In summer of 2018, I interned abroad in Shanghai at a travel agency called OKDeal Travel, which focuses on providing quality, low-cost tours across Asia for expats. I believed that immersing myself in a completely different work culture would challenge my perspective and enlarge my ability to empathize with a wide spectrum of people.
The Opportunity: Improve OKDeal Travel’s understanding of who their target audience is and how to build long-term relationships with them.
The Outcome: Innovated OKDeal Travel’s marketing strategies by reproducing targeted email newsletters, kickstarting opinion leader partnerships, and designing social media posts with information obtained directly from extracting feedback in the customer journey cycle.
The Cultural Clash
The OKDeal team consisted only of 4 full-time workers who were all raised in China. Although they were welcoming, there was a cultural clash surrounding the idea of what the roles of new employees are. In America, new hires are expected to adapt quickly and bring new insights to the table in a fast-paced environment while in China new employees are supposed to submit to hierarchy in the workplace.
Due to this difference, I was left with handling tasks that were not related to marketing strategy, such as proofreading and translating deliverables. Unsatisfied, I was determined to convince my boss, who was also the owner of OKDeal, that I had meaningful ideas to bring to offer to the company.
To do this, I produced and presented to her a marketing plan with potential strategies that could set OKDeal Travel apart from the rest of the saturated industry. Impressed with my initiative and drive, my boss delegated to me various marketing initiatives.
…
The Process
My main goal was to restructure how OKDeal communicated with its target audience through its current channels, such as email newsletter, Facebook, and others. This was the process I went through to transform the company’s marketing assets:
1) Observe the firm’s current social media and communication efforts. After viewing the low engagement metrics, such as click through rates, I knew that change needed to happen.
Newsletter Before My Edits:
9675872.Spring_Festival_Holiday_Deals_2017- Lengthy descriptions – lack of tactful communication
- Confusing layout – included both Chinese and English leading to information overload
- Distracting designs – choice of color and images were not captivating
2) Research what kind of design and content do expats and foreigners like to read. Through compiling the findings on multiple articles, I came to the conclusion that Chinese consumers desire their marketing assets to include as much text as possible because it demonstrates credibility. However, American, and certain other foreign consumers, generally are attracted to the creative and visuals – more text equates to less engagement. Up until then, OKDeal was curating its communication strategy towards local Chinese consumers, a demographic that was not the business’s main target.
3) Implement key findings into innovating the newsletter. From the knowledge that I gained from these statistic points, I made a data-driven decision to test redesigning OKDeal’s newsletter and social media posts. After writing the copy, selecting the pictures, designing the layout, adding an introduction blurb, and attaching linked social media icons, I completed the revised version of the newsletter on Madmimi.
4) Measure the impact of the newsletter. The newsletter was sent out consecutively for 4 weeks with astonishing metrics: engagement increased by 30%.
Newsletter After My Edits:
Newsletter__Trips_in_June_July_Pt.3-pages-deleted- Shortened & engaging descriptions – concise messaging that aims to build consumer relations
- User-friendly layout – brief tour introduction paragraphs with the utilization of “More Details” buttons; arranged tours in order from date
- Aesthetic designs – complementing photographs, colors, font, and others
Similarly to the newsletter, I customized OKDeal’s social media activities to mirror the preferences of expats. One critical change that I initiated was adding in the step of actually inviting members to OKDeal Facebook events, which increased awareness and engagement dramatically.
Key Learnings
1) My experience at OKDeal has been a vital part of my journey in learning how to establish intimate connections with customers. I was given direct exposure to how important it is for firms to personalize their marketing strategies based off of customer segments.
2) Furthermore, companies should always establish and look towards long-term goals. OKDeal was a small agency with a constant overload of small-scale tasks that needed to be done for that week’s tours. Consequently, upper-level management did not realize how their branding was off.
3) Lastly, be able to influence without authority. As this was my first internship, I was eager to get started and make a positive impact. Initially, due to the difference in the cultural workplace – I felt restricted and unsatisfied. However, I realized that being able to take initiative on the side to showcase what you’re capable of and what you have to offer to the company even when you are the newcomer is crucial.