Archive for the ‘case studies’ Category
Thursday, March 11th, 2010
Customer Retention - Seafood
Two nights ago, a friend brought a couple of us to this little coffeeshop that sold seafood in Serangoon. The food was pretty good and to our surprise, the owner gave us a free dish (fish head curry, to be precise) for us to try. The owner made an intentional effort to come out twice during the night (although he also cooks the food) to make sure everything was fine.
Over dinner, I made the point to my friends (both business graduates) that this really is the way businesses should market themselves.
Why spend all that money on the bus ad or print ad that people see and forget in an instant, with the hope that it will serve as an acquisition strategy and bring in new customers? Instead why not delight your customers who have already voted with their wallets to buy from you and encourage to come back time and time again?
Needless to say, in the two days since then I’ve told four other people about it and will soon be bringing my family to check it out.
So what are you doing to get your customers to come back? Or are you letting your competition put in that little bit of extra effort to enhance the customer experience and win them over?
Ps: The idea of using retention isn’t new (nor mine) and you can read Joseph Jaffe’s new book Flip The Funnel to find out more, but I thought this was a great case study to practically illustrate how it can be done.
Pps: The address of said coffeeshop is Blk 153 Serangoon North Ave 1 #01-512 (and no, I was absolutely not incentivised by the store to share this with you.)
[image credit: jensen_chua on Flickr]
Tags: acquisition strategy, bus ad, business graduates, coffeeshop, fish head curry, flip the funnel, joseph jaffe, print ad, serangoon
Posted in Marketing, Singapore, case studies | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
Sometimes, being involved in socia media, it seems everyone is talking about the same thing and that it’s being amplified over many people and over time.
It’s even scarier if you’re an organisation and you wake up to see 10, 20, 50, 100 tweets about you one morning and rush to come up with some sort of response by the afternoon.
But how “sticky” really are these conversations – or are they actually rather transient?
Let’s look at two relatively “big” occurences this year: United Breaks Guitars and the JK Wedding Dance and their search trends on Google (click for larger image):
JK Wedding Dance - United Breaks Guitars
Though there was certainly a surge, they both lasted for about six weeks each and given that they happened at about the same time, it could have been possible to miss one or the other due to noise.
Let’s add in two more events: Kanye West at the VMAs and Google Wave’s launch.
Google Wave - Kanye West
Three immediate observations:
- Kanye’s search volume – while through the roof, is also shorter than any other story, lasting less than a month (looks like two weeks from the scale). And let’s face it, without the comment from President Obama, it would have been even shorter.
- Kanye’s search volume immediately dwarfs that of JK Wedding Dance and United Breaks Guitars – again this comes back to noise. How long can your story (positive or negative) hold the attention of the social media sphere?
- Google Wave doesn’t create a spike but does have the longest sustained interest over time – obviously good news for a product launch, bad news if this is a PR fiasco.
Finally, let’s add Tiger Woods to the fray:
Tiger Woods
It peaks as high as Kanye but has sustained itself pretty well. Bad news for Tiger – or any brand that finds itself in that unfortunate position.
So what’s the takeaway?
I generally wouldn’t encourage it, but there might be certain situations where it’s okay to keep quiet and not respond. Take Kanye for example. If he kept silent and didn’t go on numerous talk shows – it’d be over in a week or two. Erased (or at least embedded pretty deep) in our collective consciousness. To some extent same for Tiger. If another “Kanye” happened two days after Tiger, I think both stories would have fizzled out.
The social media eco system is fickle and riddled with attention-deficit disorder. Everyone want someone to bash but that could change from one day to the next. It’s easy to say that in retrospect of course, but the next time you get that feeling you absolutely need to reply or your company will lose millions – think about whether that story will really be around in two weeks, of if the pirahnas would have moved on to new meat.
Tags: amplification, google trends, google wave, jk wedding dance, kanye west VMA, social media, tiger woods, transient, tweets, united breaks guitars
Posted in case studies, social media, social media business | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
The Lens Men
About a month ago, I noticed that an optical store here in Singapore called The Lens Men was active on Twitter (@thelensmen) and took the opportunity to ask them about contact lenses and prices. Unlike a few other shops, they were straightforward and transparent and told me that the prices for those particular lenses were set by the manufacturer and thus was the same no matter where I went. They also said they treated customers more like “patients” because eyes are important and should get proper examinations and care.
Based on no other factor other that I would support a local business using digital media in Singapore, I decided to check them out. By the time I had a free evening to head down to their store at Centrepoint it was two weeks later, and even though I didn’t let them know ahead of time I was going down, I was probably treated more carefully than any other optician I’d been to before and it was a good experience.
But let’s get back to the title. What’s the financial ROI here? I bought six boxes of contact lenses for $280. Strictly speaking even if they calculated my value over a year it’d probably hit $840. How many customers like me do they have to reach via social media in Singapore to justify adding “monitor Twitter” as an additional scope of work? Singapore’s too small for such an effort to scale with any noticeable impact.
But how about the non-financial ROI? My net promoter score just went way up, they’ll get a link (and numerous tweets) with this post, engagement with many other people online, more top of mind recall and brand awareness among a subset of digital users, and an authentic, transparent personality to add to their brand equity among other things. This is a great example of a company in Singapore using social media for small business use.
Does that matter? Some managers concerned only about the bottom line will probably say no. Can you put a monetary value to it? Probably not in any objective sense. Should you do it anyway? Probably.
I’ll be the first to admit I don’t have all the answers to ROI when it comes to social media. Tracking KPIs is easy, but it’s not the same as ROI. So do you think it matters to consider the non-financial, less tangible benefits, or do you think looking at cold hard ROI is the answer?
[note: I paid the full consumer price for my lenses and did not receive any form of compensation/discounts for this whatsoever. The Lens Men did not conduct any form of outreach towards this blog post at all]
Tags: brand awareness, financial roi, net promoter score, social media marketing, social media roi, social media singapore
Posted in Singapore, case studies, social media, social media business | 10 Comments »
Monday, December 14th, 2009
I have to admit I don’t always do a lot of keyword research when I’m writing blog posts. However last week when I wrote about the iPhone competition in Singapore, I did make it a conscious effort to check out Google Insights for Search to see what search terms people were searching for (click for bigger image):
iPhone Singapore Searches
Although I had originally intended to title the post a little different (something like “What happens when you don’t compare yourself to the competition”), I realised that when it came to the subject matter (the iPhone in Singapore), branded keywords were the way to go. Almost every phrase in the screenshot above has some variation of a brand name + iphone, and that’s why I included all 3 brand names and the iPhone into my title eventually.
The results?
Just looking at top level data the results are stunning (click for bigger image):
iPhone Referral Traffic
iPhone Search Traffic
- On average, people who entered via search spent 44 seconds longer (that’s 25%) on the site than people who had entered via referring traffic (which included heavy hitters like Singapore Daily).
- Not only that but both the % of exits and bounce rate averages were lower for search than for referring traffic.
- Finally search traffic came from 95 keywords. That is a lot of long tail traffic that can be really valuable. To put this in perspective, my 2nd most popular post this month on 2010 social media trends had all of 15 keywords.
Two takeaways from this:
- Do not ignore search, it’s definitely the low hanging fruit. Three extra minutes spent on keyword research just for the title tag could create a lot of value when it comes to your on-page copy.
- Don’t think it’s about choosing referral traffic or search. Go for both.
Finally, it’s different for me because I run a blog. If I was one of those telcos I would make sure that for this landing page, there would be something, anything, that consumers can do to encourage conversion. Whether it’s entering their email to be kept up to date with the latest plans or getting them to leave their number so customer service can call them back or some digital collateral to download – there must be a call to action.
How are you using keyword research and SEO to make your content work for you? Are your initiatives producing results? Would love to hear from you in the comments.
Tags: iphone, iphone data plan, iphone singapore, m1, referral traffic, search traffic, SEO, singtel, starhub
Posted in SEO, Singapore, case studies, social media | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
For the last year and a half, only one carrier, Singtel, had the rights to distribute the iPhone here in Singapore. Two days ago the other two telcos, M1 and Starhub announced their price plans and entered the market, generating lots of chatter everywhere.
Something interesting happened during this pricing scheme, which later led to somewhat of a “price war” between the three telcos. I think this is a really good case study to illustrate why you shouldn’t compare yourself with the competition.
When Starhub released its pricing plans earlier in the day, they modeled their pricing plan after Singtel’s. The basic plan started with 1gb of data usage at a price comparative to Singtel’s.
When M1 released their pricing plans later in the day, they didn’t even bother with what Singtel and Starhub were doing, and launched their basic plan at 10gb of data usage at a similar price to the other two.
In one bold move, by not limiting themselves to the existing paradigm, M1 turned the perception of data and price on its head. A day later, Starhub and Singtel upped the ante by increasing their basic plans to begin with 12gb of data (which really begs the question of how high the margins were on the original 1gb….).
In other words, they forced Starhub and Singtel to play on their terms, whether or not their networks could theoretically support that kind of data.
While this isn’t a perfect example because price is easily mimicked, this illustrates the power of not benchmarking yourself to what’s already existing in the market or what your competition is doing or offering.
For your next business decision, are you going to be a Starhub and mimic the status quo, or be an M1 and lead the way forward? You decide.
[also check out Daphne's take on the iPhone data war on her blog and Weimeng's take as well.]
[image credit: hongkiat.com]
Tags: data plan, iphone, iphone plan, m1, price plan, singtel, starhub
Posted in Marketing, case studies | 6 Comments »
Friday, October 2nd, 2009
The Singapore Writers Festival is back and the big news was that they were bringing in Neil Gaiman. After continually hearing about it and repeatedly checking their website, there was no mention of Neil until one day it was all over the social media channels that tickets had run out and were only announced on Twitter (to an audience of 170+) as opposed to their Facebook group (700+) or even their mailing list.
Understandably, this led to confusion, disappointment and outrage all over the Facebook group, Facebook event page and Twitter:
I believe the organisers made one of the biggest mistakes there is to be made in social media: focusing on the tools, platforms and technology. They probably were aware that “Facebook” and “Twitter” were the latest buzzwords in town and decided to use them exclusively instead of their website or even email communications.
And even then, I’d be hard pressed to say they used them well. There’s little to no response to the upset people above on the channels and to put it plainly, it seems like the organisers intend to ignore them.
At the end of the day, we have to realise social channels is to be used in conjunction with existing channels, not instead of. If and when they are brought into the marketing or communications plan, there should be a solid strategy or goal behind it, not just using the tools for the sake of it.
Perhaps the Singapore Writers Festival organisers should have taken a page out of the British Council’s book since they organised it brilliantly when Neil was last down a few years ago.
For a completely different case study, check out Jonathan Wong’s post on Anime Festival Asia
Posted in Events, Poor Practices, Singapore, case studies, facebook, social media | 8 Comments »
Thursday, September 10th, 2009
I got home today and there was this brown envelope in the mail (click for larger images):
Direct Marketing Example 1
Direct Marketing Example 2
It’s a menu (that has more pages than this) for a grill and bar called Rocks over at The Sail. Nothing particularly exciting about a menu, except that it represents a clear actionable next step: check out the restaurant. Those pamphlets/flyers telling you why their restaurant is the best are too easily ignored, but seeing “certified Japanese Wagyu beef” kinda gets you hungry.
Three things, if you’re listening, Rocks:
1) Make the link to your website on the direct mail larger so that I can immediately send the link to my friends to see if they’d be interested in going.
2) Have a working website?
3) Attach a coupon together with it, preferrably with a unique code for each postal district, so at least you can track response rates and know where is delivering you results and you can focus there for future promotions.
All in all, nice different direct mail compared to the usual riff raff, and probably very profitable on the ROI, even at the typical 1% direct mail response rate, considering it won’t be a party of one that eventually checks out the restaurant.
Tags: certified japanese wagyu beef, coupon, direct mail singapore, direct marketing, direct marketing singapore, example of direct marketing, response rates, rocks grill + bar, rocks grill + bar menu, rocks grill and bar, rocks grill and bar menu, rocks menu singapore, rocks urban grill and bar, the sail, website link
Posted in Marketing, case studies, social media | 2 Comments »
Monday, August 31st, 2009
Today Coleman tweeted that the Ministry of Education’s teachers’ day website was a risky move, and coincidentally at the time when I clicked on the link the one and only “careless” tweet appeared (screenshot courtesy of Coleman):
Teachersday.sg
Yes, I give MOE credit for trying something new and for experimenting, but there are still points to be made/lessons to learn:
1) It may have been the only negative tweet, but I think we need to think about these things. Who else will see these tweets besides the teachers? Other kids? Parents of kids? It’s entirely possible to get on to a service like Pheed.me and remove foul language in advance. And I think we need to be keenly aware of our target audience.
2) I understand that the purpose of keeping it uncensored was to maintain authenticity, but looking at the tweets that came out.. I’m not sure how many were just set up for the sole purpose of tweeting this one hashtag.
3) As Daphne points out, this web portal wasn’t largely publicised and therein lies why this was the only “careless” tweet. If more of the general public got to know about it, I bet it wouldn’t be long before tweets like “Miss Lim from [whatever] school I remember you for being such a b!tc# 20 years ago and I hope you’re still single #tday09” start appearing, and this turns into a #skittles fiasco – where people tagged on racist/malicious comments to the #skittles hashtag for everyone to see.
So for a moment, let’s forget this is the Ministry of Education (MOE), let’s forget that the people tweeting are predominantly kids, and let’s think about it in the real world:
First, while I don’t think the people who are involved are inexperienced or ignorant of social media, I think they jumped on the shiny object bandwagon without thinking it through. From their blog post:
If Facebook was the vehicle that brought social media to the mainstream, Twitter is the shiny new Ferrari F70 of the online space
Accurately said. I shiny new Ferrari isn’t an everyday, run-of-the-mill car. It’s like re-taking your drivers’ licence test again and making sure you understand the vehicle and can control it under all sorts of conditions, sunny or stormy.
Second, I know I’ll get some flak by being critical of something like this where there’s one negative post in a sea of hundreds. But that’s not where I’m coming from. It’s not specific to the case. It’s specific to the understanding, usage and application of social media that I think we have to be aware of. Those of us who are fortunate enough to work in this space really have to be conscious of this. If you did this for a client, or your CEO of an MNC and they saw this happen. What do you think are the odds you’d get budget for your next “social media experiment”? Slim to none?
Basically, I think you have to be careful how much risk you take with your brand. It’s great to hand over control to the consumers, but you gotta know your audience. Have you already been in the community cultivating “antibodies” for awhile who will come to your defence when someone steps out of line? Or are you jumping in cold? Just because you introduce a platform for one, noble purpose, doesn’t mean it will be used that way by everyone. And you have to take the good and the bad.
Back to the specific case, although the boy managed to delete his tweet and seemed quite embarrassed afterwards, I really hope he doesn’t get punished or anything because of this. It was a conscious decision to make this platform public, and therefore consequences that arise of it being public comes from that choice to be public, not the user.
After all, he just served as a reminder to us that anybody can be made aware of anyone’s social media efforts at any one time, and they’re not always going to be in sync with your organisation.
Tags: know your audience, metacole, ministry of education, teachers' day website, teachersday.sg, twitter
Posted in Marketing, SMU, Singapore, case studies, education, social media, social media breakfast, twitter | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
I had a problem earlier this week with gothere.sg and without directing it at their Twitter account (I didn’t even know they had one), I tweeted:
Gothere Tweet
And was surprised when I saw this in my Twittersteam this morning:
GoThere's Response
Between that and what was blogged yesterday, which would you choose? Here’s a little refresher:
Tweet.sg
Tweet.sg
Both are free services, both are online services with competitors (I could use Google Maps for gothere.sg), which do you think will get me going back for a second use?
Which would you go back for a second use?
More importantly, because yesterday’s post was about reputation, if both these people came to you and said “I was the guy behind tweet.sg” and the other said “I was the guy behind gothere.sg”, which would you feel more comfortable in hiring? Would you be more inclined to believe that the attitude when money is part of the equation would be the same as if the service is free? Or would you be more inclined to believe that said behavior would be drastically different based on whether money changes hands?
I’m a strong believer of being careful of what you do online because it will come back to haunt you. But what do you think? Love to hear from you.
Tags: google maps, gothere.sg, online reputation, reputation management, twitter
Posted in Poor Practices, Singapore, case studies, social media, social media business | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
Tonight I came home to discover that there was a little bit of a rant (to put it mildly) by @TweetSG, the person behind tweet.sg, which allows people in Singapore to update their Twitter statuses via sms. My understanding is there have been lag updates (from the time the sms is sent to the time it appears on the person’s profile) and the developer basically had enough.
Tweet.sg
So I don’t run a business or a service, but announcing to almost 8,000 followers on Twitter that you can just remove any of your service at users at will is a little bit much, as is throwing around the f-word.
So in one night, what has happened is:
- Lose many people who have used the service previously
- Get bad press out to many others (like me) who have never used it and never will
- Given a competitor (Sgbeat.com) a great opportunity to swipe some market share
Granted, service users might have been unreasonable (I don’t know if that is true), but doesn’t everyone face this in every market? Losing our cool is not the way to go.
Tags: reputation, reputation management, sgbeat, Singapore, tweetsg, twitter, twitter status, update twitter sms
Posted in Poor Practices, Singapore, case studies, social media, social media business | 23 Comments »
