“Marketing Mobile Applications: Paid, Earned & Owned Media Strategies for Content Owners” as presented by Rachel Pasqua, Vice President, Mobile, iCrossing, at the Online Publishers Association Mobile Day in New York on May 12, 2011.

1. Marketing Mobile Applications
Paid, Earned & Owned Media Strategies for Content Owners
May 12, 2011

2. You can’t buy what you can’t find.

3. Zynked, a tool to help you organize and synch your digital ink,
launched in the Apple App store in November of 2009.
The developers did a competitive analysis and knew they had built
the very best RSS reader app for iPhone.
Clearly, their high-quality app would outsell the competition.

4. But it didn’t. Not even close.
•Zynked went on sale for $2.99.
•Sold 1,723 copies in the first
three weeks.
•But by week 4, downloads had
plummeted to almost zero.
Stats showed that Zynked owners were heavy
daily users and App Store reviews were
positive - quality was not the issue.
The issue was visibility.
The initial friends & family download rush had
subsided and Zynked was off the new list and
buried so deep in iTunes that no one was
seeing it.

5. You can’t buy what you can’t find.
With 350K+ apps in the Apple App Store alone, what could Zynked do to
stand out?
Appearing in the New & What’s
Hot sections or Top lists is a
surefire way to get downloads.
Unfortunately, it’s also a matter of sheer luck
or having a close connection with Apple.

6. At best, getting listed or featured will cost a fortune and
often it is simply out of your control.
If you aren’t featured, your best bet is to appear on page 1 and no deeper
than page 2 of your two categories. You also want to appear within the top
two pages of results when someone searches for your keywords.
But achieving this depends heavily on the number downloads you have.
At 10+ pages deep, Zynked was practically invisible.

7. How many downloads do you need? No one knows exactly….
According to the developer community, your rank is based on
the last 3-4 days of downloads, with today’s mattering the most.
R =
Today’s
Downloads
+
Yesterday’s
Downloads
+ +
Downloads from
2 days ago
Downloads from
3 days ago
Recently however, there are whispers that it’s not just all about
downloads anymore – that how often your app gets used is
factored into your rank as well.
So you need to drive downloads and encourage repeat usage.

8. So content owners face a catch-22. To get downloads, you need
high visibility. And to get high visibility, you need downloads.
To achieve this, you have two options:
Strike a deal directly with Apple to •Make great apps
be featured in iTunes and/or •Sell a lot of them
advertising campaigns. •Keep users coming back

9. The Zynked developers decided to look at a few ways in which
we could create awareness & drive more demand.
Paid Media – advertising options that would introduce
1 Zynked to a wider audience.
Owned Media – ways in which we could improve the
2 app and the content we owned surrounding it to
increase awareness, usage and favorable mentions.
Earned Media – ways in which we could engage current
3 users in social spaces and help them spread the word
about Zynked within their social graph.
The key was to strike the right balance of paid, earned
and owned media for the Zynked brand.

10. We knew a big, well executed ad spend – e.g. 50K+ per month
– could vault us into the top 1-2 pages of our key categories.
But a display media blitz was a little beyond Zynked’s means.
Google Mobile Ads for Apps were more affordable but we
questioned how many people were searching for apps via Google.

11. So we looked for more affordable paid media options in places
where we knew people were searching – i.e. app review sites.
We placed display ads on app review sites as well as a video review on
a popular YouTube channel.
We also invested in incentivized downloads where for a small fee,
plus the cost of the app, we were guaranteed a certain amount of
downloads and reviews in iTunes.

12. The result of our Paid efforts? Success!!!
In one month of paid media placements and incentivized reviews,
we went from less than 20 downloads per month to 700.
But we were still barely breaking even.
Price of Zynked: $2.99
- CPA: $1.99
Profit: $1.00
- 30% Apple rev share: $.89
Final Profit: $.11
We moved up in natural search results page for the keyword “RSS”.
But the lift would only last as long we continued the spend.
Note: Apple’s rev share is 30% of sales – not 30% of profit

13. So we began to explore more organic options - Owned Media.
The first order of business was optimizing our owned media space in iTunes –
the Zynked landing page. Our goal was to ensure it contained all the right
keywords and content to attract people searching for an RSS app.
An estimated 80% of app search happens within
the App store.

14. In the process we studied similar apps with a high rank.
We assessed their content and compared their keywords to our own.
This enabled us to add what was missing as well as to assess opportunities to
add a few strong keywords that no one else had.
App Store SERPs show 5 results per search above the fold on
smartphones and 12 on tablets. The process of digging deeper
than the first page is very cumbersome, increasing users’
reliance on first-page results.

15. Be aware that the App Store uses an exact search model.
The words placed in the search box by the consumer must all be found
in one of your three searchable fields. Understanding how consumers
search for you here is extremely important.
Example: a search for “NY Times” vs. a
search for “NT Times Newspaper”

16. Then, we resubmitted our app with new metadata (and a
few new features as well).
Keep in mind that you can only change certain metadata when you submit a
new build - but you can’t submit a new build just to change the metadata.
Up to 4000 characters
for App Description but
no more than 700
recommended
100 characters only for
keywords
Up to 250
characters for
App Name

17. We also reassessed our categorical positioning.
We kept News as our primary category but switched our secondary
category from Utilities to Productivity where there appears to be more
demand for media-management tools.

18. We used our new keywords to enrich the Zynked web site.
An app should have a dedicated, search-optimized
page on the brand Web site that illustrates benefits
and links directly to the download page in iTunes –
these awareness elements create rich SEO content.

19. Then, we submitted to as many directories as possible.
We paid for expedited placement in the ones we deemed most valuable.
This effort was key in driving traffic back to our owned space (landing
page) in the App Store.

20. We also conducted an influencer outreach campaign.
We contacted high profile mobile app and gadget blogs with a promo code and a polite
request for a review on their Web site and in iTunes.
Premium app developers should always include a promo
code that enables the reviewer to obtain a free copy.
Apple provides you with 50 promo codes for this
purpose with submission of a new app or an update.

21. We kept tabs on any mentions of our app.
We followed up on our requests for listings and/or reviews to ensure that we had back
links in place to our App Store landing page and Web site.
Any content that mentions an app favorably is an
opportunity to drive downloads – building links to
these sites is an important part of app marketing
strategy (mentions should always include the iTunes
direct download link).

22. Then it was time for Earned Media, starting with Twitter.
40% of tweets come from a mobile device – these users are 1 click away
from a download. For Zynked, we created a unique Twitter identity but
tweeting from your brand account can be just as effective.
Tweeting regularly about an app, or,
if appropriate, creating a unique
Twitter identity for an app, generates
general awareness and facilitates
spreading the word.

23. We also created a Zynked Facebook page.
Here we posted about the new version, its features and the many
benefits of using Zynked, plus our ideas for the next release. For brands
with an existing Facebook Page a custom tab is also a great idea.
Dedicated Facebook pages and/or tabs
enable app developers to generate
awareness and keep fans up to date on
new features and content.

24. Perhaps the most effective Earned Media tactic was
integrating sharing tools into the Zynked interface.
This turned every user into a brand ambassador and every tweet and share into
an endorsement for Zynked within their social graph.

25. But most of all, we listened to our users and we responded.
Prior to launch, we tested Zynked not just for bugs but for validity.
We put beta builds in front of people we knew who matched our target
demographics and we asked them:
•Would you buy this app?
•What would you change?
•What would you add?
We responded to every Facebook post
and tweet.
We took every review seriously.
And we applied what we learned to making
a better app.

26. We ran Paid Media for a month.
The effect on our rank and sales was obvious - we went from an
average of 0-5 downloads per day to between 50-70.
But the minute our spend was over, we went right back to almost zero.
Daily downloads from January 15th 2010 to February 18 2010
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

27. As more people downloaded Zynked our rank went up,
increasing the possibility of people finding it by chance.
Daily downloads + rank from January 15th 2010 to February 18 2010
Downloads Rank
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
17-Jan
23-Jan
2-Feb
4-Feb
6-Feb
8-Feb
14-Feb
10-Feb
12-Feb
15-Jan
19-Jan
21-Jan
25-Jan
27-Jan
29-Jan
31-Jan
As our downloads increased our rank moved into double-digits but we never cracked
the top 50.

28. As Paid Media ran, we worked on Earned and Owned
Despite a noticeable dip when the Paid campaign ended, we began to
see another uptick as the Earned and Owned tactics fell into place.
We never rose higher than 6 pages deep again, and our numbers were
lower by half but we still saw consistent downloads over time through
our Earned and Owned efforts alone.
Daily downloads from February 19th 2010 to March 22, 2010
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

29. In the end, Zynked became a free application.
In the Spring of 2010, we withdrew the premium version of Zynked and re-
launched as a free app with iAD.
This version generated more profits than the premium version ever did.
The efforts of a sustained Paid, Earned and
Owned media strategy were too much for a
small mom & pop content owner.
But there’s no question that they worked.

30. Key take-aways for launching a new app
• Do your keyword research: assess competitors and similar apps – don’t
rely solely on brand keywords
• Use that research to build keyword rich app store metadata
Pre-launch
• Create a list of target blogs and app directories
• Create a dedicated Web page or separate site for your app
• Plan and budget your paid media
• Plan your Twitter strategy
• Plan your Facebook strategy
• Test a beta with your target audience – and be ready to make some
adjustments based on their feedback
• Integrate sharing tools into the interface of your app
• Submit to app directories
• Reach out to influential bloggers and request reviews
Post-launch
• Use Google alerts to keep track of every mention of your app
• Request back links from every place your app is favorably mentioned
• Tweet, blog and post to Facebook
• Engage your users and respond to their feedback
• Apply what you learn to future iterations of your app

31. 3 key tips for improving an existing app
Assess your visibility inside the App Store/s
•Are your keywords on target?
•Have you created engaging and keyword-rich App Store content?
Assess your visibility outside the App Store/s
•Is your app listed in the popular directories?
•Has it been reviewed by top app sites and niche blogs in your vertical?
•Have you created branded web content to promote it?
•Do you know where your app is being mentioned?
•Are you using your social spaces to maximize awareness?
Connect with your customers
•Conduct usability testing to validate your content
•Engage your customers in social spaces
•Listen to what they have to say
•Enable them to evangelize your product throughout their social graph
•…and connect with influencers who can spread the word

32. Thank You!
Rachel Pasqua
VP, Mobile Group
iCrossing, a Hearst Company
Rachel.Pasqua@icrossing.com
212.649.3892