customer

CustomerZone360 NEWS

Free eNews Subscription

How to relate to your customers by educating them about new technologies on the example of VPNs

By Special Guest
Hillary Walker
April 08, 2019



More than Marketing

Many of the previously established marketing approaches have been left behind as obsolete and gave way to more sophisticated, more human-centered, more natural and empathetic approaches. This was in part facilitated by the fact that we entered the information age and nowadays, it is often enough to offer people just a keyword to find online instead of loading them with tons of details about the products or sales.

An important implication of these techniques is the fact that more effort can be dedicated by companies/advertisers for providing valuable content to the audience and thus, building a relationship with the audience (who come to appreciate the care and the guiding role of the advertisers and to recognize their authority and competence, leading to one of the most valuable forms of loyalty). This will be illustrated below using the example of the software VPN; meanwhile you may read VPN reviews on bestvpnrating.com.

First, it is very useful to pick a technology that would be truly relevant to a vast amount of people and would make the digital marketing effort more efficient. The advantage is even amplified if choosing innovative and trending technologies/applications/services, given that the public would be largely uninformed and would show a great interest with regard to these. Moreover, having trending content on the website would ultimately result in a higher ranking by the search engine and better online visibility.

Security And Privacy-Related Benefits Of VPNs

VPNs perfectly satisfy the paradigm of an innovative technology that brings great value for virtually every kind of user (from companies to individual users).  What VPNs do is to create encrypted communication channels between the user and the Internet. These communication channels are routed through dedicated VPN servers located abroad or within the country in which the user resides.

There are two key implications following these technical aspects:

  • First, due to the encryption, the entire data traffic of the user becomes inaccessible by other parties online. It is much harder to both intercept such online traffic and also to decode it. Importantly, this advantage applies not only to government spying agencies (like NSA) and hackers (like perpetrators of ransomware attacks or webcam hackers), but also to ISPs, which provide the hardware infrastructure for the user’s Internet access. ISPs have huge powers - they can often sell certain kinds of user data to marketers; following the abolition of net-neutrality (in the US), they can unfairly split your traffic into faster and slower lanes, depending on which website you access; they also use to give warning calls in case their customer is making use of p2p networks (even if the user downloads only legal material without infringing copyright laws).
  • Second, the fact that the traffic is routed through the VPN server allows to hide the physical IP of the user and to replace it with the IP of the VPN server, which leads to absolute anonymity online. Consequently, the physical IP can only be known by the VPN service provider (the ISP also knows it, but cannot see any online content the user accesses). The privacy enabled by VPNs allow users to browse the Internet safely, without the fear of being compromised by revealing their true identity.

Other Benefits Of VPNs

There is another big implication of VPNs that has nothing to do with online privacy and security but might be equally relevant to users. Thus, rerouting online traffic through the VPN server allows the user to access geo-blocked content from a multitude of apps. This is a very frequent problem on platforms like YouTube (which despite being originally founded as a video streaming website, nowadays is considered to possess all features of a true social network), but also on many other video streaming websites (many of which also act as social media).

Unblocking YouTube videos is not illegal (we might see, however, legal initiatives to change this) and VPNs can easily allow you to do this by simply manually choosing to route your traffic through a country of interest (where the video is not blocked). Feel free to check this site for an in-depth review of a typical top VPN server on the market (NordVPN), with a comprehensive listing of the features offered (security-related features, convenience features, access speed) and the advantages compared to the competition. This will help you better understand the capabilities of the technology and what to expect from a good provider.

How To Present VPNs In Order To Demonstrate Concern For Your Users

As mentioned earlier, to make use of the best practices in modern digital marketing, companies and advertisers should demonstrate care for their audience. In the context of VPNs, the best way to do this would be to offer a comprehensive overview of the typical risks faced online, especially related to managing financial information, using social media (like Facebook, Instagram), accessing public WiFi networks, etc. This should be followed by a description of the solution, in the form of VPNs, but also other solutions to establish a comprehensive complementary protection (e.g. antiviruses, firewalls).

Another key point is to offer free alternatives to the VPN services described. This would ascertain the users that your motivation in bringing up the topic was not purely financial (to advertise a product) but rather to provide a solution and solve one of the user’s problems (showing care and concern). Nevertheless, it is good to mention whether there is a significant difference in quality between free and paid products. In the case of VPNs, this is indeed, so – there are pretty good free services, but they normally have restricted functionality as compared to paid services.

Last but not least, it is important to provide links to additional resources, that would help users build the necessary literacy with regard to the technology: the glossary, the principles behind a VPN, the great variety of common or unique features offered by different providers (e.g. “the kill switch”) and the utility of these features. Finally, users would also find a description of the top VPN providers on this site, which might allow them to choose a suitable one considering their individual needs.



Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. [Free eNews Subscription]
SHARE THIS ARTICLE
Related Articles

Verint Introduces TimeFlex Bot for Better Contact Center Scheduling Flexibility

By: Tracey E. Schelmetic    3/28/2024

Customer engagement company Verint recently announced the launch of the Verint TimeFlex Bot to redefine agent scheduling flexibility in the contact ce…

Read More

Attentive Offers Solutions for Better AI Customer Interaction and Personalization

By: Tracey E. Schelmetic    3/28/2024

AI marketing platform company Attentive recently announced the next generation of Attentive AI with two premium AI solutions - AI Journeys and AI Pro.

Read More

The Future of Customer Service? Vonage Integrates Generative AI into Conversational Commerce

By: Greg Tavarez    3/27/2024

Vonage, a cloud communications provider under Ericsson, today announced generative AI integration within its Conversational Commerce platform, powered…

Read More

Talkdesk and Verint Expand Partnership for Workforce Management

By: Tracey E. Schelmetic    3/26/2024

AI-powered contact center solutions provider Talkdesk, Inc. recently announced an expanded partnership with Verint to provide automated workforce mana…

Read More

German Multinational Henkel Expands Relationship with Adobe for Generative AI

By: Tracey E. Schelmetic    3/25/2024

Henkel, a German multinational chemical and consumer goods company, recently expanded its partnership with Adobe to advance Henkel's content supply ch…

Read More