E384: The best pieces of general marketing, sales, and optimization advice from this 100-post thread about growing a multimillion-dollar mobile app.
The thread is an absolute beast, and the rapid-fire tips I share on this show are directly actionable. After making this pod, I’ve already started incorporating them myself.
The thread in the podcast, credit Jake Mor: https://x.com/jakemor/status/1549281861687451648
My episode, “How App Store Optimization (ASO) Works”: https://youtu.be/F_ltanIMEmw
00:00 Introduction 01:17 Marketing and Sales Strategies 02:02 Survey and Feedback Techniques 04:25 Advanced App Store Optimization 05:05 Engaging with Users and Influencers 05:32 Creating Effective Ad Campaigns 08:14 Building and Promoting Features 11:57 Building in Public and Networking 13:33 Hiring and Team Building 14:29 Final Thoughts
#digitalmarketing #startups #ycombinator #buildinpublic
The Edward Show. Your daily digital marketing podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
100 tips I learned from growing an iOS app to $5 million in sales in three years, going through Y Combinator one and a half times and co-founding Superwall. So this guy, it's Jake Moore, posts these 100 tips. This is from two years ago. It is still amazing and it's 100 tips. I read through all of them. I'm going to share my favorite tips. The first few tips that I will share, they're more technical and then the last tips are more general. They're all marketing tips, sales tips, optimization tips. This episode has direct value from what this guy gives and if you want to read the entire 100 tip thread to yourself, this comes from TwitterX. If you want to read the entire thing yourself, it's going to be in the description. This guy goes through Y Combinator one and a half times. It's the top accelerator for technology products. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI was president of Y Combinator. Y Combinator just legendary company and he co-founded Superwall, which lets you configure and test every aspect of your paywall without shipping app updates, without shipping updates to your app. So you can just keep on testing your paywall for a mobile app. My friend Alan, who is just on this podcast, loves Superwall, uses it himself. All right. So I wrote down my favorite tips. Here they are. We start with number seven, not number one. My first favorite tip is at number seven, run drip campaigns. Lower your prices every couple of days. So this is not for luxury products. These first two tips are not for luxury products where you don't want to do this. Lower your prices every couple of days. Send reminders via push notifications, but also SMS or email, run drip campaigns, offer a 30% discount and keep decreasing over time. And then number 10 is run sales. These can account for 20% of total revenue. Christmas, Black Friday, New Year's Memorial Day, Labor Day, Spring Sale, Fall Sale, Summer Sale, Father's Day, Mother's Day, 50% off. Number 19, surveys are important. You must be able to track results over time. Otherwise, your surveys are pointless. And you also have to be able to change questions on your surveys very easily. Number 22, send two types of surveys out. One, trial, cancel surveys. So this could also be if someone asked for a refund, someone cancels a trial, somebody asks for a refund and two product market fit surveys. People are using your product. Number 23 for trial, cancel surveys, ask the following. One, why did you cancel? And that's multiple choice. And then two, how can we improve? And this is a free response. People can write whatever they want. And then I like this and with a discount and the survey with a discount. And oh, I love this too, to analyze the free responses where people can write whatever they want. Use a word cloud. So word cloud will show you the most common words that appear. If you have a lot of users, a lot of customers, you can see the most common things that people are saying. You could probably also do this if you're making content. You could look at the most common things in your comments. Number 25, get flooded with written reviews. In your product market fit surveys, when users are actually using what you made, ask them why they love your app. And at the end, show them back their answer. At the end of the survey, show them back their answer and ask them to paste it as a review. I like that a lot. Users write the best copy. People who actually use your stuff, they write the best copy. Number 36, something that my company Superwall sees work every time. It's a video paywall prior to onboarding. Not any video with screen recording, show the user exactly what they are getting with a free trial. Add 3D Apple S graphics. Rotato is great for making them. But I thought that was very interesting. A video paywall with a screen recording to show users exactly what they are getting with a free trial. Number 47, when a user cancels a trial or churns, use that event to show the user a special pop-up. Give the user a discount. If there's any sign of involuntary churn like a credit card expiring, let the user know on every app open that their credit card expired. So when a user cancels a trial, offer them a special pop-up, give them a discount. Numbers 50 to 55, this is great information on App Store Optimization, but it's a bit too complex to read on this podcast. I've made previous podcasts about just only about App Store Optimization, but I want to keep this episode a bit more general. So I'm not going to share numbers 50 to 55 about ASO on this episode. But if you want to read it, again, the link to this is in the description. And that's numbers 50 to 55 that just has great stuff on App Store Optimization. And if you want a bit about foundations for App Store Optimization, you can listen to episode 312 of this podcast, How App Store Optimization ASO Works. Next one, number 60, love your users and speak to them. Add in-app chat and support. You need to understand who they are, use intercom or papercups.io. Email isn't as great when users ask for refunds, help them, offer customers discounts and free no questions asked refunds, only ask questions after the refund. Numbers 65, this was very interesting. Hiring influencers via TikTok is essential, but not for the reasons you think. The best creators on the planet are on TikTok. Use them to create content for ads, not for an ROI positive influencer campaign. That's too hard to achieve on a small scale. Pay out influencers based on performance. This is number 66 now. Pay out influencers based on performance if you can. Again, this isn't to make sure your ROI positive, it's to make sure interests are aligned so their videos make for great ads. Number 67, buy, negotiate the right to use your influencer's videos in your ads. Don't use them without asking. Use them in your automated app ads campaigns which A/B tests different things and ads. So TikTok influencers are really good at making engaging content. You want them to make ads for you because they know how to make good content for ads, how to make amazing creatives for your ads. Number 68, your users write marketing copy better than yourself. Take survey responses for what do you love most about your app and use it as captions for your ads. I think this applies to lots of different businesses. Find out what users who like your product are saying. Use this as copy in your ads or copy on your website, copy all over the place. Number 69, target users with ad creatives, not with ad settings. It's always cheaper to cast a wider net with open targeting. Videos and text will attract users to resonate with the problem you're solving and the solution you are advertising. Number 70, you can get a sense of what ads your competitors are running with Facebook ads library. All ads are public. Look at the oldest running ads. Facebook shows. If you don't know, it's called the meta ad library now. Meta shows all of the ads that companies are running. You just go to meta ad library search a company name, see what advertisements they're running. Look for their oldest running ads. Number 73, take responses from the survey question. Who do you think would benefit most from using your app? These responses are your personas. Make ad creed for each of your personas. Your users know themselves better than you do. So you just ask your users, who do you think would benefit most from using your app? Number 74, if you're a conspiracy theorist, you'd agree that Facebook would charge higher CPMs if you report proceeds to them. Try reporting proceeds divided by 10 to be safe. That's kind of funny. It's funny that he shares that publicly, especially. And then numbers 81 through 100 are all fire. So I'm just going to read them. I'm not even going to say the numbers. I'm just going to read numbers 81 through 100 because these are each amazing. If you do your homework, but don't hand it in, you get an F. If you build a feature, but don't tell your users, you get an F. So let people know, let your users know, your customers know, whoever know, whenever you make an update, always let people know. And also, I think people like feeling that sense of traction that an app is always making upgrades or a product is always making upgrades. It shows the customers and the users that you care, which is so important. There's nothing worse than feeling like the owner of the app or product that you're using doesn't care. Don't hide old feature releases from new users. They are not as curious as you think. Take screen recordings of new features as you release them. Send emails plus push notification tips on how to use the new features. Send them every 48 hours. Start at the beginning for each new user. Let people know about these new features. Let them know, let them know, let them know. An app that does this really well is Descript, which I recommend all the time on the show. Descript is very forward about letting their users know about new features. I've discovered so many features, which I use all the time because Descript does this. And I'm a power user of Descript. But even I am constantly learning about new features with the tool because they do this. When talking about a feature, either in your ads, paywalls, or notifications, start with the why and how the user will feel. Colgate does sell toothpaste. They sell a perfect smile. And all the confidence that comes with it. Watch any of Colgate's ads. I'm going to do that after the show. Be personal. Make sure users know your name and your story. Add a headshot and signature in your messaging. Don't try to seem like a big faceless company. The better they know you, the more they open up, and the less angry they get when you mess up and you will mess up. If users feel like they know you, they will open up more about their problems. Make them feel special. You're focused on helping them personally. Always listen to your customers' problems, not their solutions. This is tricky. Users tend to lead with solutions to try and make your life easier. But just remember, they pay you to solve their problems, not implement their solutions. That's actually how Twitch was created. The founder of Twitch was talking to all the users on Justin TV, which was the precursor to Twitch, saying, "Why are you streaming video games?" These users would offer solutions, but they would say that they were doing it because they wanted to make money. And so Twitch was created as a way to make money from streaming video games. Users offered tons of these different solutions, but the founders of Twitch thought of the solutions themselves by listening to the problems, listening to what the users were trying to accomplish. When you solve a problem a user has with a solution they never could have thought of, you create a magical moment. Optimize for magical moments. For example, users ask fitness AI for gym equipment profiles for years so they can organize their equipment for different gyms. Instead, fitness AI used their GPS to determine where they are and auto-change the equipment to what they used that gym last time. Now that's magical. I'll read that again. It's crazy. Users ask fitness AI for gym equipment profiles for years so that the users could organize their equipment for different gyms. Instead, the company used their users GPS to determine where they are and auto-changed the equipment to what they used at the gym last time. Now that's magical. Focus on building two types of features. One, features for your best users solve magically and they will become your best salespeople. Two, features that expand your problem space. All the best indie developers I know build in public. He recommends, oh, these are people that I'm not even following. The co-founder at Chargeback, Zack, Shaq, and Chris Herbert, who I am now following and found both of these people. And this guy, Jake Moore, who I'm going to follow as well, CEO of Superwall, he believes the best indie developers to build in public, which is they share all of their updates. They share the things that they're testing, what they're learning, failure, successes. He believes that the best indie developers are doing build in public as social pressure to improve and perhaps organize their thoughts. I think anybody can do build in public. My username on TikTok is build in public. You can do build in public for any brand that you have. I think it's a super strong thing to do very endearing. I love building public. Make best friends with other indie developers, get offices together, share your ideas with one another, be generous with tips like the tips that I'm sharing in this thread, and people will share their tips with you. It is the easiest way to 2x your learnings. The faster you learn, the more successful you'll be. I've learned so much from the other creators that I've shared on this podcast, my friend, Avni, Wanyan, Chris Kerner, if you're listening. So many other creators who I share stuff with and then who share stuff with me. We're all learning so much together and improving so much faster because we have each other. I love this. Never be afraid to ask direct personal questions. What's your revenue? How do you grow? How do you hire? Most times people will answer share your tips along the way. You'll become friends if you're both passionate. Hiring is hard. Accept this and don't give up early. I've tried to hire for around 2 years without any success. Don't ask questions that lead to big decisions. Want to quit your job and join my risky startup? Nobody says yes to that. That's a scary question. Want to help our startup on the weekends? That's a small decision and de-risk everyone. I like that tip. Be upfront with equity, salary, and benefits. This information should come before the job description. It's what's on everyone's mind anyway. Lead with personal growth. Proof to any hire that joining your startup is the best thing they can do for their career. If it isn't, there's no pitch and there's no fit. Move on. The last one, if you executed this well by the time you reach an interview, you will have already agreed on compensation. By the time you present an offer, you will have already worked with one another. Getting to yes will be a much smaller decision. And that is from this thread. 100 tips I learned growing an iOS app to around $5 million in sales in 3 years, going through Y Combinator one and a half times and co-founding Superwall from Jake Moore. The link to this thread is in the description for this podcast. So many gems in this thread. This is episode 384 of my daily digital marketing podcast, which I do every single day. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you so much for listening. I will talk to you again tomorrow. Bye now.
