Understanding
the relationship between online and offline marketing and being able to
capitalise on it is now key to business success, says Ebenezer Heng,
Principal Consultant, Top Advertising. Speaking at the Fuji Xerox DocuWorld Conference, Heng pointed out that the keys to business success and 'gut feel' are no longer as effective in the digital age.
Location, location, location is a good thing, but eyeballing locations to check out foot traffic is not good enough, Heng said. A sentiment survey - which checks what people are saying about a location online and grades it as positive, neutral or negative - can provide a completely different picture as to which malls are popular, for instance. "Gut feel is not numbers-backed," he said.
"Some of the shops will make money, some of the shops will not make money. If you don't fall into the consumption belt of the person who is doing the shopping you don't get your sales," he said. "If you went there to study the (location) you will love the (location if) it is crowded; the question is will the crowd go into your store? A sentiment study will show that."
Another popular concept is that sales are linked to price. The lower the price, the higher the sales. Purchase decisions are more complex, Heng said, displaying the counter-intuitive results of a study on ramen, which asked how much people are willing to pay for a good bowl of plain noodles.
It turns out that respondents think cheap ramen priced at S$6 to S$15 is unlikely to be good, Heng shared. "When the price is lower, they don't actually have the queue," he said.
Even within a popular mall one establishment can still have long queues, whereas another similar business nearby may have no queues, Heng said. The reason is that consumers now decide whether to buy a product or consume a service only after checking online reviews and what their friends recommend on social media, he explained, and the business without an online presence, let alone social buzz, is not likely to have a chance. "It has a lot to do with your narrative and your story," he said.
That content must have 'thumb stopping' ability, Heng added, alluding to how people use their thumbs to scroll, as opposed to head-turning ability in the physical world. "If you don't have it you don't have that crowd," he said. "Your audience are online all the time, they form opinion of things online, they communicate their opinions to others online."
Figuring out what is thumb-stopping can be challenging as it typically does not involve the product being sold. Heng's own business Facebook page for selling coffee makers does not show coffee makers, for example. The page features iconic cartoon characters like Hello Kitty and colourful cakes, which he has found to be thumb-stopping, he said.
Augmented reality also has such thumb-stopping ability, and the experience is often shared online, leading to buzz that can boost queues. Top Advertising has augmented reality technology that converts an existing asset like a namecard or marketing brochure into a gateway to other content when that asset is viewed through a mobile app on the smartphone. The new content could be an animated graphic, music, a video or something else that extends the life of the asset, and the app can track who has seen the asset for follow-ups later.
"All your packaging, flyers, posters, everything can be augmented. You already have your assets - the idea is to loop it all together, the more channels you have, the more touch points you have, and the higher the chance of getting that traffic," Heng said. "We don't have to go out any more. People come to us."
Heng has extended his augmented reality assets to the coffee machine itself. Instead of bringing down a demonstration machine, the software can display a machine to scale to show how it will fit within the customer's premises as part of an augmented product catalogue.
"It opens the door to conversation," he said. "You want to avoid competing on price. The only way to avoid that comparison is to avoid being apples-to-apples."
Location, location, location is a good thing, but eyeballing locations to check out foot traffic is not good enough, Heng said. A sentiment survey - which checks what people are saying about a location online and grades it as positive, neutral or negative - can provide a completely different picture as to which malls are popular, for instance. "Gut feel is not numbers-backed," he said.
 |
| The hard data on the most popular malls in Singapore. |
 |
| And the surprises on the least popular malls in Singapore. |
"Some of the shops will make money, some of the shops will not make money. If you don't fall into the consumption belt of the person who is doing the shopping you don't get your sales," he said. "If you went there to study the (location) you will love the (location if) it is crowded; the question is will the crowd go into your store? A sentiment study will show that."
Another popular concept is that sales are linked to price. The lower the price, the higher the sales. Purchase decisions are more complex, Heng said, displaying the counter-intuitive results of a study on ramen, which asked how much people are willing to pay for a good bowl of plain noodles.
 |
| A survey on price thresholds for good ramen showed that none of the respondents said they would pay anything in the lowest price band for good ramen. |
It turns out that respondents think cheap ramen priced at S$6 to S$15 is unlikely to be good, Heng shared. "When the price is lower, they don't actually have the queue," he said.
Even within a popular mall one establishment can still have long queues, whereas another similar business nearby may have no queues, Heng said. The reason is that consumers now decide whether to buy a product or consume a service only after checking online reviews and what their friends recommend on social media, he explained, and the business without an online presence, let alone social buzz, is not likely to have a chance. "It has a lot to do with your narrative and your story," he said.
That content must have 'thumb stopping' ability, Heng added, alluding to how people use their thumbs to scroll, as opposed to head-turning ability in the physical world. "If you don't have it you don't have that crowd," he said. "Your audience are online all the time, they form opinion of things online, they communicate their opinions to others online."
Figuring out what is thumb-stopping can be challenging as it typically does not involve the product being sold. Heng's own business Facebook page for selling coffee makers does not show coffee makers, for example. The page features iconic cartoon characters like Hello Kitty and colourful cakes, which he has found to be thumb-stopping, he said.
Augmented reality also has such thumb-stopping ability, and the experience is often shared online, leading to buzz that can boost queues. Top Advertising has augmented reality technology that converts an existing asset like a namecard or marketing brochure into a gateway to other content when that asset is viewed through a mobile app on the smartphone. The new content could be an animated graphic, music, a video or something else that extends the life of the asset, and the app can track who has seen the asset for follow-ups later.
"All your packaging, flyers, posters, everything can be augmented. You already have your assets - the idea is to loop it all together, the more channels you have, the more touch points you have, and the higher the chance of getting that traffic," Heng said. "We don't have to go out any more. People come to us."
Heng has extended his augmented reality assets to the coffee machine itself. Instead of bringing down a demonstration machine, the software can display a machine to scale to show how it will fit within the customer's premises as part of an augmented product catalogue.
"It opens the door to conversation," he said. "You want to avoid competing on price. The only way to avoid that comparison is to avoid being apples-to-apples."
posted from Bloggeroid
