Ask IH: How do you market a productivity tracking app?
I'm building Mastery, a habit tracking app for the iPhone. I recently wrote a piece about my daily struggle to work on this side project and the measures I'm taking to keep myself going:
I've also setup a bare minimum landing page (for free) for people to signup. I've got 13 signups in about a week.
http://mastery.strikingly.com/
However, I'm struggling to define my target user group. They can be anybody trying to do better in life. Starting from indie hackers who want to code daily, fitness enthusiasts who want to hit the gym daily, to bloggers who want to write daily.
It's unhealthy to have such a broad, generic and ambiguous target group. Need advice.
Even if your application solution solves a problem that a broad population has, you personally only have so much time in a day to spend on marketing. It seems like you already are aware that narrowing down your target user group is necessary, and that's perfect!
My initial suggestion is to do a few things. The first is to have a discussion with people you know about the problem you're trying to solve. What issues do they have in the problem domain? It could be quitting smoking, taking out their garbage on time every week, or spending 15 minutes a day learning a musical instrument. You may get some really good insight into how your solution solves certain specific problems you may not have considered.
The second thing is to do some brainstorming and research on your own. Identify a product that has a complementary problem domain to yours, like a to-do list app. Hop on something like Facebook Insights and do some demographic research into the types of people who are interested in a specific app, and then see what else they may be interested in. See if you find themes. Maybe your research will show that there is a demographic group that likes to-do list apps and also likes dogs; that group may be open to an app that helps them get in the habit of walking or running with their dog every day. That could be a target group to market to.
The third thing is that you need something that makes Mastery stand out. From a positioning standpoint, it has to different than the 1000 other workout apps on the app store, or the apps that have a spin on the "don't break the chain" habit-forming method. Who can you make it appeal to that no other app is servicing? Can you position it as a high-end premium product? It doesn't have to be a unique feature no one else has, but it does have to be something that screams "look at me, I'm different!" to specific groups of people.
Once you've identified a couple of groups, then you can figure out where you will market to them. You can't determine where you market to them until you figure out who "them" are first.
Ryan, thanks a lot for your reply. I've been away for some time so couldn't reply back.
I've had a chat with a couple of marketing folks and what they've said is on the lines of what you've mentioned. Especially how it has to be different from the other 1000 similar apps claiming to be the best.
I've already started working your first and second suggestions. I'll keep you posted. Thanks again!