What Kind of Marketing Strategy Does WP Need?

Laura Knotek

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That's a good question.

I believe that marketing will improve, now that Microsoft owns Nokia's mobile phone division. Nokia did have decent marketing.
 

JamesPTao

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I believe releasing a bonus program for salesmen at stores (at&t and such) would give salesmen an incentive to learn WP and help stop the bias it receives due to the common practice of bonuses on other makes keeping salesmen pushing other makes. Second train salesmen on how to use WP and create dummy accounts for the phones so Salesmen and customers can actively use the phones by customizing and adding apps and playing around on the phone. The first gives the incentive the second allows salesmen and customers to engage in the WP experience.
 

JamesPTao

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Outside of that, not much. There momentum in business contracts will give experience and familiarity to the os and the first will allow people to experience WP without salesmen fighting them, making up things, and constantly steering them to other devices for purely selfish reasons.
 

Oliverspin

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I believe releasing a bonus program for salesmen at stores (at&t and such) would give salesmen an incentive to learn WP and help stop the bias it receives due to the common practice of bonuses on other makes keeping salesmen pushing other makes. Second train salesmen on how to use WP and create dummy accounts for the phones so Salesmen and customers can actively use the phones by customizing and adding apps and playing around on the phone. The first gives the incentive the second allows salesmen and customers to engage in the WP experience.

This hits it on the point for me. Entice and educate the people pushing the device at the stores. That way, WP can make a good first impression and be seen as equal in customer's eyes.
 

Boris Alexandrov

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MSFT needs to start with acknowledging WP's competitive advantages and the consumer target for the platform.

I personally percieve WP as being the most beautiful, straight-forward and fluid platform with bright and classy design and great camera experience. Having said that, the platform is best suited for:
1. Entry-to-smartphones consumer. They nailed it with straight-forward OS design, great pricing and great hardware optimization.
2. Those who need a second handset for corporate/travelling. They kinda nailed it with Office, beautiful mail app, VPN, offline maps and decent cameras.

^These categories are not profitable and do not establish brand value

3. Mobile photographers. Great camera and premium materials (L930 is good but not enough, more effort should be put on apps such as VSCO development and fixing their cams white balance
4. People making a bold decision to stand apart. WM achieves this with unique features, wireless charging, vivid colours and beautiful design and their ad campaigns ('i'm not like everybody else').

However, they need to fix the basics - key apps. They should invest in key developers (facebook, pinterest, whatsapp) for bringing best quality apps that take advantage of WP itself.
 

loki993

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MSFT needs to start with acknowledging WP's competitive advantages and the consumer target for the platform.

I personally percieve WP as being the most beautiful, straight-forward and fluid platform with bright and classy design and great camera experience. Having said that, the platform is best suited for:
1. Entry-to-smartphones consumer. They nailed it with straight-forward OS design, great pricing and great hardware optimization.
2. Those who need a second handset for corporate/travelling. They kinda nailed it with Office, beautiful mail app, VPN, offline maps and decent cameras.

^These categories are not profitable and do not establish brand value

3. Mobile photographers. Great camera and premium materials (L930 is good but not enough, more effort should be put on apps such as VSCO development and fixing their cams white balance
4. People making a bold decision to stand apart. WM achieves this with unique features, wireless charging, vivid colours and beautiful design and their ad campaigns ('i'm not like everybody else').

However, they need to fix the basics - key apps. They should invest in key developers (facebook, pinterest, whatsapp) for bringing best quality apps that take advantage of WP itself.

You say that but I'm an advanced smartphone user and I switched and I know others that did or are going to as well. Yes android has a ton of apps there is no denying that. But not since I had my D2 could I make it through a day without having to find a charger, I don't have enough fingers to count how many times the beta, for what 5 years now, mapping app sent me way out of the way to get somewhere or just completely the wrong way all together. I never did find a keyboard, paid or free, that seemed to know what I was typing. They half the time would correct words that were perfectly fine and at nearly the same time completely refuse to correct misspelled words regardless of settings. Me personally I didn't like the android FB app, it would routinely not show the same things that were on my desktop version, peoples posts would disappear even after commenting on them and with the last update it would just up and decide at random to scroll in the opposite direction I was scrolling in seemingly just because. These are just a few of the niggles. The basic thing though is the ton of stuff I COULD do with android but didn't because any of it would lower my already terrible battery life.

Thats all on a phone that I probably ran 15 different ROMs on and none of them didn't anything to improve any of that, sometimes even making it worse.

I haven't found any apps that I need that WP doesn't have, granted I don't use a ton, I know there is a gap. Fact is there is a stigma with WP that they need to shake...yes more apps will help....probably a lot. When I went into the store that's what the salespeople always said..oh windows phone is great....but it doenst have a lot of apps. They also need to let people know that this isn't what windows phone used to be...its pretty viable now, but its going to be very difficult to get that point across with the domination that android has on the market now. A lot of people, including the salespeople, just simply aren't going to try it and thats sad because they should.
 
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theefman

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Sadly this has been discussed ad nauseum, and from day one Microsoft has not shown the will to advertise to the level that Samsung and apple do, despite the billions they make. Till they actually prioritise WP and get behind it 100% marketing will always be half hearted.
 

ncbenr

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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.
 

loki993

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Sadly this has been discussed ad nauseum, and from day one Microsoft has not shown the will to advertise to the level that Samsung and apple do, despite the billions they make. Till they actually prioritise WP and get behind it 100% marketing will always be half hearted.

Agreed and maybe that time is coming sooner rather than later...I have to imagine the development on mobile platforms is far more lucrative right now than on desktops. Plus I mean they have the majority of market share of desktops already...

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.

Im wondering if that isnt the plan with MS buying Nokia..we can only hope. One has to assume it is....
 

Boris Alexandrov

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You say that but I'm an advanced smartphone user and I switched and I know others that did or are going to as well. Yes android has a ton of apps there is no denying that. But not since I had my D2 could I make it through a day without having to find a charger, I don't have enough fingers to count how many times the beta, for what 5 years now, mapping app sent me way out of the way to get somewhere or just completely the wrong way all together. I never did find a keyboard, paid or free, that seemed to know what I was typing. They half the time would correct words that were perfectly fine and at nearly the same time completely refuse to correct misspelled words regardless of settings. Me personally I didn't like the android FB app, it would routinely not show the same things that were on my desktop version, peoples posts would disappear even after commenting on them and with the last update it would just up and decide at random to scroll in the opposite direction I was scrolling in seemingly just because. These are just a few of the niggles. The basic thing though is the ton of stuff I COULD do with android but didn't because any of it would lower my already terrible battery life.

Thats all on a phone that I probably ran 15 different ROMs on and none of them didn't anything to improve any of that, sometimes even making it worse.

I haven't found any apps that I need that WP doesn't have, granted I don't use a ton, I know there is a gap. Fact is there is a stigma with WP that they need to shake...yes more apps will help....probably a lot. When I went into the store that's what the salespeople always said..oh windows phone is great....but it doenst have a lot of apps. They also need to let people know that this isn't what windows phone used to be...its pretty viable now, but its going to be very difficult to get that point across with the domination that android has on the market now. A lot of people, including the salespeople, just simply aren't going to try it and thats sad because they should.

Hi Loki,

What you speak about salespeople is truth. Salesforce trainings, however, is usually is part of sales department job, which they suck at, obviously.

Speaking of apps: there sure is some improvement in key apps department - but best key apps are unofficial (6tag, Metrotube, etc.), developed by enthusiasts unsupported by MSFT or big app brands. This is bizzare - newcomers expect official apps to be platform benchmarks, therefore they reject the platform after finding official apps awful/absent.

If app developers reject investing in the platfrom, that this issue should be solved by persuading big app brands to buy and rebrand best 3rd party apps during some official apps contest. (i.e. what Telegram just did) This way 6tag could become Instagram, Metrotube could become Youtube, etc.
 
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FAHMI BASSEM

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They should care more of non USA countries, especially here is the middle east, people hate Windows phone because they don't know what's it.
 

Helder Costa1

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they need to advertise more. don't see advertisements on tv magazines or newspapers or even on internet... why they don't use the nokia stores they have at least here in europe to sell their products and others that use their platform???? here we don't have microsoft stores... and if you go for example to vodafone(portugal) the only WP you see is the 520... and not very visible... most people don't know about WP platform, they do know NOKIA that's it!!! if they bought NOKIA i think maybe theyr stores are part of the deal... use them. and most of all a good advertisement on tv and magazines and some kind of formation to the stores reps maybe some bonus... long live wp!!!!
 

FinancialP

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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?
 

hs k

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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?


This. Exactly this. And the fact that Moto E and G are too ******* cheap with good specs don't help either.

I really have to deal with people at my Bioinfo lab that WP is ugly, has no apps and that the Ui can be had on any android phone.

Seriously? My 720 is adequate for me. People do acknowledge that WP's exist. They just don't want them.
 

A895

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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?

Quite honestly I doubt consumers know about WP. That's the main problem, and then when find out what it is, they then find out it does not have the apps they use. Then they don't want.

Sent from my XT907 using Mobile Nations mobile app
 

FinancialP

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Quite honestly I doubt consumers know about WP. That's the main problem, and then when find out what it is, they then find out it does not have the apps they use. Then they don't want.

Sent from my XT907 using Mobile Nations mobile app

That's another conundrum. A long time ago I learned that most people don't care about apps. To us that may be hard to believe but most people really don't know or just don't care about apps.

There are a few must have apps but most of the time people are fine with just firing up the browser and searching. (That hurts me to say)

Perfect example my friend has. GS5 he doesn't know about the specs he doesn't even know you can change the Keyboard all he knows is that "it's the best phone out". Seriously.

He wanted to know what the game score was last night, so he pulled out his phone and did a Google search. I'm sitting back like Wow.

Same goes for my coworkers.

Now some people may love apps and crave them but that's actually the vocal few.

People do know about Windows Phone. Their friends don't have one, nobody they knows has one.

Ask people about it, and they'll usually know what it is.
 
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A895

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That's another conundrum. A long time ago I learned that most people don't care about apps. To us that may be hard to believe but most people really don't know or just don't care about apps.

There are a few must have apps but most of the time people are fine with just firing up the browser and searching. (That hurts me to say)

Perfect example my friend has. GS5 he doesn't know about the specs he doesn't even know you can change the Keyboard all he knows is that "it's the best phone out". Seriously.

He wanted to know what the game score was last night, so he pulled out his phone and did a Google search. I'm sitting back like Wow.

Same goes for my coworkers.

Now some people may love apps and crave them but that's actually the vocal few.

People do know about Windows Phone. Their friends don't have one, nobody they knows has one.

Ask people about it, and they'll usually know what it is.

No. Candy Crush, Pet Rescue Saga, Clash of Clans, Don't tap the white tiles etc. There are millions of people who play these games and won't get a WP based on that fact alone.

My mom is prime example she spent $50 on Candy Crush and Pet Rescue Saga two months ago. There may be some smartphone users who don't use apps like that but what particular reason should they use a WP?

Sent from my XT907 using Mobile Nations mobile app
 

FinancialP

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No. Candy Crush, Pet Rescue Saga, Clash of Clans, Don't tap the white tiles etc. There are millions of people who play these games and won't get a WP based on that fact alone.

My mom is prime example she spent $50 on Candy Crush and Pet Rescue Saga two months ago. There may be some smartphone users who don't use apps like that but what particular reason should they use a WP?

Sent from my XT907 using Mobile Nations mobile app

Again, those people are of the few. Look at the statistics. Everyone isn't playing those games, just a few are. Millions does not equate to the hundreds of millions of smartphone users.

There is no particular reason why people should use a WP. The only reason I can think of is subjective.
 

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