This podcast episode discusses 5 low-cost marketing strategies for skyrocketing app marketing: 1) email marketing to build an audience before launch and nurture leads, 2) referral/incentive programs to encourage word-of-mouth, 3) content marketing to attract interested users, 4) paid advertising such as mobile ads to test what traffic brings conversions, and 5) publicity through press and influencers which can lead to sudden growth. The episode emphasizes testing approaches and tracking key metrics like cost per installation to optimize marketing efforts on a budget.

1. The Buzinga Podcast
Ep 6: 5 Low Hanging Fruits To Skyrocket Your App Marketing
• Hey guys, Logan Merrick here and you’re listening to
episode 6 of The Buzinga Podcast:
• The number 1 resource for startups building and growing
their business in the tech space.
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2. The Buzinga Podcast
Ep 6: 5 Low Hanging Fruits To Skyrocket Your App Marketing
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• How you can listen to this podcast:
1. On iTunes
2. Through any podcast app on your smartphone
3. Listen on our blog at buzinga.com.au/buzz with
shownotes for each episode.
4. Watch with accompanying slides on Youtube
5. Read the slides without audio on SlideShare

3. What we’re talking about today
Low-cost (low hanging fruit) app marketing strategies
• What is ‘ low hanging fruit’ in marketing?
• The number 1 most reported internal challenge for
Australian startups is customer acquisition (Startup
Muster Report, 2015).
• If you’re interested, the most reported external
challenge was raising funding!
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Most reported internal challenges for Australian
startups in 2015:

4. What we’re talking about today
Low-cost (low hanging fruit) app marketing strategies
• This data suggests that most startups lack sales skills or a
knowledge of how the ‘marketing funnel’ works.
• The paradox: Apps attract users through:
1. good ratings
2. word of mouth and
3. recommendations from existing users
• But how can you attract those initial users who will get
the ball rolling?
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5. In this episode…
• 5 cost-effective, lean customer acquisition strategies:
1. Email marketing
2. Referral/incentive marketing
3. Product-driven content
4. Paid online advertising
5. Publicity
• How to be where your users are
• How much should it cost? Benchmarks for CPI.
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6. 1. Email marketing
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• All your online marketing efforts are worthless if they’re
not generating leads that could become app users.
• For apps, leads are normally found in the form of email
addresses and names.
• An email address means this person already has an
interest in your product or content.
• The next step: How can your nurture them from an email
address to an actual app user?

7. 1. Email marketing
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• Your email marketing strategy specifies how you will
push those first-level leads down the ‘funnel.
• Your strategy should be modified to suit your target
audience, industry and channels available to you.

8. 1. Email marketing
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An example framework of a pre-launch email marketing
funnel:
1. Set up a website or landing page to collect email
addresses from people who have indicated interest in your
launch.
See also: How To Build A Must Have Pre-Launch App
Landing Page
2. At least 3 months before launch: start marketing to drive
people to your app website or a landing page.
3. Send regular, added-value emails.
• Blog articles
• ‘behind the scenes’ photos
• exclusive offers
• Anything else you think your audience would be
interested in!
4. Just before launch: Seal the deal with an exclusive offer,
discount, or access to the beta release.

9. 1. Email marketing
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• What’s the point? Doesn’t everyone hate email?
• It keeps your app top of mind in the months or weeks
before launch.
• You can also run referral programs in this email. Offer
your existing database an incentive (like in-app rewards)
to spread word about your product.
• This action could be in the form of a share on social
media or getting a friend to subscribe (ie: collecting a
new email for more leads).
• By the time your app is launched they’ll be compelled to
get first access to the thing they’ve been learning about
for weeks!
What’s the point?

10. 2. Referral/incentive marketing
• 40% of people report that the main reason they give
away their emails or follow an app on social media is to
receive special offers and discounts.
• Particularly if your app integrates in-app purchasing, this
is a powerful way to both acquire new users and
increase loyalty.
• It’s also pretty much essential if your app relies on the
‘network effect’: They rely on a large database of users
to make the service worthwhile (Eg Tinder, Venmo).
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11. 2. Referral/incentive marketing
• Network-effect apps often incentivise a localised group
of people to use the app, who will encourage their
networks to sign up so they can get more value from it.
(Eg Facebook on college campuses)
• From this, word of mouth can spread across user’s
networks quite rapidly.
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12. 2. Referral/incentive marketing
• The key with incentive marketing is thorough testing.
• What is the minimum value you can offer that will
appeal to the largest audience?
• Vinomofo tested many different levels of incentives to
acquire its first customers.
• They started with incentives loaded towards the invitee,
with nothing for the recipient, and then the other way
around.
• Ultimately they settled on giving equal credit to both
parties: $25 credit to the referrer and the new customer.
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The key to irresistible incentives…

13. 2. Referral/incentive marketing
• Uber uses this same referral scheme with ‘free rides’ to
the value of $25.
• Why does it work? It ‘de-risks’ the activity of using the
app for the first time, and it makes your users do all the
advertising for you – high credibility.
• Results: More loyal users and positive word of mouth
effects.
• You gotta spend money to make money!
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The key to irresistible incentives…

14. 3. Product-driven content
What is content marketing?
• Blogs
• Social media posts
• Educational or entertaining videos
• Email newsletters
• Podcasts
• Ebooks
• Webinars
• Quizzes
• Content can be as creative as you want it to be!
• You’re pulling in leads with stuff they like, as opposed
to pushing out spam and self-promotional advertising
that interrupts their lives.
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15. 3. Product-driven content
Evernote has a widely read blog with articles on
1. how to increase your daily productivity
2. tips on how to use different product features
3. case studies and interviews with high-profile users.
• channel-specific content – video performs really well on
Facebook, so they run a video series on their Facebook
page featuring their sponsors and interviews with key
influencers who use their app.
• Promotion: Shared with email databases and social
media accounts, which get shared and bring in more
leads.
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Content case study: Evernote

16. 3. Product-driven content
• You need to understand which content performs best on
different channels and where you can share it:
1. Your email list
2. Social accounts
3. Forums or Facebook/Linkedin in groups
4. Guest posting
5. Syndication
6. Repurposing (Slideshare, Youtube, infographics) to
squeeze more value out of one piece of content.
7. Outreach to influencers
• See also: A Quick And Dirty Guide To Crafting A Killer
Content Strategy For Your App
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17. 4. Paid online advertising
• The biggest advantage of paid advertising: You can see
where your money is going.
• If you spend $20, you know exactly how many
conversions (clicks, downloads, leads) it got you
• You can calculate your cost per install (CPI) to adjust
spending accordingly.
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18. 4. Paid online advertising
Online advertising comes in three main forms (ordered
most to least expensive)
1. CPM (cost per thousand impressions) – You pay the
advertiser a certain amount per 1 thousand single times
your ad was viewed.
2. CPC (cost per click) – You pay the advertiser a certain
amount per click on your ad. Google does this to
target searchers who already exhibit intent to click (through
demographics and previous browsing behaviour).
3. CPA (cost per acquisition) – You decide on a customer
acquisition mechanism, like app installs that came from
someone clicking on your ad, or a registration to your
service, and pay the advertiser for that acquisition.
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3 forms of online app advertising

19. 4. Paid online advertising
• Step 1 of launching an ad campaign – The ‘Spray N Pray’,
• You use a number of different ad networks and track
which ones worked the best.
• From Spray N Pray check which traffic sources gave you
the most acquisitions.
• You’ll need to use software that can track these analytics
– check out the top 10 app analytics tools to help you
make your decision.
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20. 4. Paid online advertising
Some great user acquisition networks to tap into are:
• Mobile ad networks like Adroll, AdMob.
• Incentive based download programs like Tapjoy, App-o-
day.
• Real-time bidding platforms like Mopub.
• Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all now let you create
your own app install ads and target them based on
device, audience demographics and interests.
• Download The Social Media Playbook For App
Developers for steps on how to do this.
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21. 5. Publicity
• PR – press releases, app reviews or being featured on a
popular publication or blog.
• Without a media company to do it for you, outreach can
be a lot of emailing and rejection.
• But it’s easily the fastest and most effective way to get a
flood of downloads.
• It only takes one good act of press to get the ball rolling,
and gives you social proof you can leverage for MORE
publicity.
• The reason publicity is so powerful of its inherent virality.
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Why do some apps seem to blow up overight?

22. 5. Publicity
• It has the potential to reach audiences you wouldn’t
otherwise have access to
• its easily shared online
• it has 3rd party credibility and word of mouth effects
• Gets you backlinks to your website/app store page,
which boosts your search ranking on Google and in the
App Store.
Check out How To Get Key Influencers To Rave About Your
App for some best app publicity practices.
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Why is publicity inherently viral?

23. 5. Publicity
• Target smaller, localized and niche interest blogs for a
better chance of being written up
• Focus your outreach efforts on what featuring your app
can do for them, not for you.
• Include links to all your landing pages, contact details
and social profiles in the email.
• Leverage your contacts and ask for an
introduction/endorsement
• Don’t forget about social media! Reach out to Facebook
admins and any social profiles that may be relevant
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Top tips for getting publicity

24. Know where your users hang out
• Before implementing anything, you need to assess what
channels will get you the most bang for your buck.
1. Ask customers where they hang out online
2. Build relationships in those places
3. Once you have some traction, branch out into other
tactics.
• Eg: if you have a document scanning app you should
focus on LinkedIn, not Instagram, because your user is a
professional or corporate.
• In your early days, go for maximum reach for minimum
spend. Then, with data, go more niche.
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The first place you should start is talking to your customers

25. How much should it cost?
• CPI refers to how much it costs to acquire one unique
customer (an app install).
• CPI = Total cost of all your sales and marketing activities/
number of installs (or customers) you got, for a given
period of time.
• Eg: if you spent $5000 on mobile ad networks and
acquired 500 new users, your CPI would be $10.
• Fiksu’s client data shows that in Jan 2-16, the average CPI
for iOS was $1.64, and for Android it was $1.91.
• Obviously, when you first deploy your marketing
strategies your CPI will be high, and ideally decrease
over time.
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Benchmarks for CPI

26. Summary
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• These 5 strategies are just the lowest hanging fruit for
app startups.
• Mix and match both organic and paid methods to push
customers down the funnel and download your app!
• For best results: Be smart with data and test
EVERYTHING.

27. Further resources
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• Hope this has been engaging!
• If you want to learn more about customer acquisition
then check out our blog, I’ve included 3 relevant blogs in
the show notes:
1. 40 Mobile App User Acquisition Tactics For The Broke
And Desperate
2. Launch Hack: How To Get 100,000 Downloads In A
Month
3. The Complete Startup Marketing Plan Template For
Never Ending Revenue

28. Thanks for listening!
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• For more of this please subscribe on iTunes, watch on
Youtube with accompanying slides or on our website at
buzinga.com.au/the-buzinga-podcast
• See you on the next episode!