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Virtual Reality in marketing is rising
Technology is developing, and more and more people use digital tools in their life. Therefore, marketing also needs to be more creative rather than just advertising on TV, newspaper and billboards. Now, virtual reality (VR) is rising the popularity in businesses.
VR is an experience taking place with a simulated environment that are different from the real world. Nowadays, there are many industries using VR such as gaming, education, retail and aerospace etc. According to Walker (2018), 75% of top world brands have already integrated VR into their business. More marketers are plan to use VR in their business.
For example, Toyota invited some customers to take part in the experience. They are shown by some dangerous situations to deliver the car reliability.
VR can provide an interactive customer experience, which makes people feel they are in different place or time. Development of VR can help to reach more customers, and make them engage more to your products or services.
For example, students are very stressed in their studies, especially university students. University can then employ a digital agency to help them release their stress and make them happy. Like develop a VR stress room with some happy environment like forest, Disneyland, or some other situations to make students relax.
Although the trend of VR is being more popular, marketers needs to aware that the main objectives and goals of their company and to reach more customers aware of the brand.
Related Websites:
Rogers, S. (2018, November 02). Six Reasons Why Marketers And Brands Need VR. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/solrogers/2018/11/02/marketers-and-brands-need-vr-heres-six-reasons-why/#36166ba01395
Walker, S. (2018, August 13). Virtual Reality Marketing: Is The Next Big Opportunity Already Here? Retrieved from https://www.digitaldoughnut.com/articles/2018/august/virtual-reality-marketing-is-it-already-here
Personal Privacy is important!
Everyone has their own privacy, including name, signature, home address, mobile phone number, bank account details, and medical records etc. that contains personal information. Have you heard of news that stealing bank account details by someone? If we are not careful about our personal information, all of the information would be disclosed.
From Roy Morgan, around 90% of Australians are not acceptable for companies to collect their personal information. When signing up online, over half of people did not read the privacy policy.
The above chart is talk about what information that Australians do not want to share. From the chart, most Australians do not want the photos of their kids or family to be shared. The reason is that they want to protect their family, they do not want others who do not know to take their photos and shared on the internet.
The other issue of other than protecting personal information by individuals, is that companies and businesses also have the responsibility to protect customers’ privacy, such as email address, home address and mobile phone number etc. It is important for small businesses to know that they are easier to attract hacker because large companies have a larger scale of processes to protect customers’ information, but some cases are excepted of course. The first and important thing is to design a detailed privacy policy which to tell customers you are collecting their information. Customers must agree and know the policy. Second, there should be a choice for customers to opt-out when they do not want to receive any message from the company, such as an unsubscribe button in the email. Third, after customers unsubscribe, the company should delete all the information about that customer, including the name, sex, email address, and of course, bank account. Forth, in internal of the company, access to the information should be controlled and limited. Only few people can access to the information with a password.
For both customers and businesses, it is important to protect their own privacy and information not to be disclosed. Also, in order to increase the satisfaction and trust of customers to the company, it is important to set a appropriate and clear privacy policy, and set a standard of accessing the information.
Related website:
Hart, B. (2019, March 25). Consider this before you share your kids’ photos on social media without their consent. Retrieved from https://www.abc.net.au/life/sharing-photos-of-your-children-on-social-media-without-consent/10798576
Nerl, D. (2019, January 22). 10 Tips to Protect Your Business and Customers on Data Privacy Day. Retrieved from https://smallbiztrends.com/2017/01/data-protection-tips-for-data-privacy-day-2017.html
Roy Morgan. (2018, July 06). Australians worried about online privacy but slow to act. Retrieved from http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/7650-online-privacy-concerns-june-2018-201807060422
How technologies affect businesses?
We use technologies everyday: mobile phone, laptop, smart watches, etc. Even we can see technologies everywhere when we walk on the street, especially in a shopping mall. There are digital billboards, free WiFi, and digital customer services that are the example of using technologies. When we purchase in a shop, in a more narrower way to see technologies, staff use a purchase system, scan the bar codes, customers pay with credit cards and do a short customer satisfaction survey on an iPad.
This week we learnt there are many types of technologies that can use in business, such as Internet of things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality. Businesses use technologies in their business operations can bring tangible and intangible benefits. The obvious tangible benefit is that it can make more profits, while the intangible benefit is increase customer demand and their satisfaction. Businesses use technologies to reduce cost and improve their efficiency and effectiveness on their production.
For example, it is popular to use service robots in some industries or business, such as hotel industry. It is quite common in hotel industry in Asia. Most hotels put one robot in the lobby and customers can ask questions. Some customers are quite enjoy for the novelty of the robot delivering snacks and drinks to them.
However, technologies can also bring us some disadvantages. The main issue is technologies would take human’s job. Computers and technologies would replace humans. This makes job insecure. Also, there might have privacy concerns, especially there are digital cameras in public places such as shopping centres. Some people don’t want their face or their movement being posted onto internet.
Therefore, when a company decided to use technologies in their business, managers have to decide which types of technology they want to use in order to have an cost effective and which is best for them to achieve their business objectives.
Related websites:
Kumar, V. (2017, February 20). Top 12 Examples, How Technology Has Changed Our Lives. Retrieved from http://www.klientsolutech.com/examples-of-how-technology-has-changed-our-lives/
Millward, D. (2018, October 19). The rise of the robot butler – fad or the future of hotel room service? Retrieved from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/hotels/articles/hotel-robot-room-service/
Ramey, K. (2013, February 25). The Advantages and Disadvantages of Technology in the Workplace. Retrieved from https://www.useoftechnology.com/technology-workplace-2/
Vitez, O. (2017, September 26). Emerging Technology in Business. Retrieved from https://bizfluent.com/about-6647421-emerging-technology-business.html
Why is Technology Important in Business? |. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.oksbdc.org/why-is-technology-important-in-business/
Email advertising is bothering me!
Have you ever received email that you don’t want to receive? I have. Sometimes, when we go shopping, the staff would ask us to sign up to become their member for free, and they would give some incentives to us like 5% discount for next purchase. Especially boutique and other fashion brands. We are most likely to write our email address when signing up. This action already ‘fall into their tap’. Next few days of your purchase, you probably receive many emails from that company. Those emails are called spam, or junk email. I used to sign up so I have received so many that kind of email. I hate that and they are bothering me. So I unsubscribe some of them.
I found some data that spam rate is the highest in 2010 and it was decreasing until 2012. But back in 2001, there were just only 8% of all mail was spam. I think the reason is that traditional advertising is more popular than email marketing at that time. Technology development is keep growing and people always use technology rather than traditional advertising tool like billboard and television.
Murphy (2016) stated that 78% people check their email frequently throughout a day and 66% people the first thing to do in the morning are checking their email. Therefore, promoting the brand and products through email is a good way to attract customers.
However, quantity of emails received by customers is also important, not only the quality of content. I have received some brands that they send at least 2 to 3 emails in a day that promote their products. I felt so annoying and click unsubscribe immediately.
As a marketer, we have to understand how customers behave and do they really want to received many emails in a day or just once a week. Sometimes, sending emails to promote can have a negative effects on customers. They may then have a negative word-of-mouth and their preference of the brand may become negative and switch to other brands.
Related website:
Bauer, E. (2018, February 1). 15 Outrageous Email Spam Statistics that Still Ring True in 2018. Retrieved from https://www.propellercrm.com/blog/email-spam-statistics
Murphy, M. (2016, September 18). The Way You Check Email Is Making You Less Productive. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2016/09/18/the-way-you-check-email-is-making-you-less-productive/#619f153637e3
Pimanove, J. (2012, June 5). Email Spam Trends at a Glance: 2001-2012. Retrieved from https://www.emailtray.com/blog/email-spam-trends-2001-2012/
Social Media Marketing is important!
Using social media is very common in these years. Well-known social medias include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and WhatsApp etc. From some report and news, the average person now has 7.6 active social media accounts, with around 98% population have at least one social media account (I even have 8 social media accounts!) . People like using social media to communicate with others, update their status, follow their favourite celebrities and also shopping at a cheaper price.
Social media marketing is important to companies because it can enhance brand awareness and visibility. Promoting products on social media can also increase brand recognition. Social media marketing also is a cost-effective way to promote products. If companies want to invest more to attract more customers, they can decide to use paid advertising but the cost would become higher. The benefit of using social media marketing is that company can engage with their customers. They can communication with each other and customers can give comments both positively and negatively.
To increase brand awareness and reach to their customers, more than 90% brands use social media. But in my opinion, not all brands done well in operating their social media account. Some brands did not update their post regularly, their last post maybe few months ago or even a year ago. Some brands did badly on their social media.
For example, Dove, they post the above ad on Facebook page. The ad was talking a black women has transferred to a white woman after using Dove products. How come a black woman can transfer to a white woman immediately after using Dove product? This has go against their brand message and made many customers angry and uncomfortable.
To improve social media marketing, company can encourage customers gives some feedback and comments, both positive and negative. From negative feedback, find out what the problem is and find ways to solve it. Also, keep updating social media is necessary to show your company want to reach more customers and gain their attention.
Reference:
1. Newberry, C. (2019, March 5). 130 Social Media Statistics that Matter to Marketers in 2019. Retrieved from https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-statistics-for-social-media-managers/#general
2. Greenfield, M. (2019). Number of social media users worldwide 2010-2021. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/
3. Hebblethwaite, C. (2017, November 17). The average person has 7 social media accounts. Retrieved from https://www.marketingtechnews.net/news/2017/nov/17/average-person-has-7-social-media-accounts/
4. Nelson, S. (2018, February 6). 7 reasons why social media marketing is important for your business. Retrieved from https://www.digitaldoughnut.com/articles/2018/february/7-reasons-why-social-media-marketing-is-important
Is YouTube an effective way to promote your product?
YouTube is a channel that people use to watch TV shows, variety shows, vlog, online tutorials and listen to songs.
In November 2018, a data stated that 15.7 million Australian adults spent an average of 24.hours and 5 minutes per person on Youtube. 94% of Australians aged 18 to 39 even spent average 35 hours and 55 minutes per person on Youtube on that month.
Company can choose to promote their product or information by using YouTube. There are many advantages promoting on YouTube.First, it can capture attention. Since many people are using YouTube nowadays, it can help to increase the exposure and more users would capture the attention. Second, it is cost-effective to promote on YouTube. One video content can reach more than a million viewers, due to more people prefer online such as YouTube rather than television or magazines.
Sometimes, find some YouTubers to promote can even boost the sales of the product. Youtube users always subscribe their favourite YouTubers for their vlog or other interesting videos. I always watch Malaysian YouTubers that they like to promote one company’s product in their video. Some may do give-away and some may provide a promo code for viewer to buy a cheaper product using that promo code.
What is the meaning of color of app icons?
We use our mobile phone and use different apps everyday. We use apps for communicating with friends and family, watching movies, playing games and checking emails etc. But have you discovered that there are different colours of apps? For example, most communication apps like WhatsApp, Line and Wechat are all green in color; most food-related apps like McDonalds, KFC and Hungry Jacks are all red. Do you know why?
According to Özdestici (2016), colours can help to attract users’ attention and can increase brand recognition, memory and perception. In mobile app store, ranking is important. The first thing users downloading the app is looking at the icon and to see whether it is attractive or not. About 92.6% people thought that visual is the most important factors compared to other factors like smell and taste. And most people deciding to buy or use is based on their preferred colour. Özdestici also stated that ‘blue’ colour is the best choice of apps that uses users’ private or personal information. Therefore, we can see that Facebook, Skype and LinkedIn are all blue in colour.
Hall, R. (2017, September 11). Understanding The Role & Impact That Color Plays In App Design. Retrieved from https://mindsea.com/color-theory/
Hall, S. (2015, August 19). The Colors Of An App Icon. Retrieved from https://stories.appbot.co/the-colors-of-an-app-icon-b5e8805958d7
Özdestici, H. (2016, February 20). Color Psychology For Mobile Apps. Retrieved from https://growthtower.com/color-psychology-for-mobile-apps/
Why data is important in doing a business?
This week lesson is about using data to optimize business outcomes. And my first question that appears in my brain is: Can a business operate without any data? I think the answer would be YES, but it is hard to expand its business and to retain customers.
Nowadays, data is important in doing a business, especially in making decisions. Almost every companies are collecting data in a timely based. Having data, company and marketing manager can have a better understanding of their customers. A company collects data can:
- Review performance
- Solve problems
- Retain customers
- Predict future sales
- Improve customer service
- Attract new or existing customers
Uzialko in the article stated that there are three ways to collect customer data- directly asking customers, by indirectly tracking customers, and by appending other sources of customer data to your own. The most frequently used method of collect data is by doing a direct interview or survey with customers. However, I think there are some drawbacks of interviewing customers. The first is that customers may provide fake or inaccurate information. Second, the quality of questions that to be ask may not good enough which cannot strictly solve the problem. Lastly, the sample size of interviewees may be so small that cannot be represent the whole segment.
Therefore, company should careful collect, use and analyse the data which is important to the company.
Reference: Uzialko, A. C. (2018, August 03). How Businesses Are Collecting Data (And What They’re Doing With It). Retrieved from https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/10625-businesses-collecting-data.html
Online Food Ordering System is really convenient!
Have you ever order food through your mobile phone app or on your laptop?
Due to increasingly busy of Australians, they require fast and convenient food delivery in these few years. There are many companies delivering food in Australia, mainly Just Eat, Deliveroo Australia and Uber Australia. According to IBIS World Industry Report OD5538, the largest market using online ordering platforms is customers aged 35 to 44. People in this group are mostly highly educated and they use technology most of the time. They also like gathering with friends and families.
More and more people use online food ordering system not just because of convenience, and also because they can choose and decide a wide range of their favourite food in one app in one location such as at home. Payment is also a factor that people choose to order online. There is a phenomenon that I observed when I first come to Melbourne that Australians seldom bring money when they go out, most of them are using debit or credit card when they are making the payment. People just add and save their credit card into the food ordering app, and just press check out when they finish decided what to eat. It is so convenient for them!
Therefore, if a new restaurant want to be success in their business, it must offer an online food order system and delivery platform in order to retain customers and make them loyal to your restaurant.
Reference: Vuong, B. (2018, October). Online Food Ordering and Delivery Platforms in Australia (IBIS World Industry Report OD5538). Retrieved from www.ibisworld.com.au
How Australians’ shopping behaviour changed?
Online shopping become very popular in Australia. According to Roy Morgan (2018), there were 9.46 million Australians, which represent 46.8% of population, purchased products online in a month. It is an increasing trend that people like to shop and purchase online. Most customers would prefer shopping online rather than go to traditional physical stores. They look reviews and purchase products online due to several reasons:
- Save money
- Convenience
- Better selection
- Shopping is faster
- Delivery options
Customers not just purchasing products and services online, they also go online start from looking for information and reviews through searching engines, asking friends through social media, and posting post-consumption feedback on their blog etc. These actions are all using online, therefore we can see how important online is.
Elle's Digital Marketing Journey 