Brand Strategy / UX / Social Media Marketing
HTC VIVE's Digital Transformation Journey: Elevating E-Commerce UX and Customer Engagement
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Date
Dec 2019 - May 2023
Role
Project Manager
Marketing Specialist
Content Curator
Skills
Stakeholder Management
Campaign Organization
Content Development
SEO Strategy
Results
Front Page Conversion +4310%
Email Collection Rate +300%
Social Media to Web Traffic by +384%
eCommerce Revenue +188%
Introduction
In late 2019, I began an exciting journey with HTC VIVE, which was my debut project as a consultant.
Over the course of three and a half years, me and my team navigated through two critical phases that significantly contributed to HTC VIVE's progress: firstly, focusing on enhancing user experience and optimizing website conversions, and secondly, working on increasing social media engagement, elevating brand awareness, and nurturing a thriving VR community.
Throughout this period, I sharpened my adaptability, leadership, and strategic abilities. Let me walk you through my journey in these endeavors and the impact it had on both HTC VIVE's business achievements and my professional growth.
HTC, headquartered in Taiwan, is a prominent global electronics company known for a diverse product range, including smartphones, VR headsets, accessories, 5G technologies, and blockchain innovations. HTC has been a pioneer in VR headsets under the VIVE brand, establishing itself as a key player in VR hardware.
The Approach
We use the Octalysis Framework to decipher the complexity of human motivation through the 8 Core Drives, each representing a fundamental motivator that guides human actions and behaviors.
This design approach leads to highly engaging experiences, creating environments where users are naturally motivated to participate and promote the experience, thereby boosting business success.
Challenges
Customer journey gaps and underperforming e-commerce results.
Poor customer engagement and lack of appeal to VR gamer target audience.
Low brand awareness, and negative press from previous product reviews.
Optimizing customer experience and improving e-commerce conversions.
Part One
My Responsibilities
Resource Management
Project Management
Quality Assurance
Stakeholder Management
Operation Flow
Cross-Department Communication
We started with improving HTC VIVE’s eCommerce experience. As a project manager, I worked closely with the designers on my team and HTC VIVE's engineering team to ensure the design was implemented correctly. Thus, I understood the design concept behind every change we made to the website, which, looking back now, laid the foundation of my career as a UX designer.
Several improvements are being made to the website. I will focus on two highlights in this case study:
1. Front Page Banner Improvement
Sometimes, great improvements can result from very simple adjustments. Here's a comparison of the wireframes for the front page banner design before and after our enhancements. With subtle improvements in visuals, copywriting, and button layout, we witnessed an astounding +4310% increase in the front page conversion rate overall.
Below, you can view the screenshots of before and after implementation, and the detail of our design concept.
Before
The original design of the front page banner fails to provide adequate incentive for users to click through. Furthermore, the call-to-action (CTA) is presented as a tertiary button, which is typically employed in scenarios where users are disinterested in the offer or not currently engaged. As a result of this lack of motivation coupled with the counterintuitive CTA design, the conversion rate is suffering, leading to missed opportunities for engagement and potential revenue loss.
After
The first noticeable change in the improved design is the introduction of a more engaging and inspiring background. The imagery immerses users in the VR story, tapping into Core Drive 1: Epic meaning & calling by fueling their imagination as active participants in the narrative. This immersion also triggers Core Drive 7: Curiosity, as it piques their interest in the fascinating world of VR.
We've also enhanced the product information on display, using "ultimate" to describe the bundle and ensuring the CTA stands out with a primary button design. These two modifications contribute to increasing Core Drive 2: Accomplishment. Users feel empowered and knowledgeable—they understand what they're viewing, know how to proceed, and recognize that choosing the "ultimate" bundle is a smart decision, enhancing their sense of accomplishment.
2. Newsletter Subscription Improvement
Next, we direct our focus from the top to near the footer: the newsletter subscription area. We shifted from a functional to a human-focused design, leveraging social proof, urgency, and a better CTA. The result is a remarkable +300% surge in newsletter subscriptions for HTC VIVE, enhancing the effectiveness of marketing endeavors and amplifying the reach and impact of promotional campaigns.
Before: Function-Focused
In the screenshot, you can see that the original design was purely function-focused, merely informing users they can sign up for the newsletter. Unless the user is highly enthusiastic about the brand, which is not often the case, this function-focused approach doesn't motivate the user to go through the hassle of entering their email address. As a result, the company could miss out on valuable opportunities to engage with potential customers, build brand loyalty, and ultimately drive sales.
After: Human-Focused
In contrast to function-focused design, human-focused design prioritizes user behavior and motivation. Therefore, our design incorporates motivational elements to encourage sign-ups. We start by enhancing aesthetics with inspiring imagery. Next, we revamped the copywriting, starting with social proof ('Over 6000 VR enthusiasts...') to leverage Core Drive 5: Social Influence. Then, we introduced a FOMO push ('Don't miss out on...') to create urgency, tapping into Core Drive 8: Loss & Avoidance. Another crucial improvement was making the call-to-action (CTA) more prominent with a primary button design, ensuring users always know how to proceed, thus enhancing their sense of Core Drive 2: Accomplishment.
Enhancing social media presence, cultivating the VIVE community, and boosting B2C engagement.
Part Two
My Responsibilities
SEO Strategy
Campaign Planning and Execution
Analytics and Reporting
Go-To-Market Strategy
Market Research
Content Development
Digital Engagement
Transitioning into the second phase of the project, I took on multiple roles including marketing strategist, project manager, and content curator. Collaboration was key as I worked closely with HTC VIVE teams across various departments such as global marketing, PR, legal, engineering, and R&D. Effective cross-departmental communication played a crucial role in facilitating marketing plans and campaigns, and I served as the primary liaison between departments, ensuring seamless coordination and collaboration.
Internally, I partnered with a colleague who assumed the role of the community manager. We efficiently divided tasks, striving to achieve both quantitative and qualitative KPIs.
Our combined efforts delivered impressive outcomes, as evidenced by a significant increase in social media metrics and a notable +384% rise in social media to website conversions from Mar 2021 to May 2021, compared to the period of Dec 2020 to Feb 2021. The graph on the right illustrates the rate of increase from various social media platforms.
Additionally, during the same period, we saw a +119% increase in commerce conversion rates and a +118% revenue boost, even amidst a more competitive timeframe with Christmas shopping and Cyber Monday promotions.
This light-hearted and interactive campaign leverages humor and pop culture references to resonate with the target demographic. By tapping into the viral nature of memes, it not only increases brand visibility but also creates a fun and relatable experience for its audience, fostering a sense of community and camaraderie among VR enthusiasts.
Meme Monday Campaign
This type of content provides valuable insights into VIVE's VR hardware products, along with broader VR knowledge, industry trends, and immersive experiences. By sharing educational content, it empowers our audience, helping them make informed decisions about VR hardware and explore the VR ecosystem further. Moreover, it serves to build credibility, positioning VIVE as a trusted source of information in the VR industry.
Educational Content
User Generated Content or UGCs leverage what we call the brighten technic, it amplifies the voices of the customers and inspires others within the VIVE community to actively participate and share their experiences. This enhances brand authenticity and strengthens the bond between HTC VIVE and its customers, turning them into brand advocates and loyal supporters.
UGC Campaign
Alternate Reality Game (ARG)
An ARG, short for Alternate Reality Game, is an interactive storytelling experience that blends real-world elements with digital or fictional content. Players participate by solving puzzles, completing tasks, and finding clues across online platforms, physical locations, and various media formats.
In the summer of 2021, we organized the VIVEPORTAL ARG to interact with the VIVE Community in a unique and memorable manner, ultimately aiming to foster community engagement and boost brand awareness.
The VIVEPORTAL ARG transports participants into a captivating narrative where they receive a message from the future depicting a dystopian VR world controlled by The Overseer, who has seized the last free space in the Metaverse, saturating it with manipulative and mind-controlling content. The VIVE community plays a vital role in the adventure, working together to decrypt messages, unravel intricate riddles, and uncover clues scattered throughout the VIVE ecosystem.
The community's enthusiastic response to this ARG is evident in the visual showcase, with members actively collaborating and combining their efforts to tackle the puzzles.
The ARG involved unveiling cryptic visuals, mysterious message recordings, and intriguing hints as clues for the community. These clues propelled the storyline forward and ignited collaborative efforts among the VIVE community, prompting them to exchange insights, theories, and breakthroughs across their social media channels. Our team collaborated to craft a captivating storyline and game loop, creating visual, audio, and video clues. You can listen to the audio on the right and immerse yourself in the narrative.
Additionally, we engaged with influencers to amplify excitement and participation, leveraging their reach and influence to generate buzz around the game and attract new participants. Check out this video showcasing VR influencer PHIA as she solves the ARG's riddle, highlighting the captivating experiences of the story
In conclusion, our ARG initiative has been a remarkable journey characterized by creativity, teamwork, and a strong sense of community..
Throughout our contract, we were tasked with different focuses at different times. In terms of content curation, we consistently delivered an average of 10 monthly posts across Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, along with 200 Tweets, 4 blog posts, and video content. Besides our regular social media activities, we collaborated closely with HTC VIVE's global marketing department to craft comprehensive go-to-market strategies for their new products like VIVE Flow, VIVE Tracker 3.0, and VIVE XR Elite. This collaboration played a key role in successful product launches and maximizing market penetration for HTC VIVE's cutting-edge innovations. Below are some highlights of our social media content efforts:
Increasing brand awareness through influencer collaborations.
Part Three
My Responsibilities
Legal Contract
Influencer Outreach Strategy
Relationship-building
Performance Analytics
Partnership Negotiation
Influencer Campaign Management
Trend Research
How to increase brand awareness while being cost-efficient? This was a hurdle we encountered during our collaboration with HTC. Our solution was simple yet innovative and highly effective: We decided to host the VIVE Top 100 Global VR Influencers Award to honor influencers to broaden HTC VIVE's reach and cultivate a positive brand image.
Traditionally, reaching out to influencers and requesting positive mentions often led to being ignored or asked for payment. However, our approach aligned the interests of both VIVE and the influencers. By nominating them for the award, they were encouraged to share their achievements, naturally leading them to speak positively about VIVE in return.
The VIVE Top 100 Global VR Influencers Award became one of our most impactful initiatives. The award announcement garnered over 270,000 impressions on X (formerly known as Twitter) alone, and its reach expanded further as the nominated influencers shared the announcement across their social media accounts. This initiative was even featured in Forbes and various VR news websites.
VIVE Top 100 Influencer Award
My role as the main coordinator of this initiative involved extensive communication across HTC VIVE's internal departments to align the plan of action and compile the list of nominees. After finalizing the general items, me and my team collaborated with the PR department to craft a compelling press release, ensuring our messaging highlighted the significance of the award. Following that, we drew up a marketing plan with the global marketing department to effectively promote the announcement, expand its reach, and maximize its impact. Furthermore, I coordinated with the engineering department to test the award's prize, which featured a personalized VIVERSE World with a trophy inside. In addition to these operational tasks, I personally reached out to all the influencers to congratulate them on their nominations, fostering lasting relationships crucial to future collaboration. This comprehensive approach ensured that every aspect of the VIVE Top 100
My key takeaway from this experience is the power of creativity and strategic thinking, proving that with the right approach, even a limited budget can be leveraged effectively to achieve impactful outcomes in the competitive landscape of brand management.
To continue the momentum from the VIVE Top 100 Global VR Influencers Award, we seized the opportunity to extend invitations to the influencers for further collaborations. During our time working with HTC VIVE, we established strong relationships between the brand and multiple influencers in the VR community, and coordinated several collaborations with them.
My role in these collaborations included conducting market trend research and negotiating collaboration contracts. I worked closely with HTC VIVE's legal department to draft contracts tailored to each influencer's needs and criteria.
Influencer Collaboration
One of the highlights was our collaboration with Blitz, who is highly renowned in the VR community boasting over 4 million followers on YouTube. Here, you can watch his video promoting VIVERSE, featuring the challenge of immersing himself in it for 30 days.
Results Summary
Dawn Shen — Head & VP of Global Marketing for HTC