Digging into Simulation Research for Sim-Based Marketing

I am still pretty consumed with thoughts of fleshing out simulation-based marketing, or perhaps it is more appropriate as ‘simulation-based advertising.’   Of course part of the process in thinking out this area is to dig into research about what makes simulations effective for training.

Ever since I met Will Thalheimer of Work-Learning.com several years ago, and since then, following his blog and research, I knew he’d be a great person to turn to in thinking some of this out.  Around the turn of the century (neat to be able to use that phrase, though of course I mean the 21st century), he identified five key aspects of simulations that make them particularly effective for practicing real-world skills: Context Alignment, Retrieval, Repetition, Feedback, and Spacing (apologies to Will if I misquoted any of these–I can’t seem to find the article on his web site).

In any event, I spoke briefly with Will recently and he felt that clearly Retrieval, Alignment, and possibly Repetition would be at play in these contexts.  As in training, marketing and advertising activities have their own goals to achieve.  We talked about the idea of coming up with a good diagram to illustrate the process, perhaps a funnel or maze (possibly with multiple entry points and multiple end points–I can see the relevance of David Scott Meerman’s “buyer personas” here).

Another interesting point he made was that for most any significant purchase, say over $100, people don’t decide to buy at once.  Ideally, you want not only to recognize when those people to return, but also trigger the information you have already conveyed about the product.

In all, it is clear that many aspects of simulation-based training have parallels/counterparts in sim-based advertising (or marketing), but potentially at different priorities, due to the overall goal (skill transfer/building, for training, vs. awareness/sales/product research for marketing).  Since simulation-based training has been explored much more fully, it would be wise to use that experience in hypothesizing potential parallels to advertising/marketing.

Simulation-Based Product Marketing

Over the past few days, I have been trying to focus on what I do and where I feel me and my company’s expertise lies.

I enjoy creating effective materials that use equipment simulations as part of marketing and training efforts.  When I say “simulation” to any group of people (who will stand still for more than a few seconds), that word seems to eclipse the importance of whatever other words surround it.  However, as I quickly follow-up as an example, “good simulation-based training” is foremost about ‘good training’, not something to be judged necessarily on how accurate the simulation is.

While the field of “simulation-based training” is roaring along, I have yet to hear the phrase “simulation-based marketing.”  Based on some shoddy and incomplete research (i.e., doing hasty web searches and looking at the first few pages of results), I have yet to see this term used.  Feeling somewhat presumptuous, I wonder if I am the first person to use this term.

When I say a ‘simulation-based product marketing piece,’ I mean “a presentation designed to engage viewers with the product, in which the product is reproduced to some level of interaction, for the purposes of selling to, or persuading them to buy it.”

At its core, and this relates to our work over the past few years, is the notion of “Product Engagement” (PE).  I have seen people use the term “brand engagement,” but I haven’t seen as much attention to “product engagement”, though clearly this concept is at the heart of pretty much all types of sales.  Often we talk about “putting the product into a prospect’s hands,” or giving a prospect a “hands-on feel” for the product.  ‘Product Engagement’ could be a way to measure how successful a presentation is at giving the prospect the feel for a device.  Not to carry this too far, but PE doesn’t have to relate to a simulation — it could be an assessment of an experience with the actual product itself.

In the same way a simulation or model always makes assumptions about what it is representing, the engagement is never quite identical to using the product in an on-the-job experience (except, of course, using the product in an on-the-job experience).

The idea of PE highlights an important distinction between sim-based product marketing and what could be considered a broader, sim-based product training.  In training, ultimately, our goal is to transfer correct performance using the device in realistic conditions.  In marketing, our goal is to give the prospect confidence that they know how they will perform.

Here are two posts I think that relate very well to this discussion:

• Devin Day – ‘Authentic Product Engagement‘ (Nike)
• ShiftControl – ‘Selling Product Engagement‘ (Coke)

The materials I see on the web relate to how products can be linked into games and into social media.  At the forefront of this area, like most, seems to be the B2C manufacturers, though a post I made a few months ago about Malvern Instruments is one demonstration that the B2B community wants and needs this approach.

I think there is a confusion between ‘engaging the viewer’ and ‘engaging the viewer with the product’.  I think that is why so much interactive marketing today focuses on games and game-like elements, because they misdirectedly (is that a word?) believe that the goal is to engage the viewer and then sneak the product in somehow.  When I hear discussions around the idea of ‘product placement’, it almost seems like a dirty secret that the manufacturer is placing its product in a position, hoping the viewer notices it–but doesn’t notice it too much.

This seems ridiculous to me.   I believe that if one makes a marketing piece about a product and lets the viewers interact with the product in realistic situations, situations that highlight the competitive or unique features of the product, then the viewer engagement will take care of itself–those viewers who are interested in the product will be retained, and those interested simply in the ‘fun’ aspect will not.  Isn’t this the core group that the marketer wants to attract?

I think that one of the neat parts about simulation-based marketing is that the concepts and materials fit so well  into other important business categories, namely training (for sales reps, customers, service technicians, etc.) and even product design and manufacturing (designing products that can engage users).  The path, then, being set is to align processes along having users interact with the product.  If one has confidence in the superiority and quality of one’s products, isn’t that the best way to sell it or learn how to use it?

Simulation-Based Marketing

I think that the same concept I’ve presented regarding ‘product marketing’ could be viewed in a larger context of purely “Simulation-Based Marketing.”  My vision is that the broader concept does not necessarily involve equipment or devices (though it could), rather, it is about re-creating the ownership experience (hence the ‘simulation’) for a prospective customer.

Critiquing “Instrument maker invests in 3-D demos”

I just recently saw an article by Karen Bannan at B2B-Online entitled “Instrument maker invests in 3-D demos“.  It is great to see the word getting out regarding the success that companies are having who recognize the investment in online product demos.  The article presents some of the typical argument for going this route, such as cost and logistics savings.  The important parts are clearly that this company, Malvern Instruments, is

• Reaching many more people than it could ordinarily do so with demo units
• Helping customers understand a sophisticated device in an easy way
• Seeing that prospects/customers are using the online demos to gain confidence in the purchase
• Saving a lot of money.

Regarding the particulars, Malvern Instruments is using a 3-D modeling software from Kaon Interactive, but I don’t believe the results are necessarily special to that software.  When I visited Kaon’s web site, they have demos of 3-D renderings of products, but as far as I could tell, little real interaction apart from zoom, pan, and rotate.  So much more so, then, the arguments should be for demos in which prospects, customers, and salespeople can really try out the product, in a simulated real environment.

The article barely scratches the surface about what is possible, for example, the enhanced tracking and user behavior monitoring possibilities that can help companies understand how prospects are evaluating their products.  Nonetheless, It’s always good to see these kinds of stories because ultimately companies considering going this route want to know there are real results.

Building data dashboards for customers

I just saw a blog post on Seth Godin’s blog recommending that companies build data dashboards to help track usage.  It is right on, and the short post is a worthwhile read.

About 1 year ago, I was asked to evaluate a tech company for a significant investment, and I was so impressed with their data tracking dashboards used that it was clear they really were thinking straight about their business.  They were managing/selling text services in Europe, and their control center was impressive.  They had a tracking dashboard that monitored sales close to real-time, and compared current results with historical data (and statistical deviations) in an easy-to-see, visual graphic.  They could tell very quickly if problems occurred with their technology so they could take decisive action quickly.

Regarding equipment simulations, a few years ago we built a simple tracking software program (SimTracker) and our clients love it — they can see in real-time how their demos or training are performing.  Our interface is pretty simple, but then we also let clients download the data as CSV if they want to do more involved analyses.  The more savvy marketers can create a ‘mini-focus group’ by serving several versions of a piece and seeing which performs best compared with their goals, based on real user behavior rather than what the group thinks the researchers want to hear.

In many of our industries (which tend to be around manufacturing), however, we’ve found that our prospective clients sometimes don’t value this because it seems web/tech companies are not doing a good job of saying why such tracking data is useful, and how to apply it effectively in marketing campaigns.

Product simulation for cross-selling and up-selling

I just ran across an interesting blog post entitled “Measuring and Improving Cross-Sell and Upsell” at GetElastic.com.  It gives fascinating numbers and insights about existing online retailers’ current abilities to cross-sell and up-sell products.  What struck me is how well product simulation covers all of the take-away messages:

1. “we think you’ll also love…” — by putting products in real-world situations, you can expose customers to related products they may not have considered, just like the “we think you’ll also love…” items currently tagged onto shopping cart items.
2. Quoting Mike Svatek’s webinar of effective merchandising on Elastic Path, the post says cross-selling works well for “considered purchases”, the ones with higher cost and higher involvement.  The consumer who uses simulations to evaluate products will almost certainly be ones prepared for higher involvement in the procurement process (whether in B2B or B2C) — natural candidates for cross-sales (and the consumer will likely be appreciative of the relevance of related products or services).
3. Again quoted from Mike Svatek’s webinar, the post says up-sells work best when there is “a small difference in dollar value or a small nominal percentage difference – 10-20% max. You need to show some incremental value for the increase in price.”  Including optional product features in the simulation is a great way to lead consumers to the complete product they need.

The results are in from the virtual trade show

I won’t leave my readership (perhaps my mother) hanging…our experiment was a complete success at the show.  Our booth was rated #1 (or very close to #1) of all the participating exhibitors, in categories such as unique visitors, time, user ratings, etc.  It was directly attributable to the interactive sims we had (don’t take my word for it — this was real feedback).

Visitor time in our booth was over 150% of the average time spent at a booth, except for the prize booth.  Also, we did a little experiment in which we modified our simulations from Day 1 to Day 2 and actually got real user behavior demonstrating how we can tune performance.  I think it was a resounding success from the data point of view, and now it is time to go to potential customers with these results.  Of course the virtual trade show is like a web site, and so a lot of what we observed in the show microcosm I think can be applied to web site behavior (of course we intend to measure that as well, and compare behavior).

We’ve been talking with manufacturers who are interested in more virtual shows (some are not interested, and some publishers we understand are not convinced about the virtual show value).  I can’t say I believe the virtual trade show is here to stay, but it does offer some interesting advantages over merely having a web site, and I think it’s a wonderful opportunity to leverage simulations.

Virtual Trade Shows — the perfect venue?

Clearly simulations have a great place on Web sites, CD’s, etc. but in the past couple of years, I think the resurgence of virtual trade shows can provide an almost perfect venue for marketing simulations. I am in the process of vetting this idea, and have discovered a few things along the way.

First, from a technology point of view, the main software systems seem to all be Flash 8, so for me, that’s great news. I am in the process of updating my libraries to AS3, but realistically it will take a couple of months since that activity has to go on in the background (i.e., while I do the work that puts food on the table!).

Second, I’ve discussed the prospect of creating sims for various manufacturers, and while they are interested, there are some “trade show” goals that might get in the way. Almost invariably, the marketers want visitors to contact the booth sales people, naturally. So the marketers want visitors to be able to try things out, but not be too independent. I’ve found the message that resonates most being using interactivity to enter a prize drawing, or something that takes 30-60 seconds for someone to do, the endpoint being contacting a salesperson. This makes the most sense, since the ultimate goal of the show is the lead generation.

Third, surprisingly, I got an under-whelming response when I asked about tracking user behavior. I would have thought that understanding what people are doing in the booth would be a high priority. I don’t know if this response is due to my limited sample, my inability to ‘paint the picture’ for them adequately, or some real reflection of the market’s interest. I imagine their interest will be consistent with how much marketing intelligence they conduct ordinarily, and some industries will lead others. The question is how to sort through all these factors and find the visionary industries and companies within those industries. My impression is that it would be more useful to look at company profiles rather than expect an industry as a whole to get it.

I will be participating in my first virtual trade show next month (www.fdiconline.com), and I’m planning on running some interesting experiments.