Posts in category Uncategorized

Mobile Engagement 101 – Why are your users disabling your push notifications?

May23
2013 Written by Einat Dror

How many times have you woken up your users in the middle of the night with an irrelevant push?

How many times have you sent out an English message to your non-English speaking users?

Have you ever asked your users what they really want?

The consequences of the above can be vital to your apps life cycle, users disabling your push notifications or (god forbid) uninstalling the app from the device. This also means you may have lost them to your competitors’ applications.

A low push rate can mean than 50% of your users will never hear your voice and will most likely turn less and less active with time – lowering the chances of a long and healthy app life cycle.

How do you avoid all this? Very easily-

Send out messages in your users’ local time: Your users are probably spread all around the world. Joe from LA eats his dinner while Ina from Germany is already asleep. Sending out a message at 8pm PDT will probably not suit most of your users in Europe and will wake them up.
Be relevant: Your users have different attributes and behaviors, target them based on the right parameters. A “New version update” message should be sent only to users with an older app version installed; those who already updated wouldn’t want to be bothered again.
Speak their language: Engaging your users in their native language will definitely assist you in getting more value and increase app usage. Target your users based on their device locale regardless of their current location
Understand user behavior – Your most active users are different from your inactive users. Those who haven’t passed the first level of your game might not be interested in hearing about new updated levels.
Ask them – let your users choose what kind of information might interest them. Tag your users based on their interest, needs and wants.
Give your users a voice – Let your users send feedback and comments about your apps, they have much to say and they need a way to say it. Listening to your users’ voice will increase your value and their loyalty.

You should aspire to an average rate of 80%-90% push enabled users! The ability to reach out to them will become your greatest added value.

Increasing your users’ loyalty through a smart engagement strategy will impact your user life time value and app life cycle. Obviously you want to keep your users happy and your ROI positive, this can be done solely through your mobile inbound marketing

Tagged engagement, Mobile, Push Notifications, users

What’s your Appoxee story? TV Network increase shows retention through mobile apps.

Sep10
2012 Written by Einat Dror

Clients have been using Appoxee in so many different ways we feel obligated to share this great story with you.

A major TV network has been using Appoxee to cross promote their main shows and channel through their mobile apps.

See how you can easily use this “bread and butter” method, turning your app engagement into a major business influencer.

An interview with Daniel Joseph, Head of Mobile in Keshet TV broadcasting LTD.

Daniel, great to have you here, tell us about Mako mobile and what type of apps are you publishing

Mako Mobile is the official mobile channel of the major Israeli TV network Keshet and Mako.

We generate apps for the main and popular Mako TV networks including “The Big Brother” and other huge reality and game shows.

Other than building and maintaining the Mobile division within this organization we also generate content applications for different satellite TV channels.

How main is the mobile division within your organization?

The mobile arena is relatively new, around 2 or 3 years old, despite that today we hold over 25 applications over 3 different platforms including Android, iPad and iPhone.

The purpose of developing those apps is mainly for generating an ongoing user engagement with our viewers when some of the apps are even becoming a major fragment of the TV show itself.

What types of role do those apps play? How do they support your brand?

The apps main purpose is to promote new content, new release updates of that content, encourage user infectivity and keep the users aware of new and existing shows schedules.

It’s basically becoming our main foundation for supporting our TV and online sector.

What types of engagement methods do you use to connect with your users?

We deliver a push notification the day of a certain show and prior to a broadcast of the show itself as a reminder to our viewers. We also inform our users regarding important events on our online channel: for example if we have an interview or chat with one of the stars of our shows we send a push prior to that to encourage and cross promote our online platform.

The Appoxee team is always happy to hear how mobile apps complete an important experience in different sectors.

Read more about similar use cases we’ve published in this blog.
For more information contact us at info@appoxee.com

Posted in Best Practices, Engagement, News, Usage Cases

What’s your Appoxee Story? Boosting your App Store Rank through User Engagement.

Jul25
2012 Written by Einat Dror

Providing a service for thousands of app publishers gives you the opportunity to meet very interesting people.
I decided it’s time to finally interview this important member of the Appoxee community.
Selected quotes from the interview with App Marketer Oren Todoros:

“Appoxee was used to skyrocket a recently released app to the top of the charts….”

Also Orens says:

“At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter if you have 10K or 10 Million installs. What’s really important is that your users return to your app frequently, and participate”

Let’s start,
So Oren, how did you hear about Appoxee?

I first heard about Appoxee while researching for app engagement tools. I was looking for a service that would allow my clients to better communicate with their users. At the time, I also launched a few of my own apps, and Appoxee was an essential part of the process.

What was your first experience with Appoxee?

When I first understood the impact that Appoxee could deliver, I couldn’t wait to really use it in an app that would benefit from its strength. Very few services allow developers the flexibility and impact that Appoxee does. More importantly, the team behind Appoxee has always been helpful and willing to try new things towards improving the service.

Tell us briefly about an interesting case study of one of your clients using Appoxee.

Without naming a specific app, I can tell you that Appoxee was used to skyrocket a recently released app to the top of the charts, within the first few hours post going live on the App Store. Anyone who’s ever developed, or been part of the marketing process of an iOS app knows how important it is to reach top ranking spots within the first 24-48 hours of the app going live, and with Appoxee we achieved this.

Obviously this also means that a prior user base was required on a series of apps, in order to best leverage Appoxee. This was in fact a tactic we planned well in advance. Going forward, I can safely say that I don’t see myself publishing an app on the App Store without integrating Appoxee first.

Why is engagement so important for a marketing strategy?

At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter if you have 10K or 10 Million installs. What’s really important is that your users return to your app frequently, and participate. Users who return frequently are more likely to tell their friends about your app, and become your best influencer. What better marketing method can you think of than that?

Another super important reason that engagement is very important is monetization. Users who return and use your app on a regular basis are more likely to click on an ad, make an in-app purchase or any other monetization model that may have been implemented.

How can Appoxee help companies with their marketing strategy?

Overall, the Appoxee team understands app marketing, therefore I would recommend meeting with them at least once prior to an app going live. More specifically, Appoxee’s push, offer wall and analytics tools are a must for anyone who’s serious about succeeding in the mobile app industry.
One of the methods we use most often is using Appoxee to create pre-launch hype for upcoming apps, in order to get users excited about what we’ll be releasing next.

Your tip to the mobile world
If you’re just getting started in the mobile industry, the sooner you understand that marketing works best via mobile devices, the better off you will be. Traditional web marketing channels aren’t very effective, so stick to what works and build your strategy around that. The last thing I’ll mention is that the best marketing vehicle you’ll have, is another app, so get cracking’ on developing a network.

Oren Todoros – CEO
Daily Mobile Report
http://www.dailymobilereport.com/

Posted in Best Practices, Usage Cases - Tagged Marketing, Mobile, Push Notifications, user engagement

News app case study #1- Engagement Benchmarks

Mar14
2012 Written by Einat Dror

Appoxee Case study – News organizations

One of the largest news organizations in the Middle East has been using Appoxee for over 12 months. Much insight has been gained via this relationship and we would like to share some of it.
The client’s name has been changed to “Middle East News” for this purpose to protect their privacy.
The Story:
• Prior to installing Appoxee in their apps, Middle East News was one of the first news organizations in the Middle East to enter the mobile arena.
• Middle East News has been publishing its news for over 3 decades via print and later via the web. In 2008 with the launch of the IOS platform, Middle East News developed 2 apps internally (one for each of its brands) to deliver its news to its readers. Since they were first in the local market, their apps were initially a large success with a very high download rate. As time progressed, competing news organizations joined the band wagon and Middle East News now had to compete for the user’s attention.
• Looking for a solution to engage their readers more actively, Middle East News approached Appoxee to provide its service to their apps. They integrated Appoxees in app inbox as well as Appoxees push notification services.
How is Middle East News using Appoxee.
1) PUSH NOTIFICATIONS: Middle East News sends out relevant breaking news via Appoxee powered push notifications to its users.
Some interesting conclusions from this practice:
a) After over 8 months of delivering breaking news via Appoxee 95% of users still have their push notifications enabled for the application. This goes to prove the readers find their breaking news via push as a highly relevant service. On, average over 5 push notifications are sent daily.
b) App usage has surged dramatically since the usage of Appoxee has begun. Middle East News has seen a 4 fold increase in average daily usage since the breaking news service was initiated.
c) Increased usage has lead to increased ad sales in the applications (the only direct source of revenue for Middle East News via its applications)

App activations

* Due to the fact that Middle East News has readers all across the globe Middle East News has recently begun sending out breaking news in local languages to users based on their country utilizing Appoxees segmentation and targeting capabilities.

2) INAPP INBOX: Middle East News uses Appoxees InApp Inbox to deliver supplementary content to its readers including, monthly caricatures, public opinion surveys, customer satisfaction surveys, bug reports, and more.

Inbox and survey

Some interesting conclusions from this practice:
a) The Monthly Caricature has an average read rate of over 65% within 30 days.
b) Political Surveys sent every so often have a open rate of over 50% and a participation rate of over 25%. Meaning 25% of people who opened the message actually engaged it by filling in the survey. Note that these surveys are usually a Yes/No question.
c) Middle East News has a practice of setting up facebook fan pages for its top news categories. They have recently used the Appoxee InApp Inbox to notify their readers of the individual fans pages for each category. Fan page likes increased over 500% in less than one week of the message being sent into the app.

*Middle East News has recently tested server commercial messages that were sent into the InApp Inbox. These messages where tested on a small segment of users to gage the level of interest by the end users. Initial data shows that there is a very high conversion rate for commercial messages that are considered by the end users as relevant or contextual.

3) FEEDBACK MECHNISM: Using Appoxee Feedback Mechanism Middle East News has gained invaluable insight into their reader’s mobile specific needs. Giving users a place to vent, compliment, Middle East News has received tens of thousands of user feedbacks. These feedbacks have allowed them to:

a. Fix previsouly unknown issues with their app
b. Add relevant news categories based on reader demand
c. Improve UX design based on users feedback.
d. Direct happy users to review their app on the app store and at the same time to direct unhappy users to vent directly to Middle East News rather than to the App store review area which is public.

*Middle East News has recently assigned the CRM team to directly answer comments made VIA Appoxees Feedback mechanism.

Posted in Engagement, News, Usage Cases

The Burst Effect. What is it? How do you do it? and What can it do for your app ranking?

Jan30
2012 Written by Elad Kushnir

Some of you may know the marketing model pioneered by FAAD (Free App a Day). For those of you who don’t here’s a short summary. FAAD developed an app that markets other apps. They create value for the end user by “convincing” app developers to give away their paid apps for free for one day. During this day they send out a push notification to the FAAD users notifying them that this and this app is now free for 24 hours. The user click on the push notification, which in turn opens the FAAD app on a landing page which allows users to download the app.

But what value do they create for the developers? If an app was paid and now its free for 24 hours how is that going to benefit the developer? The argument is that because the FAAD user base is large the amount of downloads that they can generate is large enough to cause the app to rank high on the app store. This is the BURST EFFECT. Apples app store rankings are calculated by the number of downloads per 15 minutes (rankings get updated every 15 minutes). So if your app gets lots of downloads quickly you may find yourself ranked. Getting ranked in the top 100 apps of any category is always a good thing since it drives organic downloads (IE not just the people who saw your message but people who are browsing the app store). People browse the app store categories top apps. Its the most popular and effective method of app discovery.

Now…we know what the burst effect is. But how can you achieve this without FAAD (Oh did I mention being a FAAD app for one day costs thousands of dollars?). The answer is with Appoxee. There are some prerequisites for you to be able to achieve it but many of our app developers have all they need to make it happen.

You will need: More than one app and at least one app with a large number of users (preferably over 50,000 users with push enabled) or many apps with a aggregate number. If your numbers are even larger your chances of success (getting your app into the rankings) are very high.

Now all you need to do is send a rich message, with out push to your users (remember the more people you send it to the better) notifying them of your other app.

Obviously you will need to design the message with a clickable link to the app store to entice users to download. You can read how to do that in Appoxee here.

Also this tactic will work even better if your apps are related in context somehow. If your developing kids books pushing one book through the another will work best because you know your targeting your target market (parents with kids in this example).

Hope this gives you some food for thought. Keep following our blog for more suggestions and tactics.

Love you all. The Appoxee Team.

Posted in Best Practices, Engagement, How to - Tagged app ranking, Appoxee, FAAD

Boost your app with the right ingredients- Featuring 12 services

Jan23
2012 Written by Einat Dror

Nothing comes in handier than a fully covered blog post by a true marketing savvy.

In the post below Oren Todoros (AppsMarketing) gives every app owner and developer the most accessible and useful tools to help you turn your app into a fully equipped business.

Taking in consideration the complete funnel from the development phase up to the launch and the life after the download, you as an app owner can choose the most important services to throw into the pan.

As an experienced app owner/developer you already understand that having a great idea for an app is not quite enough, executing it right on the other hand will get you on the right track.

Click here to read more

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Tagged Apps, Marketing, Mobile, Oren Todoros