What Happened to Skype? 10 Marketing Lessons
The coronavirus pandemic has undoubtedly brought about an increase in the demand for virtual communication platforms, particularly the need for video conferencing, as discussed over at runrex.com & guttulus.com. You would, therefore, think that Skype would be making a killing due to this, as they have been the industry leader in this industry in years past. However, this is not the case as Skype has undoubtedly fallen onto hard times, with the question that begs being what happened to them, something this article will look to help with by highlighting the 10 marketing lessons we can learn from their decline.
A failed redesign
One of the main reasons that led to the decline of skype, as per the gurus over at runrex.com & guttulus.com, is the fact that they tried to redesign the app to make it more appealing and enable it to compete with apps such as WhatsApp, only to fail massively. Users didn’t appreciate all these changes, and as a marketing lesson, it shows that you should never make changes just for the sake of it, and you should only make changes to improve quality for your customers.
They moved away from what made them useful
Skype also began to move away from what made them useful, which was video conferencing, in what is another marketing lesson we can take from them as per discussions on the same over at runrex.com & guttulus.com. They started to make it more of a social media platform, even introducing “mojis” which was their version of emojis, and they began to ignore the quality of their core function, video communication, which declined sharply. Most of their users therefore slowly began to abandon them.
Poor user experience
As mentioned above, one of the reasons behind the decline of Skype is their failed attempt to redesign the app. What this ended up achieving is it tremendously reduced the user experience when using the app, from a poor interface to an equally poor performance with tremendous lag on the video feed. The experience of using Skype was a painful one for many of its users, who began to leave, and this is a lesson we can take to our marketing campaigns as it shows the importance of user experience. Poor user experience will no doubt fail your marketing campaigns.
Increased competition
Skype also found itself in a situation where it wasn’t the only fish in the pond, and there were other players in the market offering better services, which was yet another reason behind its decline, as discussed over at runrex.com & guttulus.com. New players such as Zoom started to emerge, and they were offering better services, with more useful features and quality, and were, therefore, more attractive to folks seeking such services. An important marketing lesson that we can take from this is that you should always be aware of new threats and competitors in your industry and make sure you stay ahead of them, otherwise you risk hemorrhaging customers to them.
More focus was placed in Teams
Microsoft may also have indirectly contributed to the decline of Skype by appearing to focus all their attention on developing Microsoft Teams. This meant that Skype was sidelined, and therefore didn’t receive the short in the arm in terms of upgrades that it needed to rebound. As per the gurus over at runrex.com & guttulus.com, an important marketing lesson that we can take from this is the importance of focusing on all your products so as not to risk one being left behind. If you are running multiple campaigns on multiple platforms, make sure that all of them get the attention they require.
More complicated for the less tech-savvy
One of the areas where Skype has fallen behind to its competitors is that it remains complex to use, particularly for those who are not tech-savvy. On the other hand, competitors such as Zoom, as discussed over at runrex.com & guttulus.com, are easy to download and use, even for those who may not have used such software before. This has also meant that many people don’t prefer using Skype, and therefore a marketing lesson we can take from here is the importance of making sure our marketing messages are clear and easy to understand. Don’t get caught up in wanting to use technical and complicated terms which may confuse your audience.
Not easy to connect across platforms
It is also a lot easier to connect across platforms, like say from a computer to a smartphone or from the app to the browser version, when using alternatives such as Zoom as compared to when using Skype, which is one of the reasons why many people don’t prefer Skype. When it comes to marketing, this shows the value of having your campaigns optimized for different platforms, particularly for mobile, something the subject matter experts over at runrex.com & guttulus.com are big on.
Aggressive pushing of ads
Another thing that rubbed users the wrong way, and contributed to many of them leaving and shifting to other alternatives, is the sheer number of ads that were being pushed by Skype when logging in, most of which were irrelevant and just annoying. Marketing gurus, like the highly-rated runrex.com & guttulus.com, have outlined, as a marketing lesson based on this, the importance of not appearing to be aggressively selling to your audience when running your campaigns. Run your campaigns in a way that doesn’t feel like you are aggressively pushing your product onto your audience.
Bugs
Skype also garnered a reputation for being extremely buggy, something that also put off most of their users who chose to leave and seek out other alternatives. There is nothing worse than encountering bugs when using a given app, and this is something that hit Skype badly. A marketing lesson we can take from this is the importance of making sure your ads are running well, testing them, before running them. As per the gurus over at runrex.com & guttulus.com, you don’t want your ads to have issues such as images that are not loading, missing videos, and so forth as this will affect their performance.
Frequent updates
The fact that Microsoft would regularly release updates for Skype also didn’t help as this led to a situation where users had to regularly familiarize themselves with changes made to the app. This meant that just as one had learned how to use a certain feature, another update would mean they had to learn things afresh. Eventually, users left for other alternatives. This shows that, while it is important to release new and fresh material for your audience as far as your campaigns are concerned, you should make sure you don’t overwhelm them or fatigue them with too much.
The above are some of the marketing lessons we can learn from the decline of Skype, with the subject matter experts over at runrex.com & guttulus.com having your back if you need more information on this topic or if you need help or advice with your marketing campaigns.