Mick is the CEO of Yodel Mobile. He ensures the smooth operation of the business and that Yodel Mobile’s clients and team are happy. In addition to that, Mick likes to get on the road to present and share his years of mobile insights at conferences and industry events. Here is Mick’s experience leading an app consultancy and working with numerous brands over the years, and what 13 years in mobile growth has really taught him.
How have you seen the world of mobile change over the years?
Change has been rapid. I’ve been working in mobile since 2006 and I’ve witnessed the days of .WAP advertising, the first iPhone launching, Android coming into the space and the launch of the App Store. There have also been big changes to the structure of the of the ecosystem, especially from an advertising and commercial point of view.
The outputs and the growth of the app economy and the martech space has changed drastically in 10 years, with sophisticated data available at your fingertips through key attribution and analytics tools. As a consequence, any app business is now hugely trackable. Such information is vital, from gaining insight into user retention, discovery and testing. Utilising the tools that are available alongside such contextual insights, means that the opportunities are endless.
It never ceases to amaze me how every year is different. Even issues that many business have historically shied away from have thankfully, come to the fore. One great example is the issue of ad fraud, which has been foregrounded over the past two years. Managing fraud from a user acquisition perspective has rightly become a big focus, but that’s just one example, and such developments keep the industry on its toes.
How has the rapidly transforming mobile landscape affected Yodel Mobile’s service offering?
I regard our services as the best in the market for that ‘fully holistic’ app marketing offering, covering user acquisition through to user retention and engagement. We are 100% focused on delivering the best service and the most effective results. This has been catalytic for us as a business in constantly evolving what we do, not only to keep up with hardware developments, but to cater to the evolution of the app consumer. The user in the mobile space- the app aficionado-is changing, and their expectations of a seamless and delightful app experience is becoming higher. Focusing on these two areas is really important.
Why do you think a consultative approach works for supporting app growth?
I think every app in the marketplace has an individual and different challenge to all other apps. Even if they’re in a competitive marketplace and providing the best service, they still might not be number one. So how do they get to number one? How do they increase discoverability for their app? How do they communicate changes in the service to their users?
Our consultative approach tackles such issues, bringing it back to building out a bespoke solution to every client we work with. It starts with a strategic focus, not just focusing on a 12-month goal for example, but instead short-term success should lead to delivering a trajectory of a long-term vision for the app.
In order to do that you need to be super hands-on, you have to understand the product, the sector, the category and the consumer as best as you possibly can. Furthermore, you need extensive experience utilising tools and solutions frameworks in order to maintain success. Therefore, an off-the-shelf solution may fall short.
What is the biggest lesson you’ve learnt about mobile growth in your time?
There are two. The first, as I’ve already touched upon, is the app space is always changing, there’s always a new challenge that you as a business and you clients should be aware and ready for.
The second thing is that user retention is the most important thing for an app business. If you cannot retain your users, you do not have a business. And one of the biggest challenges in the app space is maximising user retention.
The churn rate of users downloading an app within three months is so high that you may be only left with 20% after 90 days. By placing significant focus on relationship building and user retention, everything else will fall in place and you can justify your investment into your paid user acquisition campaigns. Most importantly, you can justify the time and effort that you, as a business, are putting into the overall success of that particular app venture.
What killer advice would you give to app owners launching today?
In such a competitive, challenging and rapidly evolving market, that the most important advice I could give is to ensure that they have a team that is experienced in scaling and growing. Whether that be an internal growth team or utilising the right kind of resource externally such as an agency or a consultancy. Having that experience can save huge amounts of money, huge amounts of time, and also get you off to a good start right from day one.
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