Turning Your Mobile App Into a Business

Bill Magnuson (@billmag)Co-Founder & CTO, Appboy

bill@appboy.com

http://slideshare.net/BillMagnuson

Why Does This Matter?

• The revenue story is lopsided. Some apps end up as movie stars, but most of them are still working at Starbucks, trying to make it big.

• Most developers don’t market effectively. Those who do have a big advantage.

• Mobile revenue is still an unsolved problem. Experimentation and attribution are critical to success.

The Data-Messaging Cycle

App usage and identity targeted messaging

Effectiveness analytics & attribution

What Data Should I Collect?

Everything you can. Success in mobile requires understanding data along many dimensions:• Who your users are• How, when and where your app is used• App store and sales metrics• Social media engagement and marketing

effectiveness• Marketplace trends

User IdentityUnderstanding your user base is key to keeping them engaged.• Engaged users make in-

app purchases, share your apps and develop product loyalty.

• High quality monetization opportunities require data-driven targeting.

How, When and Where

Passive usage analytics provide you with high level insights on the usage patterns of your app.• Correlating usage changes with events, marketing and

upgrades is key to measuring the value of your efforts.

Sales MetricsLike “How, When and Where”, but closer to your bottom line.• Measures the effectiveness of marketing and cross promotion.• Helps you plan future products and forecast the effectiveness of

monetization.

Going Viral

Determining the effectiveness of social media engagement is hard.• How often is your app being shared,

are those shares converting into paying users?

• Who are your most influential users and how can you harness them?

Marketplace Trends Keeping up on industry and marketplace trends ensures you’re leveraging new learning and not repeating mistakes.• However, be careful – a lot of “facts” we see on

blogs and in the media have shaky foundations.• Remember that your app is one of millions and

your experience will be unique. Learn from others, but keep your own data and test your assumptions.

What Now?

Collect

AnalyzeAct

Effective app management is an ongoing effort.

1. Collect – Get everything you can.

2. Analyze – Once you have your data written down, you need to analyze it to inform future efforts.

3. Act – Take action based on your analysis, then collect data to see if it worked.

4. Repeat.

Real World Examples

Handling Bugs and Outages

• Timely communication helps eliminate negative app store reviews. Pathway experienced a complete app failure due to DST and made it out with 30 new beta testers, and zero negative reviews.

• Tip: Use in-app messaging instead of push to avoid telling users who won’t experience the problem.

Cross Promotion - Kickstarter

• Your user base represents an incredibly valuable resource – attention.

• Leverage that attention to succeed with other products.

• The developer of Affix successfully funded a Kickstarter project for a new app by advertising to his existing user base.

Reward and Engage – More Ideas

• Use push to get ‘lost’ users back into the app.• Excite early adopters with news about

upcoming versions and features.• Target top social media influencers and reward

them for sharing.• Market directly to funnel segments to get

users through registration or help them discover new features.

Principles

Be a Scientist• Isolate your efforts, don’t try everything at once.• Make sure you can measure the effectiveness of actions before you make them.

• Learn from your peers.• Experiment!

http://www.xkcd.com

Take Focused ActionEverything you do should be growing your user base or increasing your lifetime customer value (LTV).• Grow your user base through app

store optimization, cross promotion, advertising and install campaigns.

• Increase LTV with customer relationship management and inbound marketing tools.

Target, don’t Spam

• Maximize your signal-to-noise ratio with targeting. Your users will reciprocate respect.

• Use drip campaigns and event driven marketing to capitalize on sales opportunities.

• Leverage the strengths of different communication mediums (push, e-mail, in-app, social networks).

Turning Your Mobile App Into a Business

Bill Magnuson (@billmag)Co-Founder & CTO, Appboy

bill@appboy.com

http://slideshare.net/BillMagnuson