Customer Success
The Mountain View Chamber of Commerce created a business resiliency kit and a new online marketplace to help their local businesses sell more, stay connected to the community, and eventually thrive.
Background
The Mountain View Chamber of Commerce (MVCC) faced a challenging year with the need to support and help the businesses in a new way due to the pandemic.
MVCC’s goal - to save the Small Businesses in Mountain View with particular focus on Downtown, while bringing back customer confidence.
Help businesses drive their brands and encourage sales by providing effective marketing opportunities and platforms.
Engage customers and encourage support of local business on a personal and emotional level by giving a face and story to local businesses
Restore consumer confidence
Provide operational help for merchants to more effectively conduct business online
Problem
MVCC had to look for new ways to drive customers to shop local in an effort to help local businesses stay afloat during the pandemic. In addition to encouraging local residents to shop, they also had to look for ways to help those businesses who did not have an online presence.
Solution
With limited time and resources, MVCC took a 3-step approach to helping their local businesses - running a Sweepstakes, creating a Business Resiliency Kit, and developing an online marketplace.
Sweepstakes
Fly to Soar worked with MVCC to create a sweepstakes to help generate awareness and drive interest in local businesses. The ‘I Love My MV Businesses Sweepstakes’ was designed to engage with the public and provide a variety of platforms for them to share their Mountain View favorites - businesses and their goods or services. This promoted local businesses in a fun and grassroots way. A randomly drawn participant won a $500 Mountain View Universal Gift Card.
Results: We achieved a 400% increase in participation from plan through our social media campaign efforts. Of those who participated, 85% contributed comments as to their favorite Mountain View business even though that field was not required to participate.
Business Resiliency Kit
Created an online kit for small businesses to help get them online, promote their offerings, & engage with customers. The Business Resiliency Kit consisted of the following:
How to use Google My Business
How to Build an Online Presence for Your Business
How to Create a Virtual Video Tour
How to use Social Media to Increase Business
How to Grow Your Business Through Email
COVID-19 Safety Measures
Digital Dictionary of common online terminology
Fly to Soar created each piece of the kit, and mapped the process for the most effective use given businesses’ minimal available time.
Results: Due to data accessibility issues we were unable to get statistics within the first 2 weeks of launch. Our recommendations included promoting the guides to businesses following the holidays to encourage them to reconnect with customers and drive sales.
Mountain View Marketplace
The Mountain View Marketplace is an online market for all Mountain View businesses to post products or services as a shoppable neighborhood for local customers. The purpose is to enable all Mountain View businesses, whether or not they already had an online presence, to reach a greater customer base and sell. Fly to Soar helped the Chamber by gathering the initial requirements to participate, provided advice on the design for the marketplace website - including organizing backend setup and data organization, and project managed the building of the marketplace. The goal was to have it up and running prior to the holiday season with 30 businesses participating. The Marketplace can be found at shop.ilovemv.org
Results: The Marketplace opened on time with 110 businesses participating. With PR limited to the local community newspaper and social media, they were able to attract 477 users on the day the article was published, with another 878 on Day 2. MVCC will continue to attract new visitors with ongoing promotion through social media and their consumer portal - ilovemv.org.
“It was a great pleasure to work with Fly to Soar on our recent projects. We were extremely pleased with their skills, professionalism, and most of all - the results! We were short-handed and needed not only talented feet on the ground, but also ones who could self-manage, investigate and follow through on issues or ill-defined parts of the process. Fly to Soar mapped out a comprehensive plan that was still easy to follow, and managed the heck out of it. Plus, they were simply delightful to work with. Would recommend them without hesitation!”
A desire to reclaim the commercial solar panel market, Taka Solar will be more affordable and five times faster to install.
Background
Taka Solar originates from a desire to extend their experience and knowledge of solar panels and the solar industry by incorporating new technologies into panels that increase the efficiency with installation while delivery more energy; all at a cheaper cost. Now, Taka Solar is on the move to disrupt the commercial solar panel market.
Problem
Taka Solar needed to find out how much interest and acceptance there is for a new solar product in a very competitive, price sensitive and crowded commercial solar installation industry.
Taka Solar approached Fly to Soar to help them with verifying the desire for a new commercial solar product. We created a phone and online survey to obtain initial impressions from an identified target audience to validate interest, key features and appropriate target focus.
Solution
The results of our survey demonstrated interest in learning more about this new approach to commercial solar panel installation. We learned about the many barriers to entry. A major challenge in this industry is that any new technology needs to be proven for 10+ years before an installer adds it to their product line. We were able to verify interest in a solar panel that is quick to install at a lower cost.
Fortunately, through our efforts, Fly to Soar opened the door for Taka Solar to have further conversations with potential future installer customers.
“It went smoothly and I’m pleased about everything. I enjoyed hanging out and it did give time to clarify some things about our project.”
The success continues . . .
Taka Solar is currently setting up meetings with those solar installers identified that expressed interest to have in depth technical discussions.
Taka Solar, now Sunspan, is at https://sunspansolar.com
Savitude’s AI technology empowers fashion designers to deliver the latest styles that fit better, with a quicker time to market, resulting in an increase in sales and a reduction in end-of-season inventory for retailers.
Background
Realizing there was a connection between fit, body shape, returns, and excess inventory, Savitude designed an AI solution to fix the fashion industry problem of designing clothes for one body shape with the ability to easily and quickly design clothes for all body types. An outcome of designing fashion for all body types ultimately achieves the goal of eliminating excess inventory by significantly reducing returns.
Problem
Savitude’s extensive solutions solved the fit and the excess inventory problem. However, they needed help developing messaging and product communications for their pitch deck and website. To get to the best messaging we reviewed their current website and pitch deck, researched the retail and fashion design industry, assessed the competition, and learned about current industry challenges. For the website, we suggested a new customer journey that took into consideration how to simply present a complex technology and the benefits to website visitors.
At the same time, Savitude’s technology was coming to fruition at a critical juncture - COVID-19 was keeping everyone home which culminated in a 79% reduction in purchasing of clothing, resulting in retailers retaining an enormous amount of clothing. What happens to all that clothing they can’t sell, even at an extreme discount? It ends up in landfills.
Solution
We began with an assessment of the competition to Identify Savitude’s strengths and weaknesses. From there, we helped them position their company and solutions to clarify and amplify their competitive advantage of designing for a better fit with less waste.
“Fly to Soar helped us refocus our communications to highlight our solution for the old and unforgiving problem of fit within the fashion industry. We incorporated that into our pitch deck and updated website.”
In addition, we made recommendations to boost the Savitude website. We know that using image galleries helps to engage customers, creating a desire to learn more about their business. So leveraging the concept of ‘a photo is worth a thousand words’ we proposed use of a photo gallery view to visually demonstrate the benefits of using their technology along with how to incorporate it into the design process.
The success continues . . .
Savitude continues to market their AI solution to gain traction during this very critical time for the fashion and retail industry.
Savitude was founded by Camilla Olson
Quiklee created a competitive mobile trivia gaming app designed for users who like to test their knowledge.
Background
Quiklee created a competitive mobile app that focuses on challenging it’s users with math problems, current affairs, general knowledge, and trivia questions. It is a time-based app, requiring users to answer questions quickly to earn points. Users can play on their own, or against family and friends. Their newly launched updated app called Brain Racers, offers live online racing events.
Problem
While Quiklee had built a small following on social media, they had little information about who was following them and their interest. Because they had been inconsistent with their postings, they had lost some traction and were no longer sure who was interested in their product.
Quiklee needed help identifying their primary persona and laying the communications foundation which was heavily dependent upon social media, as they prepared for the beta release of their new online live racing feature within their Brain Racers app.
Fly to Soar conducted three targeted surveys to narrow the focus of Quiklee’s persona. We conducted an extensive evaluation of their presence on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to understand the audience attraction and interaction.
Solution
The results of our surveys allowed us to create several custom personas that they use for not only marketing but improving their product. It confirmed their belief of some of the traits of their customers who were most likely to play their educational game and it gave them new information about adding some features for a segment of their customer base they were not aware of initially.
In addition, based on our assessment, we provided community recommendations that included where to post on social media, the types of content to post, post structure, along with how to manage long-term content through an editorial calendar. We shared marketing reach suggestions using email for short-term campaigns, and provided platform recommendations for their new beta product to build their community.
The success continues . . .
Quiklee is working on the world’s first cognitive race with their new Brain Racers feature.
Quiklee, is now Brain Racers,
and can be found at https://game.brainracers.gg/home
“Fly to Soar helped us understand who our primary audience is and learn what is important to them, enabling us to focus our customer and community efforts while raising the standard for competitive knowledge-based apps.”
Changing the inflight experience with an interactive and engaging app, SENSXR will bring back the joy and wonder from that very first journey.
Background
Have you ever wondered what secrets might lie beneath that expansive ocean you are flying over? SENSXR’s SecondLook product is a VR/XR travel app that consists of interactive screens allowing the user to explore the path of travel around them. Data is drawn from virtual libraries allowing the traveler to access photos, video and historical data from any seat on the airplane.
Problem
SENSXR wanted to learn how they could market their SecondLook app; they were overwhelmed with the numerous directions to focus their technology. SENSXR needed to demonstrate that there was customer interest in their VR/XR travel app without a proof of concept build to help them in their efforts to raise funds.
SENSXR approached Fly to Soar to help them with verifying the market for their SecondLook app and building an initial persona, essentially determining their product market fit. We created an online survey to obtain initial impressions from an identified target audience to validate interest, key features and appropriate target focus.
Solution
The results of our survey demonstrated interest in the SecondLook VR/XR travel app with 83.1% of responders showing interest. In addition, 31% of survey respondents provided their email address for future beta testing. Based on the survey results that verified a Millennial and Gen X traveler market for SecondLookVR, we were able to gain traction simply based on interest.
The SENSXR team has pivoted to new businesses.
“We accomplished good proof points in terms of testing the delivery, response and reporting mechanisms, which were my goals.”