In the newest episode of our Mastering Mobile Marketing series, Mick, our CEO at Yodel Mobile, covers top app marketing solutions for both launching AND scaling an app, common app marketing mistakes, making the best use of your marketing budget, and tackles questions on the much anticipated deprecation of IDFA.
See the video transcript below:
App Launch and App Scale: The Core Learnings
There are a multitude of areas that need to be considered for an app launch and scale strategy, as it is a very competitive landscape. However, there are three key things that sit above everything else and the first is data. We’re very privileged to be working in a space that is very trackable, and that allows us to understand our users, so ensuring you’ve got the right kind of analytics and attribution tools in your app is key.
By making sure your mobile tools are integrated properly and you have the right data architecture in place, you will be able to understand where your users are coming from and what they’re doing. By getting those kinds of insights and learnings it will allow you to plan both your product development roadmap as well as your app marketing strategy.
Secondly, focusing on retention is hugely important. A lot of businesses tend to focus on filling the top of the funnel and acquiring users. However, if you can’t retain those users, then you don’t have a business because it means you’re continually having to spend money to bring new users into the app. Therefore, building a relationship with your users, putting in place a strong CRM programme, and really understanding what they want and need, is probably the second most important thing.
And finally, it is getting the right team around you, whether that’s your internal team, or an external team that have done app marketing work before (like us!). They will have made mistakes and they also will have had great learnings and understandings, capitalising on that kind of experience, is really important. This can help you avoid some of the most obvious pitfalls.
Making the Most of Your App Marketing Budget
First and foremost, you need to seriously consider how you can minimise budget wastage. It’s easier said than done, but by being sensible and taking good advice on how you should spend that finite amount of budget. If you are launching your app in the first instance you likely don’t have endlessly deep pockets, so don’t be profligate. Just because you have the budget to do TV doesn’t necessarily mean that you should be doing TV.
What this does mean is that you need to be focusing on the lowest hanging fruit. Invariably utilising channels internally – your own channels where you can – as well as the likes of the social media channels for paid user acquisition. They’re all going to be really important in generating some of those initial low cost acquisitions.
The Differentiators Between App Launch and App Scale
App launch is really about learning, and whilst scaling is also about learning, you need to be setting your benchmarks from the offset and so you really need to be understanding the market as well as analysing the data. In the initial stages of launching consider growth input a good few months before you actually launch, this includes:
- Getting the right data systems integrated
- Considering your app store optimisation for launch
- Looking at low cost acquisition channels
- Focusing on organic traction and the app stores themselves
These are all key areas for those first initial few months of an app’s life. When you get on to scaling it changes slightly because your focus will be about being able to grow as fast as you possibly can effectively, rather than making those initial learnings. The more you spend and the more you invest, the more challenges you’re going to face in terms of keeping your cost per acquisition down because you’ve already mined some of the most effective channels.
You also need to be considering your organic and virality strategies very much from a scale perspective. If you can get two organic downloads for one paid you’re onto a winner. There are a lot of different areas of focus beyond the first 12 months too and you need to be changing your strategy accordingly to realign with that focus.
App Marketing Mistakes: How to Prevent Them
There are a myriad of mistakes that some startup businesses can face. One of the biggest is focusing on getting your lowest cost per install in those early days. Your lowest cost installs are not necessarily going to be the most effective, you need to be focusing on the lowest cost for a quality, strong lifetime user.
By getting the right metrics in place, such as the North Star metric, you can determine the real objective you are trying to achieve, rather than getting distracted by peripheral measurements that could potentially lead you down the wrong path.
It is also important to rely on getting good advice from businesses and people that have done it before in order to avoid some of those big pitfalls that can be very costly in the first instance. A lot of entrepreneurs need to be aware of this because there is a tendency to really focus on what the product is, the app itself and what it does, and not necessarily on how you market the app.
Additionally, if you are an entrepreneur and you are bringing an app to market for the first time, you can get completely lost in this. It is important to take a step back and really look at the big picture, and not just focus on the product.
iOS 14, IDFA and its Impact on App Marketing
iOS 14 is going to be a step change for app businesses. The first and most important thing is not to bury your head in the sand with it. It’s going to come and it’s going to happen. And when it does happen it’s going to change the way that businesses are able to track their users. There’s going to be more requirements for building that relationship with your users so that they accept the fact you’re going to track them and they tick the relevant boxes accordingly.
The whole sector is also likely going to adapt to iOS 14, as it provides new ways of reaching your potential audiences and bringing them into the app. The need for quality, creative messaging will be significant, as will how you position your messages to encourage people to visit the App Store and download your app.
Influencers may also start adapting to the space as we find other cost effective ways of bringing users to the app ecosystem. There is going to be a lot of talk, for example, over the next year or two around audio, in addition to lots of solutions that look at more audio-led marketing tools that will allow us to engage with individuals in a completely different environment. Utilising these will play a key part in helping to bring more low cost users to the app space.
Check out our Mastering Mobile Marketing YouTube Playlist to ensure you are in the loop with all things app marketing.
Want to find out more about optimising your app and keeping up with the latest OS capabilities? Make sure to subscribe to our Mastering Mobile Marketing video series. You can also get in touch by visiting the Contact Us page. Follow us on LinkedIn, chat with us on Twitter @yodelmobile, and join our #mobilemarketingUK LinkedIn group.
