How would you "wisely" reinvest 1000$/m in your mobile app grow?
Hi guys! First of all thanks for the chance to be a part of IH community! Have a questions that bothering me for a couple of months. Two years ago I've implemented two simple mobile apps (just google UVIMate to get the product context) as a side project with a humble aim to generate 300$ per month to pay back my monthly beer supply. This year the app got some traction, was futured in a couple of tabloids and started to bring home something around 1000$/m. I'm not a marketing guy and the grow was primarily achieved thought organic Google Play/App Store acquisition and positive users feedback. My question is - how would you wisely reinvest that revenue to support the grow even further? Would you buy AppStore/ Google Play Ads? Would you try any other ads systems like Quora/Twitter? Would you go to the Promotehour in chasing for some possible press coverage? Would you double down on SEO? Or shall I just increase my monthly beer consumption and launch the second app to multiply the income? Now I'm really in doubt what shall I do. What would you suggest?
Hi Alex,
You should consider investing your budget into Google Play or App Store Ads. Apple recently released creative testing this year. This will allow you to test different images to see which ones have the lowest CPI (Cost Per Install). Google already has this feature but I would also only focus on one platform for now so that you can really test and optimize that channel.
There is normally an extreme power law when it comes to marketing channels. One will work extremely well and the lowers will not.
Edit: formatting
I would start experimenting with Google Play and App Store ads. Just make sure your cost to acquire a customer (not just clicks, actual download and active) is less than what you earn from each customer.
If it works you can scale it up, or you will learn a lot about marketing. Either way you will learn a lot. Good luck!
Congrats on your progress so far Alex!
Have you tried pushing this to hotels/holiday companies in sunny destinations at all? I was on holiday a couple of months back and there was a dedicated person at the hotel who's job it was to educate people on sun safety! Maybe some guest blog posts or sponsorship could get you in front of these companies and exposure to their large customer base who could benefit from your app!
Thanks for the reply Mike! Wow, I've never heard about that type of sun safety concierge at the hotels! Some promotion within travel industry definitely was crossing my mind before... I should probably try to reach out some travel bloggers/instagrammers or even pitch to some big hotel chains just for experience! Cheers!
Sleek UI, are both apps native or you programmed them with react native or something cross platform?
I think it’s very useful app and you can grow and optimize it further, and if you figure out how to pay 1$ and acquire users which bring 1.20$ you’re having a great business then.
Hi Denis! Thanks for your reply! Both apps are native and were specifically designed to provide widgets (home widgets on Android and Today's Widgets on iOS) and watch experience (Android Wear and Apple Watch) for both platforms. The apps conversion rate is decent (4.3% for iOS version and 2.3% for Android) but for now the app's LTV is quite small (something around 10-15$) so I'm not sure there is any mobile app paid acquisition channel with positive ROI for so low LTV. Let say I put 100$ in acquisition for 1$ per installations. It's 100 users, 4 of them buying the app (that's a very optimistic number by the way) and bring 4*10$ = 40$ in revenue. ROI is still negative. That why I think ads isn't the "flywheel" (Rob's Walling term).
Did you consider running a subscription boxes for people sensitive to UV.
I live in Toronto and we’ve got high UV here in summer. At least I get way more burns here then say in Southern California. I’m also rather sensitive to sun. But with short yet intensive summer you still try to be as much outside as possible.
Simple things - a hoodie rash guards are hard to purchase (or cost 80$ from Patagonia), especially for kids. When my kids show up on a beach in such rashguards often parents approach me and ask where did I get those. I use 110 UV rated sunscreen which is also hard to acquire. Comfortable sun covering hats which don’t look stupid but would cover neck. Etc etc.
Thanks Denis, the sun safety subscription box is an awesome idea, especially for Australia where I'm living! In that case the app will become just a laser targeted marketing channel through which I would offer the box delivered to the end user. That will increase my LTV significantly... I'll think that out!
maybe set up an ecommerce store with sun related products.
add a newsletter for unique sun related products.
maybe at that point the app could go for free and just use to to drive traffic to your store/subscription etc.
for people that bought the app give a coupon to your store.
Hi Bob! Thanks for your reply! I've already shared with my wife the idea of a simple sun safety subscription box full of Western Australian sun safety products like surf butter, local sun screen, lip balm and she loved it. Will start to explore that revenue channel for sure! Thanks to Denis and you to steering me to that direction.
It seems you have a lot of avenues right now and no real idea of what will work. So you need to work on building a marketing plan. Write down every single possible form of marketing you can think of, and go into deep detail for each type w/ details of how/what you would do and how much time/money it would cost you.
For every example, make an estimate of the cost if you'd learn it yourself versus if you'd outsource it to someone (both to build a concrete action plan + execute the task, keep these numbers separate).
For each possibility, get a realistic sense (estimate) of its ROI. Read stories from other people, research some statistics, ask someone for advice, ...
Once you have these numbers, it'll become self-explanatory what you need to be doing.
In short: Either you (most likely) need to be hiring someone for their advice/experience to get you started (make sure they do all of the above & show you this process), or you'll be shooting in the wild (guessing/gambling). For the latter, you don't need any advice, gambling isn't a science.
I was about to write more beer!
Personally I dont feel like ads in any place would give you a decent ROI, so the best bet would be to focus on Press and SEO (which is the same channel IMHO) to support your AppStore Rankings and people finding you which actually search for a solution in this moment.
One other thing I can suggest from my own experience in the PlayStore (If you havent already) is to invest into internationalization for the top 10-15 languages. Not only in App text but also in content, Images and marketing materials. Look for native speakers via upwork and hire them on a project basis for small translation packages. We we're able to 3-4x our app revenues by expanding to other countries.
Thanks Patric, I've already done some internalisation for Google Store and it definitely helped to increase the app awareness amongst some regions (especially in Latin America). I also lean to SEO and Press outreach cause my LTV is quite small (10-15$) and positive ROI could be achieved just through the long term presence on niche forums/blogs and evergreen marketing materials. Have you had any positive experience with press outreach for your product? Could you recommend any service/agency that could help me to start with press?
Unfortunately not (PR experience). At least not for the apps business as it is quite niche and low-pr-interest. What made most sense in our case is to reach out to app-review-blogs.
But we're having a similar situation there. Low intrinsic motivation and interest in the topic itself, main traffic is from within the Stores, <1k MRR so we basically just let it run and do some yearly app updates if necessary.
Sometimes it comes to mind "what if we do X or try Y to double revenue?" but most of the time any marketing activity just seems too much of an effort for the return... ;-)
Btw. as I write this I realize this is probably the way the big corps like Blockbuster just go bust someday because there not passionate about the topic anymore and wont change / try anything new because "never change a running system" - lazy me...
Hi Alex, you have a wide variety of options that you already know/ have thought about! Though I'd love the last one, I'd suggest you'd spend some more time writing about these on relevant forums and ads to support this! Will have a look at the product before I can suggest some particular ones in your domain!
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Thank for the reply! One of the tactics that cross my mind after your post reading was to reach out the travel instagrammers for one time sun safety promotion campaign right before the summer travel season. Will keep it locked at my marketing backlog for sure!