Digital Marketing Case Study: PQ App Company

Finally, PQ unveiled its identity: Just another car-booking application in Egypt. Many fans thought initially it would be something related to price comparison or consumer protection services.

However, we took PQ as a digital marketing case study by asking 9 questions (New Egypt Consulting doesn't work, never had worked, and will not work with it):

1- Who is your target audience?

Screen shot from Itfarrag YouTube channel for Salah Salem Street (Where our company is located), Cairo showing an outdoor advertising banner for PQ App Company

Usually, outdoor advertising billboards are utilized for products or services that target relatively larger segment of customers, consumers or users.

Outdoor advertising banners were only asking questions without any URL or even a hashtag. In parallel, the official Facebook page was actively posting relevant engaging content.

Our initial perception is: PQ app company is targeting internet savvy young Egyptians.
Is this true?

2- Are you shy?

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Your LinkedIn page lists only 3 junior employees!

It is hard to believe that car booking service like PQ app company operates with only 3 employees!

Usually, country manager and key directors are to be known to the public, at least to facilitate PR activities, governmental relations, and even talent acquisition.

Also, we failed to find a single phone number for your company whether on your website or within your mobile application itself!

3- Are you targeting a niche segment?

By nature, car booking service providers need to be scalable.
The more customers you have, the more drivers will love you, and vice-versa.
The fact is:
PQ app company has only less than 90,000 Facebook fans.

4- Do you apply best practices in Twitter marketing?

Twitter account doesn't have any content in its bio or even a cover photo.

5- Do you really love car drivers?

Your Google Play driver app shows 100 downloads only. This means PQ app company has 100 drivers or less. Are you capable of scaling serving Cairo residents with such a small number of drivers?

We noticed a complete absence of marketing activities that target drivers to make them eager to register their cars to work with you. Even their Google Play app description talks to customers, not drivers. So, do you really love car drivers :)?

6- Do you apply best practices in email marketing?

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The welcome email message sent to one of our colleagues after downloading PQ application was not adhering to email marketing best practices:

1- Plain message with text overdose
2- Cash flow thing
3- Highlighting biggest map is unjustifiable unless surveys proved otherwise


7- Are you integrating SMS advertising with social media marketing?

Two hours after PQ app company's Facebook page acknowledged a shortage in supplying drivers, a colleague got an SMS promoting a free promo code, which will obviously make things worse and worse because more customers will be unable to use the service (Which is already a frequent complaint).

8- Is your mobile application usable & user-friendly?

Two different screen shots from the car-booking application PQ show absence of support contact or ticket submission

We failed to find a way to submit a support ticket or to contact customer service. Even the inbox itself is not showing any button or conversation box to send any message to your support team.

Mobile application usability and user experience both need revisiting (i.e. font of words appear partially cropped sometimes).

9- Have you conducted a market research before ignoring supply & demand facts?

PQ app company tries hard to position itself as a service that is against surge prices usually charged by Careem and Uber in peak hours. We think nothing yet had confirmed that price surge was annoying Uber and Careem loyal customers.

Supply and demand facts are being applied in capitalist and socialist countries alike.

When demand increases, the price goes high automatically.
Surge is the only option for car booking companies to generate revenues to sustain. Otherwise, stay home and let people deal with white taxi cars directly!


Conclusion:

We always recommend businesses to consider integration between social media and offline operations. Investing time in understanding the big picture will save everyone's energy, time and money.