Consulting

æStranger Consulting

Are you struggling with creating an engaging experience for your audiences?
Then we have the solution for you!

æStranger helps you craft enhanced audience experience solutions tailor made to solve your unique business problems.

We work with you to understand your audiences, what their wants, needs and behaviours are. And through this we maximise the success rate of the soltuions we’ve crafted with you.

Our Audience Engagement Experience (AEX) design process utlises 4 pillars: behavioural psychology, marketing, gamification and business strategy.

Using these pillars and a broad base of experiences across multiple mediums for well over a decade, we have developed analogous approach methodology to solving audience engagement problems. This allows us to craft with you outside-the-box results and implement engagement methods in new and innovative ways.

Below are a variety of options, the majority of people opt for a paid 60-minute virtual call with Albert van der Meer to discuss their specific problem and to see where they go from there.

If you have any other questions then please do contact us.

The choice is yours!

Consultation Sessions

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Audience engagement & experience methodology

Engaging Your Audience with AEX Design

Our process with you is to collaboratively craft a solution that increases your audience’s engagement with you, your brand and your products and/or services.

Our project proposal to you will include the following points:

Our own preliminary background research into your experience
A projected project timeline based on our conversation of your problem
An initial evaluation of the experience with us as the audience
A conceptual flow chart of the audience’s current journey
Some early recommendations of audience flow and engagement mechanics
And an outline of our 5 Phase methodology to enhance your audience’s engagement even further!

Our Project Consultation Package includes 10 working days worth of time (typically calculated at 8 hour days), we work together to discover how best this amount of time is used. Our clients usually spread the time over 2-3 months depending on the size of the project.

Alternatively we also have a Monthly Retainer Package that offers 32 hours worth of time each month per client. As with the project package, we work together to see how best the time is used and whether you need more or less. As such we only accept a maximum of 3-4 clients at any given time for this package.

Proposal & background

Proposal

Goal: Audience behaviour change.
Problem: Audiences are not continuing their journey beyond the initial discovery and acquisition phase.
Targets & milestones: Getting audiences to take the desired actions in their journey flow by using mechanics and elements that promote such as taking part activities, creating a communal identity and implementing sustainable behaviour practices.
Purpose/Points of interest/Pain Points: Reinforcing the purpose of the audience experience, highlighting points that keep engagement high and minimising obstacles that cause drop-off or reframing them to strenghten engagement even further.

Background

Methods: Using AEX design, gamification methodologies and processes, as partly outlined in the book Press Start – Using Gamification to Power-up Your Marketing.
Analysis: Evaluation of audience experience using the perspectives/lens of behavioural psychology.
Execution: Crafting a robust engagement strategy grounded in the 4 pillars of the AEX design methodology.
More information can also be found on aestranger.com

Project outline

Done in a series of phases to help develop the best design for behaviour change & increased overall engagement:

Phase 1: Initial consultation & evaluation – Defining desired outcomes for the ‘Audience’s Journey’, the overall E.P.I.C.Q. goal(s) and objective(s) to be achieved by the end of the project.
Phase 2: Running through the current ‘audience’s journey’ flow – going through the entire journey experience, mapping out, analysing and taking apart what your audience currently experiences, listing points of interest, pain points and narrowing down the desired goal(s) and TMR’s for you and your audience.
- Phase 2.1: Weekly meetings for kick-off, check-up, discussion and review of continuing process to improve the audience journey.
  - Minimum of roughly one 1-hour meeting per week for the duration of the project.
Phase 3: Expand on the initial evaluation and start development for the enhance audience journey flow based on the in-depth analysis from Phases 1 & 2 – this builds on the analysis done so far in the project.
Phase 4: Delivery of draft guiding policy & action plan, as well as metric recommendations for the desire outcome and defined objectives. The guiding policy and action plan follow the 6-stage audience journey framework.
Phase 5: Delivery of full design & engagement document(s) of the improved ‘player journey’ with defined objectives, recommended actions, segmented/targeted user base, detailed outline of mechanics & elements to be used, and feedback-/metrics required.

Initial evaluation

Evaluation of an example company

Objective(s): Creating engagement for the user to take the next step in their journey and partaking in individual and communal activities/challenges to save money and the environment.
Desired behaviours & actions: To encourage responsible and sustainable behaviour, allowing for a saving on resource ‘consumption’, saving on expenditure and creating the communal activity of donating to local communities and charities to further promote sustainable practices and usages.
Audience/Users: Home-owners and renters, with likely a Flesch reading level of 70.0 or higher.
Motivators: Improving overall user engagement by placing greater focus on specific motivational levers such as Purpose, Belonging, Mastery, Esteem and others.
Experience path: Current visual & interactive user experience can be improved and augmented by evaluating the experience flow and using the 6 stages of the ‘audience’s journey’: Discovery stage, Acquisition stage, Onboarding stage, Instructional Scaffolding stage, Masetry/Adept stage and the Endgame stage.
Metrics & feedback: Creating more engaging and immediate feedback-loops for the user when taking part in challenges and the community to further encourage desired behaviours and actions during their journey.

Audience experience journey

Audience journey: Taking the audience through a 6 stage journey to encourage behaviour change.

Discovery: First impressions – Clear statement of Purpose and Belonging: Aligning your aims with those of your audience and initial steps towards an inclusive and supportive community – Creating a compelling organisational narrative and communal sense that engages the (new) audience straight away.
Acquisition: Choice of engagement – Reinforcing your Purpose and that of your audience by slowly introducing points for Mastery where they can choose to invest their time, and this rewarded by giving them small wins/achievements.
Onboarding: Process of integration – Guiding the audience to learn and Master the system and creating a Safe environment for them to continue their journey – Done ‘tutorial’-like challenges, a clear progression system and initial incentives.
Instructional Scaffolding: Improve comprehension – Building on the onboarding stage and giving the audience more Autonomy in decision making and realising their need for Belonging – Customisation of experience and ability to communicate and educate with the wider community.
Mastery/Adept: Mastery of experience – The penultimate point of the audience’s experience, raising the user’s Esteem, expanding on their need for Belonging and playing with their sense of Safety – Done by creating epic events/milestones, mentoring and engagement opportunities with the community and unpredictable and/or unknown rewards for continuing their journey.
Endgame: Devotion or departure – The inevitable outcome of any experience, hopefully your audience will have found value in the experience and remain loyal and support the acquisition of new audience members. Or they will the experience wasn’t for them and they will unfortunately eventually depart for something different.

Suggested flow – example mechanics/elements

Narrative: Implementing a story element to the audience’s journey – allowing them to connect with and engage with either the story(s) of other people who have gone through the experience and/or with a fictional story (possibly based on the organisation’s mission statement).
Teams: Expanding on this dynamic aspect, allowing for more localised competition and creating
specific/collective objectives.
Progress: Creating a representation of the audience’s progress, either through experience (points) and player levels or similar.
Communication: Allow the audience to communicate more openly with each other, creating an opportunity for them to share tips, tricks and hacks for various sustainability practices and methods.
Rewards: Variation of rewards depending on time and difficulty of challenges and quests, as well as hidden rewards (Easter eggs) for people who compete in a series of challenges or participate in the community.

AEX Design 7-step Methdology

The 7 Step Approach and Methodology leverages techniques and tools found in behavioural psychology, marketing, business strategy & gaming to guide you towards your goals.

Step 1
Analysis

Understanding more about your organisation – status, perceptions & plans

Step 2
Objectives

Defining EPICQ goals & objectives Understanding pain points and organisational limitations

Step 3
Choices

Exploring options , defining the way forward and understanding potential financial returns

Step 4
FABELS

Creation of personas and aligned game science strategies

Step 5
Experience

Developing the audience journey and aligning it to their new experience

Step 6
Delivery

Creation & delivery of actions to delivers to goals and objectives

Step 7
Reflection

Reflecting on the process & measuring the post launch experience

Chief Crafter & Consultant

Albert is a consultant based in Germany and the Netherlands, with expertise in narrative and visual entertainment, storytelling and teaching, with experience gained as a freelance filmmaker, media producer, and team-building facilitator. He has worked with many international businesses, including Education First, Hult International Business School, GetWaterFit, Recast, T-Mobile, UK Sport and many more.

Still wondering?

If you are unsure of what you need or want, then you can contact us for a paid consultation session in which we will explore with you what you want.