App Marketing – CultureKEY Social Media Campaign

Social Media Content – Phase 1

For the CultureKEY social media campaign I’ve chosen to focus on the type of user-generated content that has worked so well in a few of the examples of my last post.

Because user generated content isn’t paid for, it makes it more authentic and puts the user in the role of brand advertiser as well. This type of content I think works best on platforms like Twitter where posts can easily be re-posted while putting their own spin on things or adding extra content.

For this reason I have chosen to begin the CultureKEY campaign with Twitter where residents of particular countries will be targeted and called upon to share stories about the quirks and customs that make their culture unique.

Using eye catching visuals we’ll encourage users to also use the chosen hashtag ‘#UnlockMyCulture’ which will hopefully encourage the post to spread and for us to collect more data. This data can not only be used in the future development of the app while also spreading brand awareness. But as we will see further can be used to continue the social media campaign content itself.

Example Post:

‘Calling all those that call the #EmeraldIsle their home… 

CultureKEY want you to share! Finish the sentence “Only in Ireland…” and tell us the quirks and customs that make Irish culture so unique!

#UnlockMyCulture‘

Social Media Content – Phase 2

Once the initial Twitter campaign has been running for some time and generated enough interaction from users. This interaction will then be used as the content for the second phase of the social media campaign.

This will take the form of Facebook Ads that will aim to spread brand awareness by presenting the best user content into visual infographics that will encourage the users to discover more by leading them directly onto the app landing page.

Examples of potential Facebook Ads:

 

 

App Marketing – Inspiring Social Media Campaigns

Examples of Effective Social Media Campaigns

Before coming up with my own social media campaign for the CultureKEY app, I wanted to look at some other campaigns that have been effective and worked well within the same target audience to fuel my own ideas and inspiration.

1. WWF #EndangeredEmoji

Platform: Twitter

When: 2016

Campaign Outline

Seventeen of the animals included in the emoji index were identified as representative of endangered species. WWF used this insight to launch a campaign to raise donations for species protection. The idea was simple but effective: for each retweet of an animal emoji shared by the @WWF Twitter account, users were encouraged to make a donation of 10 cents.

Every retweet of an animal emoji was tracked and at the end of each month, users were given a summary of their activity, along with what their donation equivalent totaled.

The Numbers

• Launch tweet was retweeted more than 36,000 times with 11,000 likes and 38,000 responses.
• More than 1 million tweets using the campaign hashtag.
• WWF gained more than 200,000 new followers.
• More than 59,000 donations in the first two months of the campaign alone.

Why Did it Work?

WWF made it easy to get involved with the campaign and effectively tapped into the emoji craze. It was fun, the suggested donation was minimal, and the use of emoji tied directly to the campaign’s purpose, rather than feeling like a forced attempt to hijack a trend.

2. Worldwide Breast Cancer #KnowYourLemons

Platform: Facebook

When: 2017

Campaign Outline

The charity Worldwide Breast Cancer launched an innovative and highly shareable campaign earlier this year. Labeled #KnowYourLemons, the campaign was designed to promote awareness of the various signs of breast cancer and remind women that lumps are not the only symptom.

Using lemons to depict 12 different signs, the image cleverly gets around nipple-based censoring rules, and aims to help women overcome fears about checking their breasts.

The Numbers

• The images from the campaign have reached 7.3 million people through just three Facebook posts.
• It’s impossible to know how many women visited their doctor on the basis of this campaign, but it’s safe to assume it had a positive impact.

Why Did it Work?

It managed to strike a delicate balance between playful and serious, while also tackling an important issue. It can be difficult for people to talk openly about these things, but the willingness is there.

3. General Electric #6SecondScienceFair

Platform: Vine, Tumblr

When: 2013

Campaign Outline

General Electric launched a campaign hosting a #6SecondScienceFair on Vine and Tumblr back in 2013.

Within this campaign, they revined posts of at-home science experiments, with the aims of encouraging engagement, generating interest in science, and building GE’s position as a force for innovation.

The Numbers

• The Vine linked to above was revined more than 105,000 times.
• The campaign on Vine attracted more than 100 million Loops.

Why Did it Work?

Although this campaign is a few years old, it is an excellent example of just how effective user-generated content can be. The rules were clear: posts had to contain a science experiment and they had to be six seconds or shorter. Other than that, people were free to let their imaginations roam. This sense of guided creativity was a driving factor behind the campaign’s success.

 

 

App Marketing Strategy

Marketing Objective

The marketing objective for this plan is:

• Drive traffic to the app landing page
• Convert traffic to app downloads with the aim to have 1,000 new app downloads in the next 12 months

Target Persona

The target persona we will be using for this marketing strategy is as follows:

 

Value Proposition

With the above in mind the following value proposition has been created:

If you are in the process of preparing for your latest travel experience either solo or otherwise and want to make sure you have the best experience possible by making the most out of this new unfamiliar culture. Unlike regular travel apps like Lonely Planet or TripAdvisor, CultureKEY will allow you to unlock a wide variety of culturally specific travel tips, solely designed to make sure you are completely prepared for the adventure that lies ahead…

Customer Journey

The goal of the social media campaign in this marketing plan will focus on targeting customers in the Awareness stage of the customer journey. We will use digital marketing to establish the brand and encourage potential customers to find out who we are and what we do.

Task Management

I will be using the Trello task management software in order to document the marketing strategy timings, events, deliverables, and tasks.

The advantages I found in using Trello over other task management software include:

• The fact that it is free and requires no upgrade or subscription to access any of it’s features
• It’s app-like interface makes it easy to work with over other more traditional looking websites.
• The ability to create board for a project where you can then see all the items for that board on one page.
• Creating issues is simple and easy.
• Adding new member is easy. You can not only add existing user to your board but also invite new users by typing in emails.

The only disadvantage I really found was that it would be a handy addition to have some sort of calendar view in order to get a better timeline of events for your projects.

 

 

App Design – Branding

Logo – Name

When designing the brand logo, I decided to keep it relatively landscape in orientation as I felt this would work better when trying to fit it into the design of the app as it would take up less vertical space that could be used for other aspects without losing much of the logo detail as a more square or vertical logo might. I tried to keep the fonts used both complimentary but also contrasting and added the key illustration as an element of fun but also as a way to make the logo recognisable in other ways, as can be seen in the potential app icon design below.

Colour scheme

For the colour scheme I wanted to incorporate a combination of warm and cool colours which I thought would reflect the contrasting fonts in the logo nicely. I experimented with the Google Colour Palette tool to find a combination I thought worked well. I think the high contrast between the warm and cool tones creates a vibrant atmosphere which I think fits well with our target audience. However in order for the effect not to be too jarring I decided to make the cool tones the more dominant, saving the warm ones for accents only. I think the blue and green shades work better as the primary palette as well considering they have been proven to have a more calming effect and this ties in with one of the goals of the app which is to reduce the stress and confusion a user might experience when travelling to foreign, unfamiliar places. Whereas the red and pink  tones invite a sense of warmth and excitement in keeping with the most often desired travel experience.

 

Fonts

In keeping with the contrasting complementary theme of the rest of the brand design, I chose two Google Fonts that I thought worked well together while also being quite different. The serif font Lobster will be used sparingly for main headings whose purpose are to make an impact. What drew me to the Lobster font family was it’s unique feature of having many different letter variations that is then chosen based on the best match for surrounding letters, ensuring maximum flow in the text. The main font of the app, however, will be another Google font, Abel, whose sans-serif and mono-weighted characteristics makes it legible at smaller size, it’s angled, pointy style makes it possible to be more unique at larger text sizes than other sans-serif fonts.

App Design – Benchmark Research/Inspiration

Benchmark research / Inspiration (At least 3)

 

• Lonely Planet

https://www.lonelyplanet.com/

The Lonely Planet app has a beautiful design and is well laid out. The search option is very prominent within the app which is particularly important for travel-based apps. The photographs used for the destinations are bright but all keep to relatively the same colour scheme, while the rest of the app is relatively monochromatic, only a range of whites and greys are used. I think the app could benefit with a bit more colour, especially in the destination overview section. The overall style is quite minimalistic which I think works quite well however I think in some sections the app would benefit from a more visible navigation e.g. the image on the sign in screen is quite distracting so that the Login option at the bottom is not immediately noticeable.

 

 

• PackPoint

https://www.packpnt.com/

In terms of the colour scheme, I like the idea of pairing a cool colour with a warm colour, which I think I will take into consideration for the client’s app. However, in the case of PackPoint I don’t think these two cool and warm tones work particularly well together. The iconography used however is very nice, especially in the categories, minimal yet descriptive and extremely clear and well laid out. Navigation again could be made better as it seems for a lot of sections there is only an option to either move forward a step or back a step which can be quite restrictive for the user.

 

• Headspace App

https://www.headspace.com/headspace-meditation-app

The font is nice and clear in this app, the use of capitalization I think works very well especially on the buttons and headings. The buttons themselves are also very well designed, most taking the full width of the screen or half the width and are bright, clear, with lots of padding to make them very thumb friendly. The app navigation is also done well, they make use of the bottom navigation bar, notice the use of feedback in the navigation bar as well used to let the user know both where they are currently located in the app and also when something in the app requires their attention.

App Design – Sketching/Wireframing

App user flow

With the user flow we are trying to keep the process as simple and straightforward as possible. Therefore our aim to have as little possibility for the user to deviate from the flow, keeping options and information limited to the most necessary.

Sketches

For the wireframing process I experimented with some different options for allowing the user to initially explore the app. However in keeping with the user flow decided to guide the user through the app instead of allowing possibility for navigation confusion. I struggled the most with the tip list layout, trying to find a balance between giving the user maximum information as possible but in a clear and concise form so as to prevent information overload as was the issue we saw with our competitors. I prefer the navigation menu positioned along the bottom of the app as I think this is more in keeping with how a user will be holding their phone and allows their fingers to access the nav menu options more easily.

 

Detailed Wireframes

App Design – Market Research

Understanding the market – competitor diagram

 

I compiled my competitor findings into a competitor diagram above to help figure out what the client’s app will need to focus on the most. After analysing the results it is clear that the sections and features most needed that are lacking from our competitors are finding destinations based on users location, being able to filter information, and also allowing more user interaction. These will become the client’s unique selling points and are what we will focus the most on when we start to think about the design of our app.

 

Online surveys

 

In order to help us figure out our target audience for the client’s app and to get some real user’s thoughts on the usefulness of such an app, an online survey was conducted in order to try and get some qualitative and quantitative research into our potential market. We can see from the results below that most (almost 90%) have researched culture/etiquette before travelling and that the most popular form of doing this is Googling information online. The biggest problem with Google is that once the information is discovered the user is forced to use something external to keep this information e.g. a note app, physical notebook, or memory. The client’s app would not only provide the user with the information they hopefully need but also the means for storing this information so it is easily found again when they require it. This must be a selling point when it comes to marketing the client’s app.

 

Target Audience

 

Following the discovery phase I have found that my target audience is:

 

Personas

App Design – Competitor Analysis

1. CultureMee

 

 

The CultureMee app was probably most similar in structure to what we are trying to acheive with the client’s app. However, the biggest thing I felt was lacking from the CultureMee app was the intuitive ability to give users an option to explore nearby. The layout of the destination overview as well was slightly muddled, it is not immediately apparent what the difference between some of the sections are e.g. Must Know, Good to Know, and Dos and Don’ts all sound like very similar categories. There was also no option for users to contribute tips, this meant that a lot of countries and destinations were in fact missing information, making the app effectively incomplete.

2. CultureTrip

 

 

The CultureTrip app I thought was very well laid out and designed. However, in terms of it being a competitor their ‘Guides and Tips’ section is a comparatively small part of the app as a whole, and once discovered it is not really a concise list of tips as the client’s app is hoping to provide but more long winded articles going into a lot of detail on the history of the chosen destination. This is more suited for people who might simply want to learn more about a country’s culture but not so helpful for someone trying to plan a trip to said country, making it difficult to pick out the bits of information that might be useful.

App Design – Discovery Process

When going through my discover process to find an app idea for this project I started off with two rough ideas. The first was a housemate helper app that would have three parts; a chore splitter, a bill splitter, and a shared shopping checklist. Although I thought this app would be a good choice upon further analysis I decided it would not be feasible to flesh out an app with so many different parts in the time frame that I had.

So I moved on to my second idea which was a meet-up app designed specifically to help musicians meet and play with other musicians in their area, by using a Tinder like swiping process. I did some more research into competitors on this app and found that there were not only some other very similar apps like this but that their design and usability was already quite good, so again decided this app would not be the best option.

My final and selected app idea is a tip exchange app specifically for finding out culture and etiquette tips for a selected destination, the idea originated from a lunchroom discussion on a colleague’s upcoming trip to Tokyo, where another colleague mentioned a useful tip on not touching taxi doors as this is considered disrespectful. I thought this was something that although useful, I wouldn’t think would ever be included in a travel guide or ever become common knowledge, so short of searching for the information specifically would be lost on many prospective travellers. As someone who is passionate about travelling I always want to get the best culturally rich experience as possible from my trips, so thought an app that would help me do this would be a perfect goal.

 

Individual Project #4 – The Prototype & User Tests

For my prototype on Movies@Dundrum booking process I decided not to devote too much time into things like colour scheme and layout changes unless these things had a direct impact on user usability.

The most work on the prototype went into the homepage / movie selection process. The overwhelming opinion among our survey takers when they were shown the Movies@Dundrum homepage was the sheer clutter making finding anything automatically a much harder process than is necessary.

Prototype Screen 1 – Homepage

To combat these issues the biggest changes I made was to de-clutter the screen from distracting background images, and to provide users with a Quick Book option. I think this Quick Book will have the biggest affect to usability for potential users as we saw from our survey most users are not here to browse, they are here to book so it makes sense to provide them with as little work to do as possible in this scenario. I also neatened up the film card sections as well trying to make the information our users would find helpful such as ticket availability and running time clear and obvious.

Prototype Screen 2 – Ticket Type

The main issue with the ticket type selection part of the process was the massive combo advertisement image which completely hid what the user actually needed to be focusing on in this section. Without sacrificing this image and by simply condensing and re-positioning the user can now easily see what deals are available without losing sight of the real purpose of this page. I left the right side of the ticket type section blank as some screenings display the combo ticket types as well as the standard ticket types so this free space will be needed. The other addition to this part of the process is the progress bar along the top, designed to keep our user well informed along their journey without being obtrusive.

Prototype Screen 3 – Seat Selection

An addition of an order summary section I felt was missing from the original process, which I have done so here on the right hand side. The other major change was to the navigation buttons along the bottom, which not only were missing from some sections of the original booking process but even when visible were not exactly clear as to what their action outcome would be. I tried to make these navigation links as obvious and understandable as possible.

Prototype Screen 4/5 – Payment & Confirmation

Again an order summary was missing from the original process from I think the most important step that it is needed. Users need to be presented clearly with what their order contains before they commit by making a payment in order to prevent as much chance for error as possible.

 

User Tests

I completed two user tests once the prototype was complete; one with the original booking process that currently exists on Movies@Dundrum’s site, and the second with the new prototype in order to compare and contrast the differences between the two user experiences. The user was not local to the Dublin area so had actually never purchased tickets or even visited the Movies@Dundrum site before the test which was beneficial as no expectations or opinions would have been set with the user.

User Test 1 – Movies@Dundrum Existing Process

User Test 2 – Movies@Dundrum Prototype Process

As suspected the user struggled the most with the initial discovery of the movie times with the existing process, making the comment that there was a lot going on in the screen so that even if there was a quicker search option they would have struggled to see it. The prototype performed much better in this regard, the quick book option performing well in guiding the user seamlessly into their order. There was a slight stumble by the user when trying to select the times within the quick book option, I think this can be easily solved by making the MEZZ times more distinguishable from the standard screening times.

I also think the payment page needs a little more work in terms of layout, there was a little bit of hesitation from the user on the confirmation checkboxes of this section. These would benefit from more prominence on the screen and perhaps reducing the prominence of other sections such as the voucher/loyalty card sections, perhaps these can be collapsed within their own sections and only expanded if the user chooses to do so.

Overall, going by just the actual length of time it took our user to complete both processes the prototype is already performing much better in this regard, without sacrificing any of the necessary information from the original process.