The mission of HOKO is to help mobile developers to create outstanding user engagement for their apps. We’ve created an easy to use deep linking platform that helps you to improve your incoming traffic, engagement metrics, everything - with the most advanced technology available. Yet, to get the most out of your potential users – and deep linking – you should know a few growth tricks that can take your app to the next level. For this reason, we start a new series on the HOKO blog to nurture your growth hacking skills.
First, you need a framework that will give you a view on every factor that impacts your success. Let’s borrow the tool that has proven to be the most effective:
The Growth Funnel
The concept of the growth funnel allows you to create milestones along your customer's journey with your product. From the first discovery of your app, right the way through to their conversion into a loyal user and advocate (if you have done everything right!).
From visitors to advocates
Step 1:
The most straightforward step of all is about creating awareness. To gain new customers, first you need to be discovered. Relying on luck to be discovered in the App Store won’t work. You need to find other ways to attract people to your app’s online presence. It has a website, right? Even a simple one can help, because it enables you to track visitors and conversion rates. You want to get a ton of visitors because it will limit how many users you can convert into customers. Things you should consider:
- On how many channels can people discover your app?
- Does your app have an SEO-optimized website?
- Do you promote it by blog, social media channels or advertising?
- Do you use smart links to promote your app?
Step 2:
You have your visitors’ attention, but do you have their curiosity? The next challenge is to convince them in a blink of an eye that they need your app. You can emphasize its benefits, charm users by telling them how awesome they will be with the app, and play on FOMO – or choose one of the thousand other techniques. Take a good look at your landing page (and the first few lines of every message you send to the world), and consider these questions:
- Is it attractive both visually and copy-wise?
- Does it mention what other people think about your app?
- Does it tell the visitors why the app is a must have?
- Does it explore your app's features?
- How hard is it to get to your app from the landing page?
Step 3:
It wasn’t easy, but you have a steady stream of new users. Yay! Now, work on keeping them for as long as you can – or whatever is good for your business. Connect with your users in meaningful ways so that they keep coming back to your app and fully appreciate it. Linking the context in which users found your app and the screen they see first in it can create a wonderful first experience, what will dramatically increase the chances of come back. To improve the return rate of users, consider these questions:
- Does your app’s functionality compel users to come back?
- Are you creating personalized landing experiences?
- Do you remind the users with notifications or newsletters to get back to your app?
- Do you use smart links in the newsletters to improve your re-engagement metrics?
Step 4:
Your visitors turn into returning users like a charm. You’ve left behind more than 60% of the app ecosystem, the apps that couldn’t get their users to make frequent returns. Congratulations! But here comes the fun part: can you get even more value out of the users? Sure, just make your current users promote your app for you. This is the most important step to go viral, because they know your app very well and like it – you couldn’t ask for better spokespersons – that’s why friendly referrals are far more effective in converting new customers than ads. Consider the following:
- Do you ask the long-time users or the new ones to invite friends?
- Do you motivate and incentivise (e.g., with gifts) users to invite others?
- Have you created a personalized first experience for the invitees?
Use the funnel to evaluate and improve your performance
To get the most out of the growth hacking efforts, you should evaluate these steps in the context of the whole growth funnel. The purpose of the model is to help you decide where your process is strong and weak, and where to focus your resources for the maximum return.
When you consider where to place your energy, sometimes the funnel can make decisions for you. Imagine that you get 100 new visitors a day. 20% of all site visitors install your app (20) and 30% of those convert to regular users (6). In this case, your focus should be on getting new visitors since your conversion rates in every step are already high. A different scenario would dictate a different action. If you have 1000 daily visitors, 20% of them install the app (200) and 3% of those keep using the app (6), you will have the same retention rate as in the previous example, but your engagement is extremely weak. In this case, you should focus all your energy in improving the user experience and re-engagement tools. Each situation calls for a different solution, but with this model in mind, you can always find the source of the problems.
Did we miss something from the post? Tweet your suggestions to @hokolinks with the hashtag #growth!
