FinIt Research Project

Transcription

1 Professor Royal DMI Capstone 11/4/2018 FinIt Research Project s, text messages, and messaging through apps are a dominant form of communication in today s digital world. Whether for business or personal use, these types of communication offer a type convenience that in-person or over-the-phone lack. Although

2 convenience and ease of communication make this type of communication popular, there is one problem that seems to arise often: how do I respond? Problem It can be hard to determine how to appropriately respond to a message. Asking friends can take too long for an answer, and private conversations can t be shared. Solution? FinIt: an application and plugin that gives the user formulated messages to choose from when responding to a message or . This product uses artificial intelligence to scan a message, and from there crafts multiple responses for the user to choose from. It is offered both as an app for mobile device usage and as a plugin for computer usage. Market Analysis When deciding the target market for this app, we first determined the types of communication that frequently lead to uncertainty when crafting a response. Based on our experiences and that of others, we concluded that professional communication as it relates to a job or career, along with communication during the early phases of dating are the areas that we should focus on. The target market was chosen based on three criteria: an age group that frequently uses messaging and to communicate, an age group most likely to be on the hunt for a job, and an age group that has a high population of single individuals. Using these criteria, U.S. adults age were chosen as the target market for FinIt. Based on data from Simply Analytics there are currently over 76.8 million adults in our target market and they are heavy users of and text messaging. According to a 2017 study from University Reporter, over the last 30 days, 95.68% of our target market has sent or received

3 text messages. Additionally more than half of adults ages check their in the morning and 43% adults ages do the same. Overall, 80.43% of the target market has sent or received on their phones in the past 30 days. A large part of professional communication happens during job searches or career opportunities. Adults in our target market are often on the lookout for a new job. A study from Job Application Center reports that 41% of our target expect to be at their current job for less than two years and 42% expect to change jobs every one to three years. Additionally, 32% of adults ages see themselves leaving their jobs within a year. Our target market is largely single with 63.99% having never been married (University Reporter). Global Implications The problem of communicating between one another effectively and conveniently is something people worldwide encounter daily, whether it be through texting, or social media. According to a Statista poll, the number of those using mobile phones is expected to reach 67%, or around 4.68 billion people worldwide by In the current global marketplace, a few companies have attempted to address the growing demand for better ways to communicate. For example, Google s Gmail decided to offer users a convenient way to respond to their s with Smart Reply, which gave the users various reply suggestions to choose from. Similarly, NATTR, a company based in the UK since 2015, has addressed the issue of effective communication by creating a network of other users who offer ideas and suggestions for text message responses. Diversity Implications

4 The type of individual that would find convenient mobile communication useful would be adults ages who are looking for ways to connect with other groups or individuals via mobile devices. More specifically, adults that use text messaging often in their day to day life and those that use social media, dating apps, or job searching sites regularly. According to the Pew Research Center, 22% of years olds report using mobile dating apps. In addition, more than 55% of Hispanics and African Americans in the United States use their smartphones for job related activities, according to a study by Pew Research Center. Therefore, these groups of individuals may be particularly interested in convenient and efficient communication applications offered on mobile devices. Competition NATTR, a global company that is headquartered in the UK, is our biggest competition. The company offers a mobile application that crowd sources various text responses. For example, users send screenshots of text messages that they need help replying to, and other users send them possible responses and suggestions. NATTR s biggest strength is that the platform allows for multiple people to give suggestions, which offers the user a wide range of possible responses to choose from. NATTR s weaknesses are as follows: 1) although the poster remains anonymous, some conversations are too private to post on the app 2) an answer typically takes around five minutes to receive 3) some answers given are immature, explicit, or have nothing to do with the conversation at hand. Google is another strong competitor. One of Google s major strengths is that it is able to answer any large number of questions that a user may have. Another strength Google has is that it provides users a wide variety of responses to choose from. Also, responses can be tailored

5 based on what is typed into the search engine. Google s only major weakness is that it can be time consuming for the user to go through the search results. Finally, our third major competitor is LinkedIn because it features a comparable response application through their message app. One of LinkedIn s strengths is that it gives a manageable list of appropriate and professional responses to choose from to reply on posts or messages within the site. Their only weakness is that this feature is only available on LinkedIn and responses are usually short. Potential Solutions One potential solution is to not rely on other users to create a response. Doing so gets rid of the negative problems that Nattr faces. It also gives users the privacy of being able to get a response to their message, no matter the content, without the fear of the loss of anonymity. To address the problem of timeliness, the algorithm that Google uses to provide pages upon pages of answers will have to be modified. Message options will be narrowed down to only five to ten responses, which will save the user time. Additionally, since the response is created based off of what the message says, it is more meaningful and personal, so the user also saves time by not having to personalize the message. Combining these two solutions leads to an app that lets a user choose from multiple responses based on the content of a message in a manner that is private and personalized. Since this solution is an app and plugin, the product leads to a quicker response time than Google or Nattr since it is ready to go within a few clicks. Our target market does a lot of communication through mobile devices, ing and messaging, with the expectation from themselves and others that responses will be delivered in a

6 timely manner. The provided solutions not only address the urgency that is seen in some types of communications, but the need for messages to be appropriate and tailored to the person on the other end.. Marketing Strategy For the marketing strategy FinIt will rely on digital advertising and college activation events. Digital marketing will take place on social media since according to the Pew Research Center 61.35% of our target market uses social media, and it is cheaper than print and television ads. We will use video ads on Facebook and YouTube platforms. These two platforms have the highest use in our target market with 81% using Facebook and 91% using YouTube. The ad campaign will be comprised of three videos in order to showcase the multiple ways FinIt can be used. One video will feature the user responding to a job interview request, another captures the conversation between two people on a dating app, and the last one is a student responding to a professor. Since 30% of year olds use dating apps, display picture ads will be used on Tinder, the preferred dating app of our target market, and the ads will show the conversation between two people on the platform with one person using the app to answer a question. Showing the use of FinIt on Tinder directly shows how the app can be beneficial on a platform the target is already engaged in. Sponsored content on high-traffic websites such as BuzzFeed will utilize quizzes and how-to articles. For example, an article titled How to answer the that will land you your dream job will at first give tips on how to answer an completely on your own, and toward the end will lightly hint at using FinIt to make the process easier.

7 Google s search engine is often used when trying to figure out how to respond to a message FinIt will use this to its advantage and implement an Ad Words campaign to ensure the product shows up in search results. Phrases such as responding to a job , how to respond to a guy, and how to answer an will be targeted. College activation events will be used to reach a portion of the 19.41% of our target market that are in college (University Reporter). Ten of the largest universities in the United States will feature kiosks at career fairs and professional skill building workshops with the aim of getting the product in the hands of our target market, specifically those aged Financial In the beginning stages of the product release, FinIt will be offered on a freemium basis with a three dollars a month premium option that gives users access to more formulated responses and unlimited usage. The cost of the premium option will increase once the app has garnered more usage. Hosting costs for the Apple store would be $99 a year and Google Play would be about $25 a year. Google Play and the Apple Store take about 30% of the profits each. We project a number of 500 users a month in the first year based on the 2,827 downloads a month that Nattr s app has in the Apple App store after only two years of being released. Of these 500 users a month, we expect only ten percent of these users to pay for the premium option, resulting in $15, 120 of revenue from the Apple store. To offset this low number, ads will run before users of the free option can use the product.

8 Limitations and Challenges Because of the low cost in the early stages of the product release, there is the potential for a low-profit margin in the first two to three years. In order to increase more users, FinIt will adjust the marketing campaign as needed with the aim of gettering more users to the app. Also, there will be efforts to get free users to switch to the premium option. Another consideration is partnering with another company, such as Grammarly, that would offer our product as a package deal to its users, with FinIt getting a percentage of the profit. Additionally, some potential users might not be comfortable with their messages being scanned in order to create responses. To combat this problem, FinIt will need to make it clear that the scanning of messages will only happen at the user's request, and all identifying information, such as phone number and address, will be removed. Another limitation of the product is that it is only being offered for the English language. Since the United States has a growing Spanish speaking population, in the future FinIt will need to consider adding additional languages in order to keep up with the changing language landscape in the United States. There is challenge in making this product user friendly for those that are visually impaired. With the advancement of technology, the visually impaired are able to communicate through text messages and as well. Once FinIt builds enough capital, the creation of a voice user interface design will be considered.

9 Works Cited 15% of American Adults Have Used Online Dating Sites or Mobile Dating Apps. Pew Research Center, 11 Feb. 2016, line-dating-sites-or-mobile-dating-apps/ 2016 Job Seeker Nation Study. Leading Recruiting Software and Applicant Tracking System - Jobvite, web.jobvite.com/q116_website_2016jobseekernation_lp.html. Job Application Center Team. Perceptions of Employment Opportunities. Perceptions of Employment Opportunities Comments, Jon Application Center, 27 Mar. 2018, jobapplicationcenter.com/perceptions-employment-opportunities/. Number of mobile phone users worldwide from 2015 to 2020 (in billions). Statista, e/ Racial and ethnic differences in how people use technology. Pew Research Center, 30 April, ow-people-use-mobile-technology/ Simply Analytics Database Smith, Aaron. 15% Of American Adults Use Online Dating Sites or Mobile Apps. Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, 17 Nov. 2016, ating-sites-or-mobile-dating-apps/. Study: What Millennials Want. Comparably, Substantial 'Reciprocity' across Major Social Media Platforms. Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, 27 Feb. 2018, edia_0-04/.

10 Topic: Online Dating. University Reporter, 2017 Spring GfK Reporter MRI U.S. Favorite Dating Websites or Apps by Age 2018 Statistic. Statista, p/.