The Buzinga PodcastEp 6: 5 Low Hanging Fruits To Skyrocket Your App Marketing

• Hey guys, Logan Merrick here and you’re listening to episode 6 of The Buzinga Podcast:

• The number 1 resource for startups building and growing their business in the tech space.

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The Buzinga PodcastEp 6: 5 Low Hanging Fruits To Skyrocket Your App Marketing

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• How you can listen to this podcast:

1. On iTunes2. Through any podcast app on your smartphone3. Listen on our blog at buzinga.com.au/buzz with

shownotes for each episode.4. Watch with accompanying slides on Youtube5. Read the slides without audio on SlideShare

What we’re talking about todayLow-cost (low hanging fruit) app marketing strategies

• What is ‘ low hanging fruit’ in marketing?

• The number 1 most reported internal challenge for Australian startups is customer acquisition (Startup Muster Report, 2015).

• If you’re interested, the most reported external challenge was raising funding!

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Most reported internal challenges for Australian startups in 2015:

What we’re talking about todayLow-cost (low hanging fruit) app marketing strategies

• This data suggests that most startups lack sales skills or a knowledge of how the ‘marketing funnel’ works.

• The paradox: Apps attract users through:1. good ratings2. word of mouth and 3. recommendations from existing users

• But how can you attract those initial users who will get the ball rolling?

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In this episode…

• 5 cost-effective, lean customer acquisition strategies:

1. Email marketing2. Referral/incentive marketing3. Product-driven content4. Paid online advertising5. Publicity

• How to be where your users are

• How much should it cost? Benchmarks for CPI.

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1. Email marketing

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• All your online marketing efforts are worthless if they’re not generating leads that could become app users.

• For apps, leads are normally found in the form of email addresses and names.

• An email address means this person already has an interest in your product or content.

• The next step: How can your nurture them from an email address to an actual app user?

1. Email marketing

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• Your email marketing strategy specifies how you will push those first-level leads down the ‘funnel.

• Your strategy should be modified to suit your target audience, industry and channels available to you.

1. Email marketing

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An example framework of a pre-launch email marketing funnel:

1. Set up a website or landing page to collect email addresses from people who have indicated interest in your launch.

See also: How To Build A Must Have Pre-Launch App Landing Page

2. At least 3 months before launch: start marketing to drive people to your app website or a landing page.

3. Send regular, added-value emails. • Blog articles• ‘behind the scenes’ photos • exclusive offers• Anything else you think your audience would be

interested in!

4. Just before launch: Seal the deal with an exclusive offer, discount, or access to the beta release.

1. Email marketing

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• What’s the point? Doesn’t everyone hate email?

• It keeps your app top of mind in the months or weeks before launch.

• You can also run referral programs in this email. Offer your existing database an incentive (like in-app rewards) to spread word about your product.

• This action could be in the form of a share on social media or getting a friend to subscribe (ie: collecting a new email for more leads).

• By the time your app is launched they’ll be compelled to get first access to the thing they’ve been learning about for weeks!

What’s the point?

2. Referral/incentive marketing

• 40% of people report that the main reason they give away their emails or follow an app on social media is to receive special offers and discounts.

• Particularly if your app integrates in-app purchasing, this is a powerful way to both acquire new users and increase loyalty.

• It’s also pretty much essential if your app relies on the ‘network effect’: They rely on a large database of users to make the service worthwhile (Eg Tinder, Venmo).

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2. Referral/incentive marketing

• Network-effect apps often incentivise a localised group of people to use the app, who will encourage their networks to sign up so they can get more value from it. (Eg Facebook on college campuses)

• From this, word of mouth can spread across user’s networks quite rapidly.

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2. Referral/incentive marketing

• The key with incentive marketing is thorough testing.

• What is the minimum value you can offer that will appeal to the largest audience?

• Vinomofo tested many different levels of incentives to acquire its first customers.

• They started with incentives loaded towards the invitee, with nothing for the recipient, and then the other way around.

• Ultimately they settled on giving equal credit to both parties: $25 credit to the referrer and the new customer.

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The key to irresistible incentives…

2. Referral/incentive marketing

• Uber uses this same referral scheme with ‘free rides’ to the value of $25.

• Why does it work? It ‘de-risks’ the activity of using the app for the first time, and it makes your users do all the advertising for you – high credibility.

• Results: More loyal users and positive word of mouth effects.

• You gotta spend money to make money!

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The key to irresistible incentives…

3. Product-driven content

What is content marketing? • Blogs• Social media posts• Educational or entertaining videos• Email newsletters• Podcasts• Ebooks• Webinars• Quizzes• Content can be as creative as you want it to be!

• You’re pulling in leads with stuff they like, as opposed to pushing out spam and self-promotional advertising that interrupts their lives.

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3. Product-driven content

Evernote has a widely read blog with articles on 1. how to increase your daily productivity2. tips on how to use different product features3. case studies and interviews with high-profile users.

• channel-specific content – video performs really well on Facebook, so they run a video series on their Facebook page featuring their sponsors and interviews with key influencers who use their app.

• Promotion: Shared with email databases and social media accounts, which get shared and bring in more leads.

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Content case study: Evernote

3. Product-driven content

• You need to understand which content performs best on different channels and where you can share it:

1. Your email list2. Social accounts3. Forums or Facebook/Linkedin in groups4. Guest posting5. Syndication6. Repurposing (Slideshare, Youtube, infographics) to

squeeze more value out of one piece of content.7. Outreach to influencers

• See also: A Quick And Dirty Guide To Crafting A Killer Content Strategy For Your App

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4. Paid online advertising

• The biggest advantage of paid advertising: You can see where your money is going.

• If you spend $20, you know exactly how many conversions (clicks, downloads, leads) it got you

• You can calculate your cost per install (CPI) to adjust spending accordingly.

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4. Paid online advertising

Online advertising comes in three main forms (ordered most to least expensive)

1. CPM (cost per thousand impressions) – You pay the advertiser a certain amount per 1 thousand single times your ad was viewed.

2. CPC (cost per click) – You pay the advertiser a certain amount per click on your ad. Google does this to target searchers who already exhibit intent to click (through demographics and previous browsing behaviour).

3. CPA (cost per acquisition) – You decide on a customer acquisition mechanism, like app installs that came from someone clicking on your ad, or a registration to your service, and pay the advertiser for that acquisition.

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3 forms of online app advertising

4. Paid online advertising

• Step 1 of launching an ad campaign – The ‘Spray N Pray’,

• You use a number of different ad networks and track which ones worked the best.

• From Spray N Pray check which traffic sources gave you the most acquisitions.

• You’ll need to use software that can track these analytics – check out the top 10 app analytics tools to help you make your decision.

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4. Paid online advertising

Some great user acquisition networks to tap into are:

• Mobile ad networks like Adroll, AdMob.• Incentive based download programs like Tapjoy,

App-o-day.• Real-time bidding platforms like Mopub.

• Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all now let you create your own app install ads and target them based on device, audience demographics and interests.

• Download The Social Media Playbook For App Developers for steps on how to do this.

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5. Publicity

• PR – press releases, app reviews or being featured on a popular publication or blog.

• Without a media company to do it for you, outreach can be a lot of emailing and rejection.

• But it’s easily the fastest and most effective way to get a flood of downloads.

• It only takes one good act of press to get the ball rolling, and gives you social proof you can leverage for MORE publicity.

• The reason publicity is so powerful of its inherent virality.

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Why do some apps seem to blow up overight?

5. Publicity

• It has the potential to reach audiences you wouldn’t otherwise have access to

• its easily shared online• it has 3rd party credibility and word of mouth effects• Gets you backlinks to your website/app store page,

which boosts your search ranking on Google and in the App Store.

Check out How To Get Key Influencers To Rave About Your App for some best app publicity practices.

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Why is publicity inherently viral?

5. Publicity

• Target smaller, localized and niche interest blogs for a better chance of being written up

• Focus your outreach efforts on what featuring your app can do for them, not for you.

• Include links to all your landing pages, contact details and social profiles in the email.

• Leverage your contacts and ask for an introduction/endorsement

• Don’t forget about social media! Reach out to Facebook admins and any social profiles that may be relevant

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Top tips for getting publicity

Know where your users hang out

• Before implementing anything, you need to assess what channels will get you the most bang for your buck.

1. Ask customers where they hang out online2. Build relationships in those places3. Once you have some traction, branch out into other tactics.

• Eg: if you have a document scanning app you should focus on LinkedIn, not Instagram, because your user is a professional or corporate.

• In your early days, go for maximum reach for minimum spend. Then, with data, go more niche.

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The first place you should start is talking to your customers

How much should it cost?

• CPI refers to how much it costs to acquire one unique customer (an app install).

• CPI = Total cost of all your sales and marketing activities/ number of installs (or customers) you got, for a given period of time.

• Eg: if you spent $5000 on mobile ad networks and acquired 500 new users, your CPI would be $10.

• Fiksu’s client data shows that in Jan 2-16, the average CPI for iOS was $1.64, and for Android it was $1.91.

• Obviously, when you first deploy your marketing strategies your CPI will be high, and ideally decrease over time.

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Benchmarks for CPI

Summary

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• These 5 strategies are just the lowest hanging fruit for app startups.

• Mix and match both organic and paid methods to push customers down the funnel and download your app!

• For best results: Be smart with data and test EVERYTHING.

Further resources

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• Hope this has been engaging!

• If you want to learn more about customer acquisition then check out our blog, I’ve included 3 relevant blogs in the show notes:

1. 40 Mobile App User Acquisition Tactics For The Broke And Desperate

2. Launch Hack: How To Get 100,000 Downloads In A Month

3. The Complete Startup Marketing Plan Template For Never Ending Revenue

Thanks for listening!

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• For more of this please subscribe on iTunes, watch on Youtube with accompanying slides or on our website at buzinga.com.au/the-buzinga-podcast

• See you on the next episode!