Design a loyalty program for a search engine that's competing with Google & Bing.
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- Is the functionality of the new search engine similar to Google & Bing ? Yes
- Is there any difference in terms of users we are targeting ? No
- I am assuming that the purpose of the loyalty program is to make sure users stick to new search engine ? Yes
- Does the loyalty program need to be completely online ? It can be offline as well, need not be online only
- Is it okay to assume that we will start the loyalty program in US first ? Yes
- Is cost of loyalty program a concern at this point of time ? Initially it is not a big concern but cost can’t be too huge without appreciable benefits
- Also I am assuming we are talking about Loyalty program for end users & not for the business side(advertisers for eg) ? Yes
User Flow | Feature | Comments | Priority |
Make people aware about this Search Engine | Physical/ATL Advertising with focus on benefits like Loyalty program | Costly | Later |
Make people aware about this Search Engine | Online advertising especially across other search engines | Easy to do & budget can be controlled | MVP |
Make people aware about this Search Engine | Tie-up with browser providers to make this default search engine | Difficult & we might have to gibe huge sums of money | Later |
Wow users with the experience of the product | Appropriate Search Results | MVP | |
Wow users with the experience of the product | Better & different looking UI explaining benefits | MVP | |
Wow users with the experience of the product | Manage privacy concerns of the users more explicitly | Easy and can attract lot of users with privacy being a huge concern | 1 |
Wow users with the experience of the product | Ability to add this search engine to browser | Easy to implement | |
Make them aware about the loyalty program | Develop a UI which explains benefits of the loyalty program & how user can enrol | MVP | |
Incite & convince people to use the search engine more often | Provide user with Badges. Badges & the name of the badges should be attractive. | Can be done later. Medium complexity | |
Incite & convince people to use the search engine more often | Give user reward points & design gamification program. Reward user with points for activities like
| Complex but needed | MVP (can start with limited activities) |
Reward loyal users | Design a points redemption program for loyal users. For eg
| MVP (need to have atleast one partner) | |
Reward loyal users | Develop redemption portal | Needed | MVP |
ASSUMPTIONS:
- We have a search engine which I will name "ABC" that is similar to google and bing search engine
- ABC do not have any geographical retriction, this means it is useable anywhere in the world
- ABC is owned by a start-up company trying to acquire and retain users/customers.
- ABC is only used on computers, PCs and mobile devices.
GOAL - Customer retention
Next, I will take a look at teh user group. These includes students, professionals, individuals, business enterprise.
I will focus on the student user group. This choice is made because it covers a good percentage of total users, user group are the youngest user group (loyalty can remain for a longer period of time). Also, students are generally more on the lookout for deals, discounts or loyalty programs compared to other user groups.
PAIN POINTS FOR SEARCH ENGINE USERS:
- Advertisement
- Unintelligent search
- too intelligent search
-payment/subscription
- search result taking long
- wrong catalog reporting
I will prioritize a solution for advertisement and payment/subscription in line with the loyalty program
LOYALTY PROGRAM
- discount on subscription
- reduce/eliminate advertized results
- discount on purchase made on the search engine
- bundle program with other Apps
Having in mind the user group which is students, the following will be my recommendation
Solution – features | Effort | Impact |
Ensure ABC is easy to download and free for students | Low (L) | Medium (M) |
For every search, eliminate/reduce the number of advertised results | L | L |
Provide coins/reward points for completed purchase made on the search engine | L | H |
Partner with enterprises that provide services heavily used by students. Examples include: cinema theatres, gaming, bookshops to allow points are redeemable at these enterprises | M | H |
Allow the option to convert points to visa giftcards | L | H |
I will also give users who follow through a 1000 search in a month a specic amounf of reward points (say 1000). Follow-through a search is defined as opening at least one of the search results and spending at least 30 seconds on the page will be regarded as 1 count.
I will prioritize the implementation of M and H impacts.
EVALUATION
I will measure the success of the loyalty program by the no. of customers and amount of points being redeemed.
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