App Dev Marketing Strategy 2.0

7/31/2019 App Dev Marketing Strategy 2.0

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Application Development

Marketing Strategy

version 2.0


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App Dev Marketing Plan Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Executive Summary / Overview

3. Marketing Philosophy

4. Authority / Content Marketing

5. Marketing Funnel

a. Lead Generation

b. Lead Nurturing

c. Sales Funnel

6. Sales & Marketing Process

7. Marketing Staff Roles & Responsibilities

8. Web Plan

9. Marketing Calendar / Output

10. Revenue Goals - Expenses

11. Critical Issues / Next Steps

12. Appendices


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Introduction

This marketing plan has been produced with the idea that any surprises that occur in abusiness should be positive ones rather than negative.

While unexpected expenses always occur, they are easier to plan for using experienceas a guide. Revenue expectations are far more difficult to plan in the early stages andare always likely to shift as the business picks up steam and starts to build upon its ownsuccess.

I expect that we will come under our monthly expense budget the vast majority of thetime, and also over-exceed our stated revenue targets. Isnt finding out that we are 25%ahead of our revenue goal for the month a much better discovery than we are 25% over our expense budget?Of course it is.

This isnt to say that we are not being diligent in estimating the proper resourcesrequired and payoffs expected it is simply that exact targets are near impossible topredict. There is a great quick blog post from Jason Fried of 37signals (a softwarecompany I truly admire) that is worth a quick look.

Let's just call plans what they are: guesses - http://bit.ly/e27Il2

With all of that in mind, I have taken a cautious, conservative approach to revenueexpectations, as I dont want to over-sell the plan. I have supreme confidence that wewill over achieve the stated revenue targets in the mid to long term and if the businessgrows well, potentially blow out our year 2 & 3 numbers.


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Executive Summary / Overview

The quickest and easiest way to understand our new marketing strategy is throughunderstanding the answers to a few key questions. In this overview you should get agood overall feel for the new plan, with a deeper discussion of strategy and tactics tofollow.

Whos the right customer? Someone with a reasonable budget of more than $10,000. Possibly has had an unsuccessful app built prior. Likes the idea of outsourcing but doesnt want cheap Understands hourly billing as a superior choice to project billing

Has a good idea of the app they want built Prepared to start project immediately

How will these customers find us?Customer will find us at first by the aggressive use of pay per click advertising; this willbe our primary focus for the short term (1-6 months) as we build out our contentplatform.

In the medium to long term (6+ months) we will attract unpaid search traffic by

becoming an authority site through the use of content marketing.

Content marketing entails us creating remarkable, sharable content (articles,whitepapers, webinars, video or audio materials).

What problem does our product/project solve for the customer?We help people with a good app idea actually get the product to market. From cradle tograve design and development and ensure that the solution is accepted by therequisite app store (android or apple).


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What tools or materials we will need to get this built?We need to redesign the website to turn it into the hub of all our marketing activities. Isuggest we use wordpress as a flexible, low cost CMS platform to lead our marketingautomation efforts. But we will need some design & development work done.

Marketo marketing automation software to manage our marketing processautomatically. From lead generation, nurturing, qualification, and integrating with our selling effort to ensure we communicate the proper message at the correct time for our prospects. In marketing you want to enter the conversation already happening in our prospects head.

Salesforce.com to manage our client revenue lifecycle

AdWords increasing our pay per click budget to feed traffic into our lead engine

SEO We need high quality consistent content created and links built to increase our search engine ranking and ensure prospective clients are finding us. As our organicsearch results increase we will be able to rely less on paid search. We need staff to dolink building, article marketing, and social media engagement.

How long should it take us to create this new marketing engine?

Building a consistent revenue pipeline is never an overnight success. I believe that anaggressive but realistic plan looks like this:

Month 1: Research / PlanMonth 2: Build / CreateMonth 3: Deploy / Test / Revise

How many new clients can we expect to gain?This is the million dollar question of course and very difficult to quantify, but one thatmust be attempted to answer. As with all marketing, things can change quickly and weare working off of imperfect information. With time we have better ideas on what the trueacquisition costs of new clients are, what is working, what isnt, and be able to adjustaccordingly.


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IF we deploy the strategy I am suggesting I would expect us to gain 1 new client a weekin the short term (1-3 months after launch) and grow that to 2-3 new clients a week inthe near term (within 12 months).

With each new sale averaging $15,000 we should expect to grow our monthly sales to$150,000 a month within six months of launch and $1,000,000 in this calendar year. Aswe progress, we should be able to tweak the results even further and grow even larger.

Marketing ExpensesPhilosophically, I prefer to be conservative with revenue estimates and aggressive withexpenses. This way we should have fewer surprises. As they say, planning iseverything, but plans arent worth the paper they are printed on. There will always bechanges to the environment that we cannot plan for but we should be diligent in our

approach regardless.

Monthly Costs AdWords Budget $15,000.00CMO Expense $3,200.00SEO $1,500.00SEM $1,500.00Content Manager $1,500.00Social Media Mgr $1,500.00

Articles $1,500.00

Marketo $800.00SEO Tools $500.00

$27,000.00

Initial CostsWebsite Design / Develop $5,000.00Misc. $5,000.00


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Marketing Philosophy

Lets talk overall approach.

I believe in content marketing, more specifically demonstrating your authority in your

niche through the strategic use of content (articles, videos, white-papers, etc.) This ishighly reminiscent of Jack Welsh of GE fames classic line about being number 1 or 2 inyour market, or getting out of that market.

One way of ensuring you are 1 or 2 is to very tightly define your market. These dayspeople use terms like pivot for this phenomenon. This is fine AS LONG as the newlydefined market is large enough to sustain your business. A possible way to do thismight be to focus on only one type of app, or to focus on clients that have tried andfailed to build an app before and therefore are ready for a more professional approach.

The old way of marketing ensured that whoever had the most money to throw at

advertising won. But we are over-marketed to these days, what people want is a trustedpartner / advisor to help them achieve their goals. The best way to achieve this is bybuilding a relationship with our prospective clients.

For the projects we want to work on (greater than $10k) the likelihood of someonehitting a buy now or even talk to us now button are relatively low. They areinformation shopping, wanting to ensure they dont make a bad decision that costs themdearly. We can ease them into this purchase by becoming their knowledge sourcetheir consulting partner to walk them through to purchase.

However, we want this to be a scalable process so need it to be as automated aspossible, with staff getting personally involved only when we have a warm lead to workfrom. The best way to do this is to create a system of people, processes, andtechnology to create a sustainable lead engine that replenishes itself over time.


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Content Marketing

Content Marketing means creating and freely sharing informative content as a means of converting prospects into customers and customers into repeat buyers. The primarygoal is to obtain opt-in permission to deliver content via email or other medium over

time. Repeated and regular exposure builds a relevant relationship that providesmultiple opportunities for conversion, rather than a one-shot all-or-nothing salesapproach.

There are three reasons most companies fail at content:1) They dont invest in quality content2) They dont execute consistently3) They dont promote or optimize their content

Good content strategy involves creating helpful information that builds trust with our prospects. We cant jeopardize that trust with a sales pitch embedded in an article, or

its all over.

Possible Content Ideas

Why hourly billing is good for you Eliminates project creep Measure effort & activity Clearer understanding of work involved

What is a good idea? Original / not a me too In existing market what makes you different? (better / faster / cheaper)

Million Dollar App Idea Overview of successful apps What is common What is the market worth?

How to pick your app dev team? Examples of previous work Years in business Size of team


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Lead Generation

By Increasing traffic to the website, we increase the number of opportunities for visitorsto turn to leads.

Blogging According to research a blog:

Attracts 55% more B2B traffic Gets 400% more pages indexed by Google Establishes publisher as a trusted source

Social Media Build a following, share blog posts, and engage in social media conversations Businesses see 63% increase in marketing effectiveness when using social

media We can learn more about out competitors and monitor shifts in the marketplace Focus on facebook as a platform and twitter as a conversation tool

SEO Identify targeted keywords, optimize the website for those keywords, routinely

create keyword targeted content, and build quality links to our website We build authority by creating articles and content that is easily sharable We strengthen out Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page) ranking by

building quality links

PPC We can gain early traffic by focusing on Pay Per Click advertising PPC is highly metric driven and we can measure our results


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Google AdWords Traffic Estimations

Keyword Avg. CPC Ad Position Daily Clicks Daily Cost (CAD)"iphone app development" $3.50 1.14 41 $143.56"mobile app development" $4.50 1.64 36.51 $164.24

"iphone app developer" $4.62 1.84 7.39 $34.14"android app development" $2.25 1.01 33.12 $74.54"ipad app development" $3.32 1.07 10.59 $35.16"mobile app developer" $4.51 1.84 6.06 $27.35"android app developer" $3.79 1.14 4.92 $18.65

139.59 $497.64 AdWords CPC $3.55Subscribe 10.00%Max CPC $10Organize Dream Call 10.00%Daily Budget $500Sale 25.00%Conversion Rate 0.25%

Acquisition Cost (CPC) $1,420.00

Total Monthly Traffic 4,244

Monthly Sales 11

Monthly Budget $15,064.55

Search Criteria:Phrase SearchMax CPC $10Daily Budget $500USA, CanadaEnglish


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Lead Nurturing

The principle of lead nurturing is to engage our prospects with the proper message atthe proper time. This is done by creating timely messages delivered automaticallybased on the prospects activities and prior actions.

Email MarketingWe can create an autoresponder series of 6-7 emails delivered over the course of amonth using the Fibonacci Sequence (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21), i.e.

Email One Day 1Email Two Day 3Email Three Day 6Email Four Day 11Email Five Day 19Email Six Day 32

Email Seven Day 53Each email delivers knowledge and value to the prospect on a specific subject or topicand are meant to keep us fresh in the prospects mind and not to sell right away.However, we create a strong Call to Action and sales message in emails 6 & 7.

WebinarsWe create a monthly webinar with a questions and answers session at the end toengage our prospects and to demonstrate our capability. The content will be one of thestaple content packages we create just delivered in a new medium.

Social MediaSocial Media can be used both as a lead gen tool and a lead-nurturing tool. In leadnurturing we would demonstrate expertise by answering questions on Quora or LinkedIn

Answers, and engaging in a dialogue with our fans on facebook & twitter.


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App Dev Sales & Marketing Process

All Traffic / AnonymousThis is anyone that searches for our keywords or comes across us organically thatmight be interested in application development. These people are NOT qualified in anyway yet and we do not have any semblance of a relationship with yet.

Marketing Qualified Leads / Suspects - Goal is 10% of trafficThese are people that have entered the marketing funnel by giving us vital information

(email address, contact info, etc.) in exchange for an incentive such as specificallycreated content. The incentive must be project oriented and not a gift or present.

Sales Approved Leads / Prospects - Goal is 10% of suspectsThese are suspects that agree to enter the next stage of the process, specifically our dream call session with a sales agent. At this point the sales professional takes over theclient engagement and works with the prospect to close the sale

Client - Goal is 30% of prospectsClearly enough this is someone who has entered into an agreement with us and isworking with the application development team.

Referral SourceIt is far easier to sell new clients with testimonials of previously successful clients. Wewill create a case study library for the website and possibly even feature certain userson webinars and other engagements with suspects & prospects.


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Content Manager / Copy Editor Responsible for delivering upon our content strategy by ensuring high quality content iscreated and integrated into our web properties.

Managing purchased content Writing blog content on their own such as weekly wrap-ups, etc.

Checking text to ensure it is well written, logically structured and in the rightstyle for the intended audience Correcting grammar and spelling Ensuring the text is in line with our 'house style' - for example, that hyphens,

capital letters and optional spellings are used consistently (AP Style) Checking facts Raising queries with the author Working with SEO manager to ensure maximum search engine value Checking illustrations and captions are correct. Compose headlines for each article Write 'standfirsts' - introductory paragraphs that sum up a story and draw the

reader in Edit stories to fit word count requirements Lay out stories fit in our page design Write material for publication such as advertising copy.

SEM - Pay Per Click Specialist As our primary traffic generation strategy and the largest marketing expense by far, aresource dedicated to getting the most out of our PPC campaigns is needed.

Maximize Return on Investment (ROI) of Google Adwords Increase Click Through Rates (CTR) Get more visitors to our site than

competitors Identify the best performing keywords Dont miss out on any high-value traffic Decrease Cost Per Click (CPC) Lower advertising costs and still get more

traffic

Increase Conversion rates to maximize revenue and ROI Effective Landing Pages Get inside our customers head with Ad Copy that

sells more Split testing to improve page layouts Convert more visitors into paying

customers Optimize sales funnels Increase revenue with the same amount of traffic


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SEO AnalystRather than rely on services that use social bookmarking sites and low quality links, wewould train a staff member to proactively approach high PR site owners to build a highquality link network.

Optimize pages for search engines, change content on pages, promote

page/keyword ranking, strive to lower customer acquisition costs manuallyand/or with management tools Call link acquisition targets such as schools w/ high ROI content

opportunities such as scholarships Research latest trends and stay up to date with the internet marketing

industry Create and improve internal SEO best practices Reporting: rankings reports, keyword reports, link reports, etc Entire analysis of website, creation of a SEO report Selection of keywords which are able to generate traffic On and Off page optimization

Competitor and statistical analysis Creation of monthly reports to a high standard Responsible for submitting links to web directories, article syndication websites,

press release websites, bookmarking sites, blogs, online forums and other related media.

Establish permanent one way links Execute link request email campaigns Acquire links from high PR sites

Social Media Manager Social Media is web 2.0s most effective way of communicating with our prospects &clients. Expertise in this arena with a clear focus will help us achieve our goals quickly.

Advise on overall social media strategy Plan social media campaigns Manage social media campaigns and day to day activities Manage presence in social networking sites Brand advocacy Community outreach Post and comment on relevant blogs Seed content into social networks Engage in conversations and answer questions Develop benchmark metrics to measure the results of social media programs Analyze and evaluate social media campaigns and strategies Report on effectiveness of campaigns Monitor trends in social media Monitor the activities of main competitors in social media Monitor social space for brand and related topics and conversations


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Comms/Community folks:

Compliments: Say thanks. Complaints: Apologize, and help get them connected with someone on the

support side that can work to resolve their issue (work with customer service)

Inquiries: Help provide and connect customers and prospects with information onyour company, and work with the BD team to care for them appropriately Media opportunities: Connect with bloggers and journalists to build relationships

BD and Sales: Leads: listen for point of need sales opportunities and make genuine, helpful

connections (no pitching, folks). Kudos: For example, our reps might connect with their prospects on Twitter after

they went through a product demo

Inquiries: Working hand in hand with the community and communication folksabove to steward these requests

Customer Service: Troubleshooting or technical/product support issues Customer complaints Accounting/billing questions (to route to appropriate people) Compliments and kudos (theres no such thing as too many people saying thank

you)


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Marketing Calendar

Important Dates05 March Delivery of Plan 2.0

06 March Begin Website Copy Creation07 March Begin Website Design Process

08 March Marketing Plan Approval

09 March Purchase Required Marketing ToolsBegin Marketing Staff Recruiting Process

23 March Web Primary Content Completed

30 March Web Secondary Content & Marketing Materials Completed03 April Marketo / Salesforce.com Integrated and Tested

05 April Website Launched

Delivery Goals

Daily: New Article Published1 PR3 or higher link acquired

Weekly: Guest Post

Monthly: Live Webinar recorded

Quarterly: High-level conceptual tool created (infographic, video, etc.)


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Revenue Goals & Expenses

As previously stated, I believe the best way to create a successful plan is tounderestimate revenue and to overestimate expenses. This way there are fewer surprises in the achievements of our goals.

Feb 2012 Mar 2012 Apr 2012 May 2012 Jun 2012 Jul 2012Revenue $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $30,000 $60,000 $90,000

Aug 2012 Sep 2012 Oct 2012 Nov 2012 Dec 2012$120,000 $150,000 $1800,000 $180,000 $180,000

Feb 2012 Mar 2012 Apr 2012 May 2012 Jun 2012 Jul 2012Expenses $2,500 $10,000 $27,000 $27,000 $27,000 $27,000

Aug 2012 Sep 2012 Oct 2012 Nov 2012 Dec 2012$27,000 $27,000 $27,000 $27,000 $27,000

2012 2013 2014Revenue $1,000,000.00 $2,000,000.00 $4,000,000.00 Expenses $250,000.00 $400,000.00 $600,000.00

Monthly Marketing Costs

AdWords Budget $15,000.00CMO Expense* $3,200.00Link Building $1,500.00

Article Marketing $1,500.00Content Management $1,500.00Social Media $1,500.00Marketo $800.00SEO Tools $500.00

$27,000.00

Initial Costs

Website Design / Develop $5,000.00Misc. $5,000.00

* does not include 1% of revenue bonus


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Revenue / Expense Projections

Revenue vs. Expense Spend


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Critical Issues / Next Steps

What do we need to worry about? What do we need to worry about down the line?

1. Can we deploy the solution in such a fast time?2. Can we create high quality content quickly?3. Do we need to define a profitable target market?4. Can we close deals in the pipeline?5. Can we grow our organic search results in order to offset rising PPC costs?

Next actions

1. Finalize & Agree on the plan including specific dates & deadlines2. Purchase new tools to start deployment work

3. Create content calendar 4. Hire proper SEO / SMM resources5. Hire developer / designer for new site & landing pages


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Appendices (sent separately)

App Dev Marketing Plan (spreadsheet with data calculations)

App Dev Marketing Strategy 2.0

Documents

Transcript of App Dev Marketing Strategy 2.0