Ep #82: How to improve brand perception and build a memorable user experience

Glory Onuoha (00:00:12)

Hello everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Network Cloud Podcast. I’m your host, Glory Onuoha, Customer success manager Netcore Cloud Nigeria and I have a special guest here with me today. I’m going to let her introduce herself.

Irene Aguh (00:00:32)

Hi, Glory. It’s nice to meet you. Hi everyone. My name is Irene Aguh, I am the founder and CEO of Revie. It is a travel tech startup operating out of advisors that’s basically targeted at improving the lives of global natives. I’m also the global head of marketing at Fuzu. Fuzu is an African focused talent tech startup.

Glory Onuoha (00:00:58)

Very nice to meet you, Irene. Thanks for doing this with me today. OK, so just get right into it. So today we’re going to be talking about how to improve brand perspective and build a memorable user experience. I know I shared this topic with you before we start a recording booth. When you heard this, what came to mind first?

Irene Aguh (00:01:26)

So, I think, from me when I hear brand perception, it’s how do people perceive it? It’s How are people? What do people think? What do people feel? What do people envision when they hear about your back? So I thought about, you know, it would be a very interesting topic to talk about, and I can’t wait to delve into it.

Glory Onuoha (00:01:44)

Alright, OK, let’s go get into just like you said the brand perspective, so. As if I’m about to have a startup. I’m outside the company. What do I want? To us, what is that image I want to put out? So I’m just going to get right asking you the very first question. What role does the user play when it comes to? Sorry, give me a minute. Can you hear me?

OK, sorry. OK. So the first question is what role does user experience have to play within marketing?

Irene Aguh (00:02:26)

So I think user experience is a very important part of marketing because it basically affects your conversion and retention rates. So you can’t get users, you can’t convert them, and you can’t retain them. If you have a bad user experience. If you think about what makes a product successful, it’s, it’s one what the product is. So what are you offering? What do people have to gain from it? What’s in it for the user and there’s the user experience. How do people experience your brand when you’re using your product? what did they like, what is the feeling that they get from it? What is the experience that they have off the brand? And then finally there’s promotion, which is, you know, how do you get your product in the faces of the people that matter?

Glory Onuoha (00:03:13)

OK, so basically if I am going to have a new product launching. I have to take into consideration as a product owner that if I’m to launch this product, put myself in the shoes of the user; let me use that word right… as a user. Am I going to be able to navigate through this product? Am I going to enjoy the UI and the UX of the new product? Is it something that I would have difficulty navigating? Is it a website, an app. So I have to sit down, think as the user before I decide to put my product out there if I get you correctly.

Irene Aguh (00:03:55)

Yeah, but one more thing to add is that people tend to think of user experience as just on platform, right? User experience is both on and off platform. So if you think about the fact that after creating your UX on the platform, um, anybody that comes to interact with your brand will find, will build experience from the channel study interacting with you. So if for example, I’m trying to reach out to you via social media via live chat, I’m not getting any response. That’s an experience, right, that’s a negative experience. If I reach out to your customer service agent and you know, they can’t help me out, that’s a negative experience. If I see your brand talking outside and you know, it doesn’t feel like they’re talking the way, I think a brand of that caliber or like a brand of any kind should talk. That’s like a negative experience. So there’s so many touch points when it comes to user experience.

Glory Onuoha (00:04:50)

OK, so let me ask you one more question now. So I am a client success manager, so here at Netcore we have a mini channel marketing platform that helps you communicate with your clients both on websites and apps… right. So we have the email, we have the web push, we have web messages, we have app-push, we have in-app. So you have the 360 view of how your clients are relating to your product. So let’s say for instance I have an e-commerce brand. Right. And I have people coming to my website adding to cart. They’re not really checking out. So you’re saying everything is an experience, right? I have people and I have a customer that has probably added to cart in the last. I  have not checked out for three days, so the way I communicate to try to get the client to check out and buy with me is that that’s where we’re building a very good user experience too, right? Alright, alright. OK. So that leads me to my next question. As a brand, what should I aim to be known for?

Irene Aguh (00:05:59)

So the thing is, for every brand it’s different, right? One thing that’s important is that you have to let the market lead you. You have to let the people lead you, because what Netcore should be known for is different from what like as you said, an ecommerce brand should be known for right? I think to help you arrive at the answer to that question, there are a couple of questions that you need to ask yourself. As I have a brand owner or someone in senior management. You need to ask yourself one thing: what does this product do right when you ask yourself, what does this product do? The proper thing that people feel to do is look at it from the point of view of the consumer and we always say. Oh, this is what we’re doing for it. Right. And the question is, what does the consumer actually think that you’re doing for them? What is their translation of your service, right? After that you then have to ask yourself, if this is what the consumer says I do for them, right? What is there like? How is their experience within the brand? Translate right. So it’s when they’re using your products or when they’re using your platform, where do they lean more towards? So you can. Create for example a savings app and you think, Oh my God, I’m helping people save for, you know, building. A house buying. A car. Or like I’m helping people do target savings. But then you realize that that’s not what people want, right?So you can create, for example, a savings app and you think, oh my God, I’m helping people save for, you know, building a house, buying a car, or like I’m helping people do target savings. But then you realize that that’s not what people want, right?  Maybe what people are using your platform mostly for is their wallets that they can actually track their transactions without any charges, right. So money is not a mistake. So that’s what you then become to that consumer set. Another thing is when you also think about the life stage of the person that you’re targeting,  what a brand was to me three years ago, is not what they are to me now. It might be the same brand, it’s just they’ve evolved or I’ve evolved my perception of them, right? Yeah. So you also have to figure out, okay, who are the people that I’m talking to? What life stage are they in? What are their key motivations? How do they use this brand? How do they use other brands within this category? And that sort helps you figure out, ok, this is what my brand should be, this is who I should lead to this person.

Glory Onuoha (00:08:18)

OK, so right, I lost you there a bit. OK, so I get what I get where you’re coming from?

Irene Aguh (00:08:21)

Thank you.

Glory Onuoha (00:08:25)

So this is even what I like to put to my customers, right? Like let them know who you’re talking to. And know how to communicate with them. No, right? Know the right channel to communicate with them and know when to communicate with them as a brand. Like maybe give an example. You think your customers are here to save and all that. Maybe they’re just here to see how they can, you know, do like, seamless transactions without having to, you know, pay charges and all. So somebody that is a new customer coming to have onboard for the very first time, what is that impression? What is the impression you’re gonna give to the new customer? Best of somebody that has been with you for a period, or let’s say two, three years? What are you offering that person? How do you build retention with this person? How does the person know that? Okay, if I see an email coming from somewhere, I know who is talking to me. I know that old scammers, I know my brand, I know my bank, or I know my ticket. So what you give to, to new customers and what you give to existing customers, I think it’s, it’s, it should be different, right? For existing customers, they’re trying to, they already know your brand, but you’re trying to retain them for new people. You’re trying new trust, right? To make sure that they get to the point where you’re now striving to retain them. Alright, so now my next question, what are the common pain points? You know the companies face when it comes to brand building?

Irene Aguh (00:09:51)

So when it comes to brand building, I think like you said there is that problem of figuring out what is my brand right, and there’s a problem of figuring out how do I get people to actually pay me money for whatever it is that I’m doing? How do I get people for? Cream or cream? Then you move on to. OK. I’ve got this for people. How do I keep these people? How do I monetize these people? How do I get these people to trigger network effects and bring other people? But remember that every business has limited resources. You cannot spend all the money in the world trying to get people. So it then means that you need to start figuring out smarter ways to attract, convert them, retain them, and then monetize them. And that’s like a cycle that keeps going cause it never actually ends. So I think that across the main point of the consumer life cycle, that’s where brands have issues. Like with brand building

Glory Onuoha (00:10:52)

OK, so I hear you. OK, let me let me come from this angle. For people that have eventually gotten. To know my brand, to understand my brand. I like to say you are not the only person of that service out there. Other people are doing what you were doing. Right? So everybody is striving to make sure that they are helping them. Competitors, how do I ensure that people that are already with me, that understand my brand, do not wake up on money and realize that I’m not even? I don’t think I’m even getting enough from these. For how I want to leave, I think that’s also a pain point right in front of buildings or So how do we get people that are ready with us? You know, how do we build this retention and make sure that it’s sustainable?

Irene Aguh (00:11:49)

So, one of the most striking brand positionings that I have seen or heard about, is that one brand that basically talks about becoming useful, right? So for them. It wasn’t all we wanted to be the number one. Want to view this? Where they were trying to go was they wanted to be the brand that is useful. Since I had it, it’s basically become like the cornerstone of a lot of things that I do because the honest truth is when you’re no longer useful to me, I will move on to a diff. Now when it comes to retention, I like the fact that you’ve talked about competition, right? Talking about it like every other person is doing the same thing that you’re doing, which is one thing I realize. Lots of founders. Forget you’re not the next coming of Jesus Christ. You’re not the next best thing. Sliced bread so. When you’re looking at retention, I think that one thing you need to do is look at competition away from your immediate competitive landscape. So people tend to think, oh, I’m a bank, my competition is in bank. Your competition is not in bank, your competition is. All your competition basically is all the Fintech brands that are out. There you see those? What do they call them? Are job people that people are putting. Their money in. That’s your competition. You have a lot of competition, so your question should then be if this current is not giving me their money or their time, where are they spending it, right? What is the reason that they’re spending that money? What time here, instead of here, right? Or what is the reason why these other people are being considered as competition to my brand right? Then you need to figure it out, OK. How do I take the best parts of this? Or how do I better… like the best parts of my business for these guys. How do I remain neutral? How do I remain relevant, now when you answer that question? Example take of e-commerce brands e-commerce brands basically do one off sales rent. And for a lot of brands, they forget that you know, a customer can become a repeat customer. But the most successful ecommerce brands are the ones that have found ways to remain useful to the people, ways to work during the trust of the person in the first place. Then they continued messaging the person. They were not so much that it became like they were trying to struggle. They continue to find their right, better ways to, for example, serve ads to these people. So I don’t always have to send you an e-mail to my product in your face, right? I can just use the data that I have gathered and other search and other search engines or like ad managers have gathered from you. To make sure that I’m always serving you with useful content at every point in time. That’s the reason why, if I.

Glory Onuoha (00:14:30)

And content that is also useful to you. Because sorry to know what you should. I’m so sorry to cut short because this is something that we also practice here in netcore. This is something called a segment. Patron. So am I sending you something that is useful to you? OK, let’s give an example. Somebody that has a whopping sum of 100 billion in his bank account and you’re telling the person that you can come and get a loan of 100,000 there…. it’s not… useful to that person, yeah. Right? So this is where segmentation comes into place as much as you. In Order to be useful, you should also consider sending direct communication to the right people, people that if I send you this thing, I know that it’s useful to you. I know that this is what you want based on what my data is telling me based on. Your past behavior with my.. probably my website, or my app, I know that this is what you want, so this is the kind of communication that she sent to you and now we also tell our clients here is now what channel should I communicate with these people? So should I use e-mail? Are they opening their emails? Are they not opening their emails? Would they prefer to? And coming to the website…. website channel..maybe they go there and see what message they see… See web. So I.. I.. I.. I.. sort of get. Where are you coming from.

Irene Aguh (00:15:41)

Yes, it’s very important to ask those questions, because if you don’t, what will happen is you’ll basically be shooting blanks in the air, hoping that one of them hits something and that’s not a very effective way to work.

Glory Onuoha (00:15:54)

Yes, OK. So now how do you build a memorable user experience? I know that you are currently there. CEO and founder of. Am I pronouncing it right.. Revie?

Yes, alright. So how do you build a memorable brand experience for people that are your customers?

Irene Aguh (00:16:25)

So, if I look at what we do both at review and that’s closer, right, one thing that we realized is…. remember this… cover this thing that you said about Netcore figuring out where the customers are and how do you like to be reached… when first we try to figure out what the key touchpoints are. So look at, for example, we know that everybody that’s coming in is either. In.. in.. by search engines, lead by the website, see by social media. Like, it’s not like that. That should do. Right. With review, I do the same thing. It’s where the people find me where the people find my brand. Where are people most likely to interact with the review brand? When I look at that right, we then have to figure out what is the best way to drive conversion on these channels. Because remember that the first thing I want to do is acquire guys. But then I also wanted to convert. If you look, At most pages or most websites that you go to, you are not immediately driven to create an account because no, I mean like not like the website isn’t driving you, you yourself are not personally driven to create an account because you don’t know these people, yes. So that. How do I make it? How do I build an image of me that would make you see? OK, these guys seem interesting. I’d like to follow them. I’d like to, you know, follow their account. I’d like to sign up. I’d like to create an account. Or maybe I’d like to add the cards, because this product seems interesting. That’s in the case of the e-commerce brand that you mentioned…when you identify these touch points, you then have to figure out what is the messaging that goes into those places. How do I look? How do I feel? How do I speak? Then you move into. OK, now what do I offer people at these different points in time? Am I pushing too much because a lot of people push too much. You cannot be pushing me as my first interaction with your brand to become a real customer. That’s not the way that it works. Nobody needs somebody.

Glory Onuoha (00:18:19)

People, some people actually think, oh, I have to be in their faces all the time so that you do not forget me. You…. I really hate you…I remember, OK, you said…. You’re what?

Though I was just. Saying that, people have that. That knowledge that OK if somebody just signs up your new customer, I’ll send you a welcome message. I’ll tell you about our channels I tell you about our product, I’ll tell you about, just keep on telling you. So you have an idea of what we are doing. I don’t want to lose this customer because like I said, people like to say, oh, there’s a competition out there. Somebody else, if I don’t send you this now, somebody else will send you this now. So, you know, I don’t know what is the right thing to do. Should I do this one step at a time or should I just tell them to give them all? The information immediately.

Irene Aguh (00:19:17)

Honestly, take you one step at a time. I don’t want to know your mother’s grandmother’s surname or this person. I just want to know that you’re cool enough. To become my friend. Later, when we start talking.

Glory Onuoha (00:19:28)

Yeah, and feel that trust, like you said.

Irene Aguh (00:19:30)

Exactly. Exactly. But I think like people forget that the people they are serving are humans, people are hearing. A lot outside. You are being blasted with ads everywhere you’re blasted with content everywhere with the rise of channels like take talk and, you know, content variations like Instagram wheels. It means that you’re basically consuming a ton of content. And you still want to come and be sending me emails as a brand every single day? That’s not a great thing to do, but it. Doesn’t work for me. So the question then becomes, how do you remember that as a human being? My question is you yourself, do you open those emails when?… They send it to you.

Glory Onuoha (00:20:10)

Yes, true. They get it. And most of the time, people don’t even get those emails. Those emails come to them and they don’t even they don’t even know that somebody has even sent them. And you don’t know whether this you know is even useful to you, because I’ve had a lot of people say I’ve been sending people emails. My open rates are dropping. People are not opening. I’m sending a video once. I’m sending twice every video I’m sending twice a week and all that, and I’d like to tell them about trying to use AI features like we offer here in Netcore Cloud or so there’s something we call the same time optimization. So how that works is. You’re sending emails to people you’re sending to them at their preferred time, and this works in like a 24 hour window. So if I send an e-mail now, this is 1226, that will run from. And 12:36 today to 12:36 tomorrow. So for 24 hours, people will get to their preferred time if my preferred time is at 2:00 PM, I’ll get it at 2:00 PM and most likely, once I see your subject line. And I think that it is something I’m interested in. I would open your e-mail and I will communicate with you. I will interact with you at your preferred time. At 10:00 AM the next day you will get yours at 10:00 AM the next day, because this is artificial intelligence power. We know your preferred time. We could predict and then for people that we cannot predict, we just do like a general class. So I usually advise people for things that are not urgent. You use this to send people… you know…. don’t bombard them, but if it’s something that needs to go out urgently and that information that you think people need to see immediately, please go ahead and do in general.

Irene Aguh (00:21:57)

Yeah, there is less. Yes, yes, I completely agree. I think AI driven platforms are making marketing so much easier for people. I love the fact that Netcore actually offers that service because a lot of people forget that if you’re reaching me at the wrong time of the day. If you’re reaching me at the time when I’m thinking. I’m not going to be paying attention to what your email says, so you have to reach me at the time that’s good for me. We do the same thing with our platform because for us, it’s like, how do you use AI to match people to employees that will fit in the business, the culture, all of that. So I think AI is actually like making marketing a lot more. Easier for us.

Glory Onuoha (00:22:36)

Yes it is. It is. So just to summarize, everything we have talked about today as a brand, sorry, one more question before I even jump to summarizing what do you think about brands picking up on trends and trying to implement it in their business? What do You think about that?

Irene Aguh (00:23:00)

I think it’s interesting when it’s done, right? Right. I get tired when it’s not done right. Because what then happens is every single brand just uses 1 trend. There was one that was raining recently in Nigeria. I can’t remember what it was, but I remember reading about it because I realized that every brand. Oh yes, shopping breakfast brands didn’t realize what. And one brand says he will serve you breakfast…. And I’m like, that’s a bad thing, it means you. Yes, you break my heart…’wil’l break my heart. You might try to build. Like you need to understand the trend and not every trend is for every brand. So you don’t always have to be at the forefront of the trend wagon. Sometimes you work, sometimes it will not work.

Glory Onuoha (00:23:47)

OK. Yeah, thank you so much for coming. And do you have any final? Words. Conclusions.

Irene Aguh (00:23:55)

Thank you too. It was really nice to be here. I think that these are conversations that we need to keep having because it’s important that a lot of people sort of get support when it comes to building your brand. So when it comes to identifying the best platforms to grow their brands, they’re different aspects of business, right? So there are different. Like some real thing. But conversations like this always help people. Figure out the best way.. or what will work.. like best for them. So I think Netcore Cloud is doing a great job. I cannot wait to see more of your episodes and I’m always listening in.

Glory Onuoha (00:24:37)

Yeah. Thank you so much for coming. And so I just also want to add to what you’ve just said right now as a brand tries to understand your customer’s journey from start to finish.. from when they on board.. to when they start transacting with you, all the analytics you can get all the data you can get on the customer who’s offline and offline. Try to understand this customer journey and then from your data implement effective communications that will make this customer trust you and you can now build a a reputable and a, you know, loyal brand. Thank you so much everyone for coming up. I really enjoyed this. I’ve learned a lot from you actually because I had this idea that people, some people like to, you know, being the face of the customers for now, you’re just giving us a breakdown, that it’s actually better to do this step at your time. Thank you. So much for coming.

Irene Aguh (00:25:30)

Thank you for having me.

Glory Onuoha (00:24:34)

Enjoy the rest of your day.

Irene Aguh (00:25:36)

Thank you. Yeah, bye.