What Kind of Marketing Strategy Does WP Need?

[Boris Alexandrov]

It's not about marketing at this point any more. I know that's contrary to popular belief around here, but people know what windows phone is now.

The problem is people just don't want them. No marketing can change that.

It's a conundrum. How can you make people want what they don't want?

Consumer trackings? Any other proof?

Before I bought Lumia 99% of my friends never heard of WP before. Moreover, most of them actually thought Nokia runs on Android.

Then I started marketing Lumia amongst them, and damn people had no idea what WP is and expected the platform to be luggy and slow without having key apps such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Pinterest.

Its not about games and the lack of desire. Its about lacking basic knowledge and trial of WP, combined with high loyality rates on the smartphone market.

 

[kc77]

I think they need to compete with Samsung and Apple directly in the flagship phone market by developing a brand name phone and consistently updating it. This business that Nokia had with a plethora of models identified by numbers was confusing to say the least. Create a true flagship, give it a name (not a number), make it available on all carriers, and market it aggressively. Microsoft needs to build brand recognition for Windows Phone. Even if most don't buy the flagship, its existence and the brand recognition it creates have an effect on their buying decision.

Agreed! I would love to see a Surface phone or an Xbox phone come out. I think an Xbox phone would sell like hotcakes if they could offer some special incentives on Xbox live for buying the phone. Offer some free weapon DLC on Halo or something to people who buy the phone to give them a strong advantage over people who dont buy it. Sometimes you just need to play dirty

 

[A895]

Agreed! I would love to see a Surface phone or an Xbox phone come out. I think an Xbox phone would sell like hotcakes if they could offer some special incentives on Xbox live for buying the phone. Offer some free weapon DLC on Halo or something to people who buy the phone to give them a strong advantage over people who dont buy it. Sometimes you just need to play dirty

Doubtful they would do that. Microsoft has a problem doing obvious moves.

Sent from my XT907 using Mobile Nations mobile app

 

[EC Translating Services]

Do you have any concrete substantial examples to back any of those vague statements?!

I think if you look at the objective reviews of the Lumia 1520's camera you would see it goes toe to toe with many "high end" phones. By which I mean it is BETTER than just about all of them. Also I haven't seen a single 6" phone put out by anyone with the gorgeous build quality of the Lumia 1520. I also don't see anyone with a track record of putting out phones with built in GPS with downloadable maps for the entire planet.

I use HERE Drive, Maps, and Transit all the time. I totally agree there is an app gap. There is no epcrates and no app for my regional bank. There are a lot of niche apps missing. But as far as functionality my girlfriend has to either pay through the nose for apps to do what my 1520 does right out of the box or she is simply SOL if she wants a bigger screen on an iphone or more control of her camera. I remeber my old Lumia 900 even had LTE way before she had an iphone with LTE. I was like all those apps are great but if your internet is moving at a snail's pace what good are they? Windows Phone gets no respect. HERE Drive and transit are incredibly useful apps. They are far more useful to me for business and pleasure than a billion social media apps.

It is astonishing to me that when the Lumia 900 was launched they didn't say FREE GLOBAL DOWNLOADABLE MAPS OFFLINE GPS and LTE. On road trips my phone was so much more useful than my girlfriend's. I loved watching streaming movies on the highway while she just looked sad.

I have mentioned this endless times in this very website but if you insist and have so many doubts i feel myself compelled to let you know that:
- Lacks keyboard inputs for some languages
- There isn't one single app able to allow you to aggregate your mails in one single app. You can do in a way that is not suitable for work and without differentiation between mailboxes in the same way Android allows you to do with third party apps (like K9, which allows for different colors, different sounds, different led colours...oh forgot...WP don't have leds so you need SOUND also where in theory you wouldn't need..or at best vibration)
- Microsoft OFFICE won't open password protected files. Only in 8.1 allows you to open files from SD. In 8 it wouldn't allow you
- File management, plainly sucks (there isn't any other technical description for the level of mediocrity it offers)
- Multitasking sucks, too. There is no way to split screen and do two things at the same time. 6" inches wasted in a 1520 (which incidentally i own).
- TILES: You have 3 rows; you can't extend tiles for 3 rows; you can't resize tiles at your will; tiles are more than icons, less than widgets. They are rotating pics with limited interaction.
- IE 11: Doesn't share with Pocket, Instapaper, doesn't have https out of the box, doesn't haev ad blocking, script blocking, (unlike Firefox mobile). It behaves funny in many situations. I am using Surfy and Maxthon.
- No encryption at all. No security apart the password
- MAPS: Maybe they work for you. They don't for me in Asia. A) they lack a lot of POIs Google offers; public transit in GMAPS are clickable, a list of buses shows up and you can plan a trip. BING Maps not only don't have clickable public transports but they even miss some metro lines or stops. They miss tons of places.
- Bing Translator is designed by Mr Bean. It offers Chinese translation but doesn't offer romanized translation of characters. This means that if you're looking forward to understand something or read something it's utterly useless. This worsens as apparently Microsoft only supports Simplified Chinese and forgot Taiwan, Hong Kong and a few hundred millions of users who don't use simplified Chinese but Traditional. However, they came up with Cortana, which in US-Centric websites is the best thing, while in other regions is a no-go a priori due to privacy issues. The life of Cortana for many users doesn't go beyond one week of tests then ends up deactivated (Like Google Now). Microsoft doesn't seem to understand a huge share of users.
- Bing News: gives you the news it wants. Won't allow you to choose your owns. Also it's region depending. The antithesis of usefulness if you keep 170/ 200 RSS on check, in multiple languages.
- Apps/Market: 90% of apps are bad copies of the originals, often badly implemented and even have a price tag on it. So what comes for free on Android comes paid on WP with subpar quality. Calendars, note taking apps, News aggregators (i have bought 3, tested them all. The only one worth mentioning is Next Reader which is a very good app, in recent times)
- Notification centre: Android offers a scrollable one with much more than 4/5 icons...those icons can be moved around as you wish without need to enter a menu.
- Lack of a lot of apps: I miss good translating/language apps (Pleco, Hanping, Dictionaries of various type, not even CE DICT is available).
- Sharing functions: In Android every app has a long list of apps you can share of apps you can share from any other app. This includes tons of third party apps. I click on a pic to share, and i am offered FB, Twitter (which i don't use), then Line, IM+, IMO, Mail etc. WP offers you two peanuts at best. So what i need to do, often is copy paste on word or one note and save stuff in that way. THEN, share it with other apps. That's how good WP is for sharing. Again, MR Bean at work.

Photocamera? Yes it's good, the best of them all..but with 700 euros (the cost of the phone unlocked ) i buy a good DSLR.
Screen: It's the best of them all for me. However due to OS limitations all that real estate is under exploited
You can download those maps: However they are unreliable and inaccurate. that makes them useless. Wait for Microsoft to admit it.

I need my phone to work, not to take pictures. To work i need interoperability between apps, i need good apps (which i pay for); i need integrated solutions on a solid platform and i need encryption. WP has none of all this.

Are my statements less vague? Do i need to go on?

The OS is mediocre. Simple as that. It's not a matter of marketing. You can market something that's good and people don't understand. WP is only partly misunderstood. The rest is due to A) its shortcomings and B) Microsoft slowliness in tackling them.
You and I can spend the whole life arguing but while you seem satisfied, i am deeply frustrated. Checking at the sales, i am not alone.

 

[FinancialP]

Consumer trackings? Any other proof?

Before I bought Lumia 99% of my friends never heard of WP before. Moreover, most of them actually thought Nokia runs on Android.

Then I started marketing Lumia amongst them, and damn people had no idea what WP is and expected the platform to be luggy and slow without having key apps such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Pinterest.

Its not about games and the lack of desire. Its about lacking basic knowledge and trial of WP, combined with high loyality rates on the smartphone market.

Sure it is. Sure.

Let's let the carriers, and Microsoft/Nokia continue to pour millions into marketing and we continue to say people don't know about Windows Phone.

Let's continue to say it's not about games and apps.

Let's continue to say these things.

 

[Jazmac]

Microsoft should go back marketing in the same manor they did when they pushed the OS and Office back in the day. For some strange reason, MS decided that in order to attract attention it needed to be loud colors, ridiculous choreographed dance numbers with the Surface promotion and such. Even as much as I like Cortana it receives more attention than it deserves. Especially being a very untested utility. Microsoft would do well to calm the GenX level pyrotechnics in its adverts and get a lot more smooth, grownup and direct. In fact, I think the phone division might be better served if it was split off from the company at large so it can find its place.

 

[radmanvr]

Commercials with monkeys flying a space ship while shooting lasers using Windows Phone as a control panel

 

[Ten Four]

First I would say to make Windows Phones more widely available on lots of different carriers, including MVNOs. Companies like Straight Talk sell lots of phones at WalMart. The more phones out there the more people will see them. Second, I would go for advertising targeting the young and geeky market. Most phone ads seem to try to be everything to everyone, and feature lots of feel good shots of families, kids, and get togethers. How about ads featuring gamers and geeks? Target a segment of the market and hit it hard with marketing. Get a toehold there before trying to sell to everyone, everywhere, but meanwhile actually make the phones available with my point one. There are lots of old fogies, like me, who want to be more tech saavy and want to buy things that are young and cool, even if we are not. Nobody wants to be grandpa at the wedding taking photos. Have a mountain climber taking photos, or a skier, or an adventurer. Somebody hiking through the jungles of the Amazon documenting their travels with a phone and staying in touch with the world too (if there's a cell signal there).

 

[radmanvr]

- Bing Translator is designed by Mr Bean. It offers Chinese translation but doesn't offer romanized translation of characters. This means that if you're looking forward to understand something or read something it's utterly useless. This worsens as apparently Microsoft only supports Simplified Chinese and forgot Taiwan, Hong Kong and a few hundred millions of users who don't use simplified Chinese but Traditional. However, they came up with Cortana, which in US-Centric websites is the best thing, while in other regions is a no-go a priori due to privacy issues. The life of Cortana for many users doesn't go beyond one week of tests then ends up deactivated (Like Google Now). Microsoft doesn't seem to understand a huge share of users.
.

I read your thought out well put together piece and then realized you made a mistake so I did not read the rest because no more credibility

Traditional Chinese is support on Bing translate

 

[A895]

First I would say to make Windows Phones more widely available on lots of different carriers, including MVNOs. Companies like Straight Talk sell lots of phones at WalMart. The more phones out there the more people will see them. Second, I would go for advertising targeting the young and geeky market. Most phone ads seem to try to be everything to everyone, and feature lots of feel good shots of families, kids, and get togethers. How about ads featuring gamers and geeks? Target a segment of the market and hit it hard with marketing. Get a toehold there before trying to sell to everyone, everywhere, but meanwhile actually make the phones available with my point one. There are lots of old fogies, like me, who want to be more tech saavy and want to buy things that are young and cool, even if we are not. Nobody wants to be grandpa at the wedding taking photos. Have a mountain climber taking photos, or a skier, or an adventurer. Somebody hiking through the jungles of the Amazon documenting their travels with a phone and staying in touch with the world too (if there's a cell signal there).

Geeks are a minority and then being your makes the market even smaller. I think they should market towards the younger crowd though but they need to out a new low end WP first. The 520 is a little long in the tooth.

Sent from my XT907 using Mobile Nations mobile app

 

[A895]

I read your thought out well put together piece and then realized you are a troll.

Traditional Chinese is support on Bing translate

How is he a troll? Maybe he missed it. Never call people names on the forum.

Sent from my XT907 using Mobile Nations mobile app

 

[EC Translating Services]

I read your thought out well put together piece and then realized you are a troll.

Traditional Chinese is support on Bing translate

It's the second time, since i have been in this website that i am called a troll. I said, and still claim, that A) Microsoft doesn't offer Traditional Chinese and the pinyin translation with it (Romanization). This means that if you put your camera onto a text in english and look for the chinese, the result will be Chinese characters, without the Pinyin (Romanization) necesssary to spell it.

In real life this means that you put your phone to translate a menu in a restaurant or you need to know how to spell a word and all what you get is a bunch of characters you may recognize or not (there are 20000 in all and 8000 in official use).



Wanna see? Go on Bing Translator, select English/Traditional Chinese then type "CAR". See the translation. You'll get the characters 汽車 (QiChe is the spelling). Now, that spelling doesn't show. Could you please explain how could you possibly communicate with a Chinese by just looking at those characters?

The second issue is that the keyboard doesn't have TRADITIONAL CHINESE WITH QWERTY (PINYIN). Go check, then come back and let us all know whether i am wrong.

With all my respects, before insulting, think. I am a translator, being such for 15 years. If i say something doesn't work, it means it doesn't work. Bing translator is trash.

Once you're done with your tests let me know. As to your insults, i have learned to skip. It's not worth my time.

Have a good day.

 

[radmanvr]

How is he a troll? Maybe he missed it. Never call people names on the forum.

Sent from my XT907 using Mobile Nations mobile app

Well I do apologize I edited my post.

 

[EC Translating Services]

How is he a troll? Maybe he missed it. Never call people names on the forum.

Sent from my XT907 using Mobile Nations mobile app

No A895...that function simply doesn't exist. See my previous post and go check. You'll see it's as i say.

A) Bing Translator doesn't have PinYin in Traditional Chinese. This makes Chinese useless
B) Bing translator only has Traditional Chinese in KEYBOARD mode. In CAMERA mode it only offers Simplified Chinese in Chinese/Eng but offers Traditional/Simplified in Eng/Chinese. This level of fragmentation makes the whole app pure trash. That is why i stated it is designed by Mr Bean.
C) The keyboard set (in SETTINGS/KEYBOARD) does not offer Traditional Chinese with Qwerty input. Only Simplified Chinese has Qwerty input.

It's not rocket science. Anyone can just take his device and check.

 

[A895]

No A895...that function simply doesn't exist. See my previous post and go check. You'll see it's as i say.

A) Bing Translator doesn't have PinYin in Traditional Chinese. This makes Chinese useless
B) Bing translator only has Traditional Chinese in KEYBOARD mode. In CAMERA mode it only offers Simplified Chinese in Chinese/Eng but offers Traditional/Simplified in Eng/Chinese. This level of fragmentation makes the whole app pure trash. That is why i stated it is designed by Mr Bean.
C) The keyboard set (in SETTINGS/KEYBOARD) does not offer Traditional Chinese with Qwerty input. Only Simplified Chinese has Qwerty input.

It's not rocket science. Anyone can just take his device and check.

I understand.

Sent from my XT907 using Mobile Nations mobile app

 

[loki993]

Another issue that I actually posted in another thready but it applies here...apps are the issue but there is another one...Android only had to fight apple...and had tons more phones to do it with.

Also they got in right when TONs of people were switching from dumbphones to smart phones, so they grabbed new market share. MS was late to the party and most people have smartphones already, it will be an uphill battle. People are used to what they are used to...I know a few people that have actually used windows phones, not with 8.1 granted, and said they liked iOS or android better..but then when asked why they cant tell me. Its pretty easy to convince someone to go from a dumbphone that just makes calls to a computer in your hand....but once they are used to that one its though to convince them to try something different unless it brings something significantly better to the table.

 

[nicfromwales]

They could stop playing that short clip of a woman singing at the end of every single Microsoft advert. She sounds pissed, I can't understand what she's saying.

 

[nicfromwales]

Samsung advertises to young people, Apple advertises to must-have-the-latest-cool-butalittleoverrated-gadget types, while Microsoft advertises to my mum and dad.

 

[Oliverspin]

Samsung advertises to young people, Apple advertises to must-have-the-latest-cool-butalittleoverrated-gadget types, while Microsoft advertises to my mum and dad.

I've found that I gravitate away from apple because iPhones are already everywhere. They aren't inspiring or different. Despite MS supposed advertising to "mum and dad" I love WP for it's freshness.

 

[MDMcAtee]

What marketing strategies do Microsoft need...

What ever they do,it has to first and foremost be able to change the whole perception of what Windows Phone is,and show that it is built for them and what they need,for their lifestyles.

It all boils down to the fact that Microsoft is for geeks..run by geeks..and this has been emphasized over and over and over on tv commercials....one in particular....and who here doesn't remember...

I'm a PC....I'm a Mac

They have to hire a firm..a good firm....that can bombard the airwaves and print..that it is not a geeks phone..an old folks phone..because that is what the problem is.

They have to allow this firm to do this,but they don't want to.because geeks are in charge.

They need to attack the other platforms and exploit there weaknesses and do it aggressively just as they have done to Microsoft...

Young people who want a fun cool phone have to want to buy one..and they don't want a phone that Mom & Dad use...and regardless of what the geeks at Microsoft think...the play station is killing the Xbox box...why...ask a kid....it looks better...it's not that it doesn't work better..but it looks better when it turns on...its the initial impression...this is what happens when geeks run a company...function first..looks last....this is just part of perception..but it's a vital part..

Gaming is important....what else...music...gee wiz....this is where the geeks fail miserably and Microsoft is so lame...don't believe me...hand your WP to a Iphone kid....and ask him/her....I did....just to see...

Perception folks....and what is the driving force behind the lack of acceptance of WP...it isn't all about tech sites and their reviews,it's about convincing all the young people that WP is about being cool to own and use and that means brainwashing them by bombarding them with this,just as Apple successfully has done for all these years...and what Androids ( primarily Samsung has done in the last 3 years )

Mac