Starting a new business venture can be a daunting experience, especially when introducing mobile products. You not only have to deal with all the business logistics and financial burdens of your new business; but, you also have the worries that you might not attract an audience. Marketing your product is a vital link to your desired success.
In recent times, we have seen a change in marketing strategies with many companies now opting to build marketing into their product, enabling these products to become viral. Seamless sharing helps word-of-mouth grow your business, increasing your audience at a rapid rate. While the marketing strategies below can be used in any industry, think of them in terms of marketing your mobile products.
What Does Building Marketing Into Your Product Really Mean?
It is common knowledge that those who have experienced your product are in a prime position to share their experiences with others. There is no better marketing than word-of-mouth.
Learning to get your audience to talk about and share their experience with your product all comes down to building marketing into your product through social networking links such as like buttons, tweets and share buttons. Building marketing into your product means giving your audience the ability to talk about and share your product from within the product.
Build Your Audience: Before you launch your product, it is vital that you have already built an audience. There is not much use sharing information if there is no one to receive it. Building content for your social audience prior to launch will help to create your initial user base. Content should be based around the product, but should never be aimed at selling the product. You are creating your brand and showing your intense knowledge of the mobile products industry, thus building trust in your ability and your brand.
Have A Dedicated Landing Page: When people download your app, or arrive at your business website, a dedicated landing page is recommended. The landing page is not the same as your homepage. This page will offer the users a chance to sign up for offers, monthly newsletters and RSS feeds. It should always include tick boxes to allow sharing to social sites. You can learn more about dedicated landing pages from our friends at Hubspot.
Plan Social Sharing Messages: In addition to having the opportunity for your audience to share information from within your landing page, you should also have share buttons and social links throughout your mobile app/website. When a social link is created, an automated message will be seen within the social network sites. This message should have pre-set messages that you have created.
An example of a pre-set message for sign-up could simply read, I’ve just signed-up to (your app/website name). You need to ensure that your social networking link is hyperlinked within the app/website name. What you must never do is have any form of selling on your social messages. People do not wish to be sold products. Keep the message short and concise.
Marketing From Within The Product
Pinterest is a prime example of a company that has flourished on marketing from within the product. They are currently seeing 45% monthly growth, mirroring the success Facebook had in 2006. Facebook grew from 14 million unique users to 26 million unique users between May 2006 and May 2007, and by November 2008, they had grown to 140 million unique users.
Pinterest did not go viral immediately; in fact, they only had 40,000 unique users after 8 months. However, they were sustained because the product, unlike games, maintains its audience for a longer period.
At the beginning, users were not sharing as frequently as they are now. For example, if you invite one friend per month, who then invites one friend per month, the growth will not escalate as rapidly as if you were inviting one friend per week — it’s a snowball effect.
Pinterest could build their viral effect slowly because their product kept existing users, allowing them to tweak their product-sharing and engagement techniques in the early days.
Pinterest has various product-sharing and engagement techniques that are now in place. For example, within their own network, they have the ability to pin, repin and like, sharing content within the product to existing users, keeping their existing users active.
In addition, they have out-of-network sharing such as Facebook likes, shares and Twitter. Existing users also get emails to alert them of new pins that may be of interest and receive notifications when others have repined their pins. All in all, Pinterest has managed to capture seamless sharing while marketing from within the product.
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