Blog of Metrics

Last but not least, this is Part V in our five-part series showcasing the Impact Mozilla finalists.  Please visit ImpactMozilla.com to cast your vote today!

Microcampaigns

The “Microcampaigns” plan succinctly summarizes its strategy: “To leverage the most powerful asset of the Mozilla projects: its community, to improve the relevance of Firefox as a product.”  To accomplish this, the plan proposes microcampaigns, which are marketing campaigns crafted by an individual or group of individuals (the microcampaign leader) with a very small target population (usually 10 – 500 potential users) that share a common interest or need with the microcampaign leader.

The plan points out that, ideally, the leader will have previously found ways to make Firefox help him/her with these needs and interests, and the leader would then be able to share it with the target population.  Making microcampaigns more tangible and real, two use cases are shared, including Mike, a gym member, and Theresa, mother of a 10-year old son.

How Do You Firefox?

“How Do You Firefox?” campaign engages users to start talking about their browsing habits.  The plan outlines its campaign structure as follows:

1. We identify key influencers from the Firefox Facebook group
2. They create profiles and video vignettes about themselves and their favorite Firefox add-ons on a Firefox microsite
3. Users spread the word about their profiles
4. Ads on Facebook will drive to our Firefox microsite
5. Friends of profiled users view profiles and create their own, while also learning about Firefox
6. Download process is streamlined
7. Result: Increase installation and usage of Firefox browser

As only about 48 hours remain until voting closes for Impact Mozilla, we want to present the final installments of “Showcasing Impact Mozilla Finalists”.  The impactmozilla.com voting site is here, and please make sure to check out Part I, Part II, and Part III of this series.  With Part IV below, we’ll be highlighting “Phone Support” and “Project MOE”.

Phone Support

“Phone Support” argues that the Mozilla community needs to be more and more hospitable to very non-savvy computer users, and a key approach is by providing world-class support and customer service.  The plan lays out these steps for executing a one-day experiment offering phone support to new Firefox users:

1. Launch a build of Firefox, for a single day, with an alternate first-run and whats-new page, that both include the phone number for real-time tech support
2. Have participating Mozilla Employees answer support questions
3. After three days, shut down phone number and direct users to support.mozilla.com

The result?  This experiment aims to gain insight into two areas: the demand for phone support and the psychology of users during the trial period.

Project MOE

“Project MOE” aims to effectively showcase the emotional benefits of the Mozilla brand.  To do so, the plan proposes developing a Mozilla Open Education platform (“Project MOE”), which will teach core programming skills to students in developing nations.  The project would leverage global collaboration in allowing Firefox developers to structure and submit course content.  Student success stories would be publicized in popular media and via a dedicated website.  The plan then expects to see resulting buzz generate a more loyal Firefox user base and socially-conscious internet users (using other browser brands) be more eager to switch to Firefox.

Continuing our series, here is Part III.  Please remember that you can view all ten Impact Mozilla finalists at impactmozilla.com, and make sure to check out Part I and Part II of our series.  (Thanks to Laura Mesa for crafting the summaries below.)

What’s your add-on?

“What’s your add-on” is a plan focused around add-on strategies, and it proposes two initial tactics:

1. Helping new users find the add-on they can’t live without.
2. Creating a tool that allows existing users/lapsed users to share their add-ons with one another.

The group wants to create a welcome page (instead of a First Run page) that organizes add-ons by genre/type and serves to increase awareness and drive conversion of add-ons for first-time users.  Secondly, the plan sets out to design a campaign micro-site that helps users participate in community action, involve their friends and share their favorite add-ons. This site would also allow users to create avatars that they can send to their friends to share/encourage add-on downloads and use of add-ons.

La Conexión de Mozilla

“La Conexión de Mozilla” is a marketing plan that wants to make it easier for users in developing countries, specifically in those countries that are very dependent of internet cafes for internet access, to become familiar with and to use Firefox. The plan suggests creating a test-campaign in a single country within South America — specifically Paraguay.

The vision would be for two Mozilla representatives to travel a through the major and minor cities, visiting internet cafes and establishing relationships with cafe owners. The representatives would get permission to alter the computers so that each machine has Firefox as the only browser option on the desktop.  Owners of the cafe would be given Firefox merchandise to display in his cafe and to give away as they choose.

The representatives would try and create communities for the internet cafe owners as well as for the users in each city/region. The entire adventure would be blogged so that the entire Mozilla community can follow along as progress is made.

For reference, please check out Part I of this series.  Here in Part II, we’ll look at the following two finalists of Impact Mozilla – “My Firefox” and “Customization Campaign”.

My Firefox

“My Firefox” attempts to get new Firefox users immediately addicted by altering/customizing the download experience.  The plans sums it up by stating, “The download page should therefore be laid out in such a way that it would be impossible for the user to get away with a straight download without having him wondering whether he’s really doing the right thing.”

To accomplish this, the Firefox download process would be modified to walk a new user through the following steps:

1. Specifying the target O.S.
2. Customizing the look
3. Selecting the scenarios
4. Configuring the browser
5. Managing the bookmarks
6. Register (optional)
7. Preparing and downloading the installer
8. Done!

Customization Campaign

The “Customization Campaign” is unique in that it heavily engages the SpreadFirefox community.  The plan aims to increase Firefox loyalty via customization, and more specifically, through increased adoption of add-ons.  Such an effort would be accomplished by a marketing campaign on the default Firefox start page.

Targeting would be driven by viral campaigns and community activism, all of which would be supported by new tools on the SpreadFirefox site.  Furthermore, the plan outlines strategies for strengthening Mozilla’s marketing community at SpreadFirefox by resolving remaining site structure challenges and by presenting consistent messages of goals and incentives to members.

We’re super excited to see the Impact Mozilla voting now underway.  Given that it might be a little daunting reading through all the complete plans in a short amount of time, we’d like to aid the judging effort by showcasing all ten finalists over a series of posts.  The impactmozilla.com/vote page can appear a bit crowded, so the goal here is to briefly summarize each plan in a more in-depth way.

In Part I of the series, we’ll look at two plans: “Fox for All” and “Surf on Your Own Turf” (plans will be showcased in random order over coming days).

Fox for All

“Fox for All” lays out a marketing strategy based on add-ons.  The two pillars of this plan are to improve the range and accessibility of add-ons and to devise a campaign popularizing the new approaches.  The team first conducted an online survey of approx. 1,000 internet users to gauge usage of Firefox and Firefox add-ons.  They then propose the creation of an online communication platform for add-on developers that would enable the creation of a “Packs” classification system.  Keeping in mind the interests of certain user segments (e.g., internet beginners, kids, senior citizens), this effort would group particular add-ons together, answering the add-on procurement problem and providing users with an optimal add-ons “Pack” via a single download click.

Furthering the adoption of add-ons among internet beginners, the team proposes an “Add-on Suggest” tool, which suggests several add-ons per day to the user with the browser (example image above).  Lastly, the plan details a “KiDevelopers” marketing contest aimed at high school kids.

Surf on Your Own Turf

“Surf on Your Own Turf” summarizes their plan with three recommended strategies/campaigns:

• Help users customize their Firefox browser in the installation process. Installation Step 1 = select a browser theme, Step 2 = select favorite websites, Step 3 = select add-ons, Result = a personalized browser.
• Create viral marketing campaigns that showcase the diversity of Firefox users on Firefox’s firstrun (install) page. This includes a user-generated viral video showcasing the diversity of the Firefox family and the ubiquity of Firefox.
• Secure loyal users among university students by sponsoring browser customization contests. More specifically, it would entail a national contest inviting different schools to design their own school-branded Firefox Persona (themes/skins) and the contest winner would be determined by the Persona with the greatest number of users.