amongst the adult population in Singapore; different demographics uses different methods of accessing online information. Taking into account the traffic source of users helps in identifying the correct channels to reach your audiences, which can make a huge difference in your digital marketing strategy.

#2 IDENTIFYING AND USING THE RIGHT KEYWORDS

Having data allows businesses to know what are the keywords your audience use to search for your product or service. Thus, enabling targeting and re-targeting of such keywords to drive more traffic to your channels.

Google Adwords is a great platform in determining potential keywords for your business. The software also allows businesses to determine what are their competitors’ keywords and use such data to generate a better strategy to propel their business further.

Most importantly, to consistently track and analyze these data to optimize the the business’ digital marketing strategies. A great tool to use would be Google Analytics. This tool allows businesses to monitor the data collected on many levels which can derive several results based on their needs.

At the end of day, the idea is to collect relevant data for improvement purposes, in order to reel in more traffic to your channels.

#3 SHOWING RETURN ON INVESTMENT

Stakeholders would want to know how the advertising money is being spent and whether the value has brought in profits also known as return on investments.

Some useful metrics to consider would be:

1. Conversion Rate – the percentage of visitors to your website that completed a desired goal out of the total number of visitors
2. Frequency – how frequent visitors come to your website
3. Time Gap of Transaction – time gap between the first time visitors visit your website till the date of transaction

Tracking the conversion rate allows businesses to analyze whether their traffic sources are targeted enough. Conversion rate comes in several forms based on business needs. For instance, it can be users filling up a form or users purchasing a product. The key is simply to attain a higher conversion rate.

Tracking the frequency allows businesses to analyze whether users are constantly coming back to your website be it for information/purchase a product etc. They key here is to attain a high frequency as the opposite would mean something might be wrong, causing users to leave. While analyzing the frequency, it is also crucial to identify the number of loyal users to know what are you doing right, and apply it to your channels as a whole.

Tracking the time gap of transactions allows businesses to analyze user much better. One way would be to segment your main channels. As different users visit your channels for different reasons, the key idea is to identify what are the channels that drives traffic. The higher the traffic, the smaller the time gap of transactions.

With that, digital analytics can be very essential if used correctly and efficiently. While it is a good quantitative indicator of success, utilizing it wrongly could put all your marketing resources to waste.

Now, let me leave you with a food for thought, what are the drawbacks of digital analytics then? Share with me your thoughts below!

Cheers.

Mobile is the Future, and the Future is Now

“You have left something in your cart. Do you want to checkout now?”

Another familiar statement yet again? This means you are one of the many consumers who fall in the era of mobile marketing. Quick definition, Megan Mars define mobile marketing as the concept of marketing products/services to mobile device users. It is a system which provides personalized, time and location-sensitive information to facilitate what consumers need, even on the go.

Fun question! If you could only pick three items to bring along with you to a deserted island, what would you bring? I would guess majority of you would have a mobile phone as one of your items, right?

According to Hootsuite, the total number of active mobile internet users in Singapore amounted to 4.58 million people as of 2019. Think about it, that is close to 80% of the population. Hence, if you are not implementing some form of mobile marketing for your business (if you have one), you are already lagging behind!

Not convincing enough? Take a look at these statistics, again from Hootsuite. 54% of internet users made an online purchase via a mobile device, and 89% searched online for a product/service to buy. Ha! Convinced yet?

As we move forward to a more digitalized world, I believe these numbers would only increase. Hence, simply ignoring the rise of mobile just isn’t an option.

“Okay Rocket Marketeer, let’s get down to business. How do we make use of mobile marketing for our business then?”

I was about to get there… Alright, the focus for this post would be micro-moments. In the words of Sridhar Ramaswamy, “Micro-moments occur when people reflexively turn to a device—increasingly a smartphone—to act on a need to learn something, do something, discover something, watch something, or buy something.”

Google suggested that the four game-changing moments that really matter are:

As mentioned by Google, “In these moments, consumers want what they want, when they need it – and they’re drawn to brands that deliver on their need.”

How do we win micro-moments then? Here are 3 simple steps to consider:

#1 BE THERE

They key to being there for your consumers is to identify their “moments” as mentioned earlier. Identify when, where, and how they are doing their researches and understand their purchase behavior. Once you figured all that out, create a strategy across various digital channels such as social media platforms and search engines.

A good example of how “being there” for your customers worked positively, is how Red Roof Inn targeted stranded customers at airports using flight-tracking technology in order to reel in customers to their hotel.

#2 BE USEFUL

Meeting consumers in their moments of need is important, but how you meet them is equally important. Being useful refers to delivering content which are relevant to consumers. Take this opportunity to focus on teaching them something new about what you have to offer, and how will your product/service solve their pain points.

Also, make use of resources such as infographics, videos or short blog posts to guide consumers to your product/service. The key is to make your content easy to consume as consumers want information and they want it fast.

Sephora’s YouTube channel is a very good example of delivering relevant content. There are tons of “how-to” videos on their channels which targets consumer’s “I-want-to-know” moments. Till date, they have over 1.27 million subscribers.

#3 BE ACCOUNTABLE

Being accountable is about evolving your measurement practices for the current mobile world. Find out new tools and build new ways to connect the dots of every customer interaction and analyze how different channels work together to support your customers.

Take Shutterfly for instance, the company measured cross-device conversions in AdWords, and managed to learnt how often mobile played a part in its consumers’ buying behaviors. That led the company to enable 100% of its keywords for mobile. This optimization boosted their overall digital conversions by 15% in under a year.

The idea of mobile marketing may seem daunting to some but really, it is about marketing from a different perspective. However, when done right, it can produce tremendous results for your business. Like what I have mentioned in the title, “Mobile is the Future, and the Future is Now”.

After knowing about micro-moments, have you ever experience any? & do you think it is a good approach for mobile marketing? Share with me your thoughts below!

Cheers.

Beware of Imran!

I’m pretty sure when I mention the name, “Imran”, many of you will think of this guy.

Although successful, the Imran above isn’t the star of today’s post.

THIS is the Imran I’m talking about! The warrior who has eyes more powerful than his rifle. Back in July 2019, the Basic Military Training Centre (BMTC) Facebook page posted a photo album of recruits during their weapon presentation ceremony. Out of all the photos that were posted, this particular one above swept the nation by storm.

It almost look like Imran was the one who was presenting the rifle to his commander instead. I mean, look at his ferocious look and beefed-up arms. Who wouldn’t think that way?

I don’t know about you, but I have never spent so much time reading comments before. Take a look at this, just… hilarious!

Till date, the photo alone garnered over 700 shares and 300 comments over a short period of time, compared to other photos that garnered little to no reactions at all. Impressive for an army-related post. Salute!

Question now is, how do we get things to go VIRAL? Well, after watching a video on “Contagious: Why Things Catch On” presented by Jonah Berger, I quickly found out that there are six key steps to make a product or idea contagious.

#1 SOCIAL CURRENCY – APPEARANCE MATTER

How many of us go through the process of editing our photos before posting it on Instagram? This is the concept of social currency. People want to make sure they are looking at their best before sharing it to others.

Similarly, people evaluate whether a particular product or idea makes them look good before liking or sharing it.

#2 TRIGGERS – TOP OF THE MIND LEADS TO TIP OF THE TONGUE

Top of Mind Awareness (TOMA), something all businesses aim for. When I say name a smartphone brand, what’s the first brand that comes to mind? Most would say, “Apple”, right? This is exactly the concept of TOMA, being on the top of a person’s mind.

Viral content often possess effective triggers, be it in terms of sight, smell or sound etc. An article from Medium showed Jonah Berger saying that, “triggers not only get people talking, they keep them talking. Top of mind means tip of tongue.”

#3 EMOTIONS – SHARING IS CARING

Emotions arouses people to take action. Emotions can be deemed as positive and negative where positive leads to high arousal, vice versa. Again, Jonah Berger suggested in a Medium article that, “we need to focus on feelings; the underlying emotions that motivate people to action.”

Source: Singtel’s YouTube Channel

Take a look at this Singtel advertisement where the emotional appeal was used to promote their services.

#4 PUBLIC – MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO

A very good example of this concept would be the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge“ that went viral couple of years back. The challenge was started by Pete Frates and Pat Quinn and spreaded like wild fire on social media. Even big name celebrities such as Dwayne Johnson and Will Smith did it. This is the concept of “social proof”, where people do things that others do if he/she deem it as the correct behavior. As Jonah Berger said in a Medium article, “The observability of a product has a huge impact on whether products and ideas catch on.”

#5 PRACTICAL VALUE – SHARING THINGS THAT HAS VALUE

Take a look at the KFC advertisement above, would you share it with your friends? No doubt I would. Who wouldn’t want a good deal right?

As Samuel Hum mentioned, delivering content that possess practical value allows people to be more incline in promoting it to others that they think might benefit from it.

#6 STORIES – A LONG LONG TIME AGO…

Kimberly A. Whitler stated that, “Storytelling is a fundamental human experience that unites people and drives stronger, deeper connections.” Jonah Berger also suggested that narratives are more engaging than facts itself. People stay for the conclusion if a story has a start, middle and end. Hence, with people being sucked into the story, they are more likely to share it with others as well.

Now we know in theory what are some factors that creates viral content, share with me your thoughts on any other viral content that you’ve came across, and why you think they became viral!

Cheers.

The Concept of “Free”

Imagine having an advertisement pop up while listening to your favourite song on Spotify. Imagine being forced to watch an advertisement while enjoying your favourite drama on Viu. Imagine having not enough storage to store your files on Dropbox. Sounds all too familiar right? To put it simply, this is called a “freemium” model.

In the words of Vineet Kumar, “Freemium“, a combination of “free” and “premium”, has been a very popular business model that is used by many internet start-ups and smartphone application developers. Essentially, users are granted the most basic features at zero cost, and gain access to additional features by paying a subscription fee.

According to ProfitWell, freemium is an acquisition model and not a revenue model. It focuses on acquiring customers quickly. As such, one of the main challenges for businesses using this model is converting customers into paying for premium services.

Applications such as Spotify and Dropbox are great examples of successful freemium companies. The concept is that when users likes the free version of the service, and understand the perks of upgrading to premium, they would pay more for a better version.

Well, I’m pretty sure most of us are guilty of spending a little money to earn that extra life on games, or going ad-free while listening to music, right? So how are businesses so successful in getting customers to pay for their premium products or services?

Let’s break it down. I’ll be using a hot dog stand as a simple analogy to illustrate my points.

#1 PRODUCT VALUE
You are sure that your hot dog is the best one around.

The success of freemium businesses starts from the base product/service that they offer to customers. If your base product/service doesn’t solve an immediate need/pain, then it doesn’t possess a high product value, vice versa. Companies such as Spotify has a high product value as they provide users with high quality music anytime, anywhere. In turn, users are more inclined to open their wallets for its premium services. According to Karen Allen, “People pay for premium content when it replaces an existing behavior at a lower price and with equal or greater convenience.”

#2 EASE OF PRODUCT USE
Your customers know what hot dogs are, how to eat it, and how it satisfy their hunger.

Freemium businesses usually have products/services that are simple enough for users to understand and educate themselves. The key idea for freemium businesses is to keep cost as low as possible. Also, as products/services are free, any slight obstacle might deter users somewhere else. IT’S THAT EASY TO LOSE THEM. Thus, successful freemium businesses usually has products/services that reliable and easy to use.

#3 MARKET PRESENCE
You position yourself at an area with huge crowds – people are hungry for your hot dogs.

According to Psych Guides, “Overall, 50% of mobile gaming revenue came from the top 10% of mobile gamers making purchases. These heavy spenders, termed “whales,” have been directly compared to the “big fish” courted by casinos. To generate vast profits, freemium games don’t have to hook everyone; instead, they only need to attract a small fraction of die-hard fans”. Therefore, successful freemium business usually possess a strong infrastructure to serve the mass market.

However, freemium definitely isn’t for everyone. Many freemium businesses failed due to being in the wrong market. Brett Nelson stated that, the right market should consist of customers that are already paying for a solution to a problem and having a under-served segment in the market.

TechWyse also stated that, reasons for upgrading is not compelling enough, where failed freemium businesses are unable to balance the value that users get for free, and the service users get when they upgrade.

Food for thought! Say Whatsapp and Instagram suddenly pose a price of $5 a month to use their service, would you pay? Let me know your thoughts below!

Cheers.

“That’s One Minute, See You Tomorrow”

Does the title sound familiar?

Alright how about this photo? Ring a bell yet?

For those who got it, a round of applause for you! For those who do not know, this person right here is called Nusseir Yassin, better known as “Nas Daily” on his social media accounts.

With approximately 14 million followers on his Facebook Page, 1.4 million followers on his Instagram account and over 500k subscribers on YouTube, Nas Daily has taken the internet by storm through his video blogs (or “vlogs”). A distinct feature that sets him apart amongst millions of “vloggers” out there would be his unique approach on sharing interesting stories around the globe, in 60 seconds. Hence the tagline, “That’s 1 minute, see you tomorrow”, at the end of his videos. In my opinion, doing it in 60 seconds is quite an incredible feat already, not to mention doing it EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Here’s one of his videos for your reference.

Source: Viral Trends

According to a TEDTalk by Teresa Heath-Wareing, “Social Media is dubbed one of the worlds fastest moving industries”. Especially for businesses and marketers, social media has changed the way we market our products, the way we identify our customers and the way we communicate with them.

In this case, Nas Daily has very cleverly used social media to his advantage by simply documenting his journey around the globe, spreading positivity and tackling topics that are less talked about. As we speak, most of his one-minute videos has already garnered millions of views, with global audiences. Now, give this man a clap!

What intrigues me the most from a marketing perspective is, how his success is very much due to the influence of social media. It goes to show how much impact social media can make if one utilize it the right way and for the right reasons. An example would be how Nas Daily is using his influence for the greater good such as spreading awareness on global warming issues as seen below.

According to Hootsuite, social media can be very beneficial to businesses in various ways.

If we take a look at the statistics above, almost half the world population are active social media users. Thus, as Christina Newberry mentioned, “If you’re not taking advantage of social media, you’re missing out on a fast, inexpensive, and effective way to reach almost half the world’s population.”

Relating this to Nas Daily, 3 ways that he has fully utilize social media as a marketing tool would be by:

Source: MediaOne

#1 INCREASING BRAND AWARENESS

Again, with almost half the population on social media, it is easiest way to target potential customers. On top of using Facebook as his main platform, Nas Daily creates brand awareness by producing content that are authentic and relatable to his audiences. In an interview with Marketing, he said that “The more relatable it gets, the more shares you get”. Also, he uses a very consistent voice to deliver his message to his audiences, which helps in keeping his content relatable.

#2 HUMANIZING HIS BRAND

Looking through all of Nas Daily’s content, it is eminent that he likes to incorporate people into his videos which is a great way of reflecting his brand values and creating human connections. In the words of Christina Newberry mentioned, “The ability to create real human connection is one of the key benefits of social media for business.”

#3 GOING VIRAL

The nature of Nas Daily’s content is authentic. He explores topics that are usually unique and somewhat sensitive. This naturally intrigues his audiences which then leads them to interact through liking, sharing and commenting on his videos. In turn, the entire response has led to most of his videos garnering millions of views.

However, is it really all sunshine and rainbows behind the successes of social media marketing? Well, in my opinion, it is definitely not. The existence of social media has greatly increased the way we can market a product or service, which makes it very easy for businesses and marketers to go over the top with their marketing campaigns. In turn, having the campaign backfiring on them. A very good example would be the infamous E-Pay “brownface” advertisement, which caused a huge stir among Singaporeans. You can check out the article here.

Thus to end off, as the world continues to become more digitalized, using social media as a marketing tool will only continue to rise. As mentioned by Thrive Global, “In the coming years, social media will take over other conventional styles of marketing and business. Experts are working to utilize social media platforms to produce more opportunities and ease for everyone”.

However, is it really the most effective way of marketing? Let me hear your thoughts below!

Cheers.