Learning during the lockdown - Simbound students feedback

Here is the unedited feedback collected from international students which took an online course on marketing with the help of the Simbound simulation. The course took place in April 2020 at the Romanian-American University in Bucharest.

The students providing the present feedback have used the initial Simbound simulation product (released in 2012), which has been superseded by 2 improved product versions in 2019 and again in 2023 respectively.

Manon A. (Erasmus)

We started using the Simbound platform around one month ago and due to the current sanitary situation we only had 3 rounds, that is very short, so it’s quite not easy to evaluate this simulation game but anyway, these are the points I noticed during this period :

- It was not easy to register and to sign in: It literally took us an entire class to create the teams and to register on the platform because we didn’t receive the e-mails, or they went directly into the spam boxes… Even when we had registered, it was not easy to sign in. I think the registration system maybe needs some improvements.

- The game was easy to play: The platform is intuitive and we easily found where to click in order to access a particular part of the game. It could be even better by adding some directives or helpful sentences to guide the players.

- The game is kind of vague in my mind: Honestly, even after 3 weeks of game, I can’t tell how the game really works… I don’t understand the progressing system and how our choices and actions led us to our results. We did things by instinct I guess and we didn’t really act by strategy and logic. It would be great to have a small recap at the end of each round that explains what was good and bad in our choices and what we should look deeper into or what we should slow down for example.

I had the opportunity to play another simulation game that had the similar objective and it necessitated much more work (a lot of hours), but it was really more clear in our mind because each choice had consequences and we always had feedback about them. The progression had more sense for us and we knew what to do by a strategic point of view.

Simbound is a great simulation, from my point of view it needs to be more concrete for the players.

Marta L. (Erasmus)

Simbound is a platform that gives us the opportunity to learn, without the risk of losing money and the company's reputation. Thanks to the platform, we can create websites, promotional campaigns or find out what the most important "Keywords" are in our industry. Simbound gives us a new look at digital marketing.

People/students who have been in contact with Simbound for the first time got the opportunity to use the " Simbound Guidebook ", which will certainly facilitate the use of the platform. Thanks to the possibility of playing in a team, we can gain new experience by working with colleagues from work or school. This is a great lesson for future entrepreneurs and marketers. We can consult everything with our lecturers, thanks to the professor's account. The professor sees at what stage of the work we are and knows what difficulties we have and what is easy for us. The platform is quite well developed, one of the most important tabs, in my opinion, is the " Competition " tab, in which we see the achievements of our opponents, thanks to which the competition has a motivating effect on us. In addition to competition, we can also focus on our own achievements, which is shown in each of the main tabs. We go into them and see our statistics from individual departments, for example ads, campaigns or keywords. At each stage, we have the time given to the lecturer to complete the task and the goal, thanks to which everything is explained clearly and comprehensively. The motivation to pursue subsequent goals is the " Potential Bonus" or the possibility of obtaining additional money for subsequent ads and campaigns.

Simbound, like any other platform, has opportunities for improvement in the future. One of the most important things for me during such projects is direct contact with my team. I was thinking of introducing something like "Messenger" - a Facebook chat. Such a chat would only have the function of the group in which he currently works. Contact, all arrangements regarding the site and relations with the team would then be more encouraging and all the work on the project, in my opinion, would be faster and pleasant.

Another thing I miss on the platform is a preview on the main page after completing the next stage: the original website (with the location of each text, photos, transitions, etc.). Personally, it would be a great help, if I would see the full effect of my work, at the end of the stage.

Istabraq A.

An online platform that helps you to imagine doing online marketing in an environment which is realistic, where you can make use of quirky tools. It also helps to work in a team on the same project, share ideas, develop our e-marketing techniques and divide the work among them. What is very good is that it is just simulation which puts us in a very risk-free situation and help up develop everything and not lose anything.

Once constraints like budgets or time are being removed, participants are encouraged to think in a creative manner and then to seek to apply what they have learned during real work scenarios

Students will enjoy this platform because they will get the chance to do things for the first time on a risk-free platform that will help them for smooth and easy transition to the real world and to do their businesses with some background experience.

In the beginning, when we started working on it as a team it was very challenging to understand everything and to start but after a while and asking each other and helping each other, working as a team we started figuring it out and it was very interesting and fun because we got the chance to be creative and to think freely.

The instructions in the student file were very informative and easy to apply. The overall experience was pretty good and wish we had more classes that actually do something interactive and give us things to practice more than theory.

Fehmi G.

Simbound is a digital marketing simulation that is a great interactive project, we have the chance to develop our e-marketing skills and techniques by using this site. Because it’s a simulation there is no risks of losing something and this helps the students to move on comfortably, this business simulation will surely enable and improve comprehension of a multitude of digital marketing skills and this will include Budget administration, costs and benefits, decision taking and etc.

Firstly, I would like to say that in the beginning we had some problems of finding the student manual. So, I think it would be much easier if when we opened the simulation it could show up directly and tell us what we should do from the beginning.

Secondly, if we had more options to do in the objectives, and even if we didn’t know what to do, we could have a written hint but unfortunately that would be limited. Moreover, there should have been some bonus objectives to increase your points or to increase the amount of the people reached, and by having bonus points there would be more competition between the teams.

Lastly, if there were more scenarios in the simulation, it would be addictive for the users. If There would be notifications regarding the competition between the other teams, so the teams could wake up and try to be in the race between the teams. In addition, after the competition was finished if there was a backup message for all the competitors.

Evan M. (Erasmus)

First of all, there is a student manual that is made available at the very beginning of the game. It presents each topic in detail to get the game off to a good start. This manual will help you to understand it, what to do and how to do it.

It is designed to train students and professionals in the mysteries of digital marketing. The serious game is at the same time pedagogical, marketing, communicational, and informational.

This website is accessible in seven different languages. This way, more people can use it easily, it’s very convenient. It is very easy to use because everything is explained no matter which language you will choose. 

It is a complete simulation because we can do several things like : 

- Group decisions concerning the launch of paid SEO campaigns

• The creation of text ads
• The selection of keywords 
• The choice of a budget for each session of the simulation
• The optimization of the landing pages associated with the ads 
• The management E-mail Marketing campaigns.

So it's a good training related to digital marketing because in the world or work, the Digital Marketing takes an important place and it becomes more important with every new week. I think playing against multiple teams is a good thing. It makes you want to make the best possible choices and so you can think about your decisions. Moreover, working in a team allows you to compare everyone's ideas and choose the best one.Finally, I really enjoyed the game and it allowed me to improve my digital marketing skills and deepen my knowledge.

DOMINIC M.

Simbound is a platform of business simulation genre that addresses the digital/online marketing subject. In fact, we started using it in our digital marketing classes. I have to admit that at first it wasn’t that easy for me to understand how to use it. Even now it is not really clear what are the required steps in the process, so maybe what I can suggest to this platform is to simplify it a little bit for the beginners. It showed me that starting a business online it’s not that simple as it looks, people, in general, have this common idea, but actually there a lot of things that you have to take care of while having an online activity. I think this site can improve comprehension of a multitude of digital marketing skills including decision reasoning, cost/benefit analysis, budget administration, audience targeting, and much more. It has a lot of positive sides in my opinion and it can be both a fun and a new interactive way of learning in class, and also a great way to to make students cooperate between each other. Simbound can definitely be recommended to other business learning institutions.

Anna F.

Simbound provides web marketing operations carried out in a game-like environment. It provides content and online simulations with different game mechanics on the topic of digital marketing. In my opinion, Simbound is an intriguing and efficient website that provides step by step instructions and guides you towards getting a view on how to create a website, website analytics simulations, search engine marketing simulations and e-mail marketing simulations. Through Simbound, students implement operations such as setting up a website, pay per click search engine marketing etc., in my opinion while using Simbound, in some circumstances, I found it sometimes confusing and complicated to use, in the sense that I would have preferred more detailed and informative instructions, I feel like if you have no experience with websites and technology this might be a bit complicated to start with, due to the fact that they do not specify some of the success criteria, on the other hand once you start with it and actually spend a certain amount of time on it you start handling it then it becomes easier and more understandable. Overall, it is a great method to learn and especially if you want to open a business and make a website it will help perfect it and get it started.

Alicja C. (Erasmus)

Simbound has given me a better understanding of how online marketing campaigns are configured and fine-tuned and the real impact they have on sales. The ability to create email campaigns was very realistic as the whole email design had to be done by myself, which gave me a lot of freedom to create this kind of advertising campaign. Running a website was a very interesting experience as it allowed me to run and design the whole website and promotion structure from scratch. Also, creating the website was very realistic, although if I had the opportunity to modify something in this area I would gladly add the possibility of adding photos on the website created by me, because it would greatly enrich the reception and image of the created website. The teamwork was very inspiring, including the possibility of small competition with other teams, which was very motivating for further work. The program was very clear, the goals in the module were easy to understand and the possibility to "find out more" was very helpful. The instruction and the possibility to get information about a given step was very useful and helpful, thanks to which the work on the website and campaigns went smoothly. The possibility of contacting the lecturer is also a convenience, so contact is made on an ongoing basis and all uncertainties can be corrected in the present mode. In my opinion, unfortunately, the disadvantage is that it is not possible to check the level of the goal achievement during its duration. This leads to a lack of certainty that the goal will be achieved correctly during the round. Nevertheless, working with Simbound is a very interesting and realistic experience.

Thank you to all those which took the time to contribute with their feedback.