Not All Days Are Created Equal - GMIC SP Presentation

Slides from the GMIC presentation with Basic Notes!

In this more international world, we rely more and more on our phones to get around, be it translation apps, maps, or services like Uber and AirBnb and we expect them to work immediately!

Although it might not be the biggest day for conversions, sales, upselling, or general money making, its the only day where we have 100% of the audience, so we need to capitalize!

A look at the various tiers of apps (courtesy of Quettra).  The big take aways are three:

1. Unless you're an amazing app, you'll lose more users than you keep on day one
2. You'll likely lose more users in day one than the next 90 days combined
3. The tiers of apps drop users at similar rates after day one, whether they are the top 10 or an average app, the lines run in parallel

Just look at this huge base of users we're all missing out on by messing up day one!

Problems first, solutions second!

It starts with the creatives, ads, and how you position the app not with the apps opening (sadly we can't all grow with no marketing!).  You need to make sure you are clear and obvious about the value add (and make sure you can back up the value add).  Remember, in an average month, Brazilian click ads at nearly double the global average.

You only get one single screen for the App Store and the Play Store, so make them count and make them part of the flow.  This is where the emotional bond starts since it feels like it belongs to you!

Once you've convinced a user to download and use the app, make sure you're fast and enjoyable.  No one wants to wait even longer to get into the app they downloaded.

So assuming you haven't lost them with a boring creative, app store listing, or first touch, you get them into your funnel.  Here we have the opposite problem, too many options, too many choices, and no clear route forward.

And finally, we have to think about the competition.  Do they look better or are they better?  Because really you have to do both in day one.  If they look better, you're already deleted from the phone in favor of them, and if they are better, you're gone as well!

So the user feels like their in the wild west of apps, riding into a town expecting what you've sold them on and the whole thing collapses around them.

Blazing saddles clip: https://video.anyclip.com/movies/blazing-saddles/raiding-the-fake-town/

RIP Gene Wilder

Should we abandon all hope?  No!

Make sure you're adding real value, the user should be this happy!  Make their life better, like the Starbucks app did for me (I'm a sweaty runner and like to swing through at the end of the run, but don't want to carry cash because it gets wet with sweat or a card I might drop).  People's best moments can happen in an app, think about people sitting around counting their likes for a selfie, that's a real happy moment.  You can give them that joy, make their life easier, or solve a problem they don't even know they have!

So if you can make them happy, then you have to make them trust you and that you can keep making them happy.  Do this by staying focused and keeping this feeling the same (notice I've got another dog here!).  Product, marketing, development, and UX need to sit down and make sure their all on the same page, not each doing their own thing.

Then make sure your ASO is on point.  The most common issue I see in Latam startups is not taking this page seriously and putting an intern in charge of this (had someone come up after and embarrassingly admit they have one right now and they are a BIG company).  Put the Head of Marketing/Social/Product in charge of this.  Heck, a startup at an early phase with an app, needs this page to be a success, make the CEO own it!  Its free easy traffic.  We've seen organic users download from the play store at 18% and 80%.  Thats 4x+.  We're talking getting 1.000 users for R$1.000 or R$250!

And then, make sure you're selling what you do and doing what you sell.

Bonus points for deferred deeplinking.  Just take a user to the right place, if they are clicking on ads about Orange shoes, take them to orange shows, not your ecommerce homescreen! (Facebook reference https://developers.facebook.com/docs/app-ads/deep-linking)  

First, notice even more continuity, more dogs!  

Then, on to training.  This is going to take user research, BI, and then UX working together.  First, look at your event tracking and find any "magic events" or the events that occur the most in the first day/session for users you retain!  Then try to find a way to include that in your onboarding (contextual onboarding is best, like below, not just 3 slides the first time they open the app).  Once you have a way to do that, bring in users and test it!  50 users a year (average one a week, plus two weeks vacation!) should be enough to have an impact.  You can then figure out if its correlation or causation and get users started on their journey through at least one key event.

So the dogs were my creatives and got you in the right mood, so let's take a look at my favorite onboarding experience in Brazil: https://youtu.be/RakH1dZlUX8

They focus on creating that joy (find your dog licking the screen moment), selling you on the fact that they know dogs.  

Then they onboard your dog, not you!  They put the focus on the "real client"  and really get to know him (yes, Tonto could be a model!)

And then they upsell you on the boring human profile.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/doghero-hospedagem-para-cachorros/id950374433?mt=8

Finally, focus on hitting 50%.  If you're below 50% and you're focused on your non-day one product, you're spending more than half your time on less than half of your clients.  So spending 50% of your time until you hit 50%.  (I don't mean 50% of your developer time, but 50% of your brain power, user research, design thinking process, etc).