An Unconventional Approach To Writing Better Ad Copy 27 Nov 2017 10:51 AM (7 years ago)
I write every day. You wouldn’t know by reading my blog, though.
This is because 99% of my writing never makes it online. I delete it or file it away, often never reading it again.
This used to bother me because content is a valuable asset. My unwillingness to hit “publish” means wasted effort. That was my old thought-process.
Not anymore. Something changed. A story I read years ago starting making more sense than ever before.
Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, writes about meeting his hero, Peter Drucker.
Sometimes after toiling in a quagmire for dozens (or hundreds) of hours I throw the whole effort into the wastebasket and start with a blank page.
When I sheepishly shared this wastebasket strategy with the great management writer Peter Drucker, he made me feel much better when he exclaimed, “Ah, that is immense progress!” (Jim Collins on the Writing Process)
At the start of this post, I mentioned how 99% of my words go unseen. The other 1% reach millions of people each day.
You can read them alongside status updates on Facebook and new photos on Instagram. And on the App Store and Google Play.
The reach alone isn’t what matters. That’s a vanity metric.
What matters most is that my words resonate with audiences, and they have the power to make ads go viral, conversion rates double, and online sales triple.
Had it not been for my own “wastebasket strategy,” my writing might not be a weapon in my growth arsenal.
Immense progress, indeed.
The post An Unconventional Approach To Writing Better Ad Copy appeared first on Chris Franco.
You will like it here if… 23 Oct 2016 11:19 AM (8 years ago)
I am the founder and CEO of Woodridge Growth. We help drive growth for companies like Jet.com, FanDuel, and more. I try to share things here that have helped me get better.
The post You will like it here if… appeared first on Chris Franco.
Choice Paradox: How Removing Choices Increases Online Sales 22 Oct 2016 5:22 PM (8 years ago)
Successful marketers influence the market to take action. If you are driving sales online, you need to help your target audience make choices. This is marketing. But when marketers focus on this, we are choice architects.
Let’s pretend we handle the marketing for a direct-to-consumer electronics brand. The holiday shopping season is upon us, and we need to increase quarterly website sales by 25%.
What do you do?
Growth marketers look at the entire funnel to determine the most profitable course of action. I will address this using a hypothetical situation:
1. Your website receives a healthy amount of daily traffic from high quality sources
2. The traffic engages with the website content on desktop and mobile
3. Purchase conversion rates are less than desirable
Stop. There is a bottle neck. Where is the traffic getting held up?
After studying the Behavior Flow, you determine that 10% of visitors who make it to the Plans page select a Plan. Why is this happening? How can we improve this metric? We need to think like a choice architect.
Choice paradox tells us that too much choice could be driving people away.
In a study of jam, consumers were more likely to buy when offered 6 jams (40%) instead of 24 jams (3%). Consumers also reported greater buying satisfaction. (Cognitive Lode)
The biggest barrier between browsing and buying is our brains. Just because the market is capable and compelled to buy the product does not mean they will. Giving your customers fewer options, and making it easier to make a decision, can lead to more sales. I have seen this first-hand.
A Facebook advertisement with compelling creative and copy will drive traffic, but the choice architecture turn the momentum into purchases.
I take note of my own purchasing behavior. I am about to buy a Mevo camera. Their purchase funnel begins with offering two options. The same is true for Google’s G Suite and the latest phones from Apple and Samsung.
Recommended Reading: Marketers Are Choice Architects
Choice architecture, a term coined by Thaler and Sunstein (2008), reflects the fact that there are many ways to present a choice to the decision-maker, and that what is chosen often depends upon how the choice is presented. Choice architects have significant, if perhaps underappreciated, influence, much like the architect of a building who affects the behaviors of the building’s inhabitants through the placement of doors, hallways, staircases, and bathrooms. Similarly, choice architects can influence choice in many ways: by varying the presentation order of choice alternatives, the order attributes and their ease of use, and the selection of defaults, to name just a few of the design options available. (Beyond nudges: Tools of a choice architecture)
The post Choice Paradox: How Removing Choices Increases Online Sales appeared first on Chris Franco.
The Formula To Success Explained In 12 Words 21 Oct 2016 1:38 PM (9 years ago)
Staying on theme with my plan to post things that have helped me in my life and career is this gem from Charlie Munger.
It is essentially the formula for success.
“To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want.”
What do you want? Do you deserve it? Have you paid the price?
The post The Formula To Success Explained In 12 Words appeared first on Chris Franco.
How To Build Wealth, Knowledge & An Enduring Business 16 Oct 2016 1:35 PM (9 years ago)
Note to self: If you are going to publish anything on your blog, make sure it is something that someone else can benefit from. Also, don’t end sentences in prepositions.
How To Build Wealth
I was introduced to a speech by Jarod Diamond while on Farnam Street. Jarod Diamond is an author who details the practical lessons from human history i.e. the lessons we can use to get rich. For me, the big takeaway is the importance of conversing with your competition, and other businesses, even if they aren’t your direct competition. I’ve had some of my biggest ‘aha moments’ (not the mobile app kind) from these conversations, and Diamond reminds me to initiate more of them.
So what this suggests is that we can extract from human history a couple of principles. First, the principle that really isolated groups are at a disadvantage, because most groups get most of their ideas and innovations from the outside.
2. How To Build Knowledge
Elon Musk is a fascinating person. I’m not a Tesla stan, by any stretch, but his words on how to build knowledge lead to one of my biggest breakthroughs.
One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree — make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.
3. How To Build An Enduring Business
East Coast Asset Management’s quarterly updates are full of gems. The Q3 2014 Update, Grove Of Titans, is something I re-read often. Christopher M. Begg uses the coast redwoods in California as a mental model for building enduring business. If you follow the investment philosophy of Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger, you know that one of the essential features of an investment-worthy business is an enduring competitive advantage. What better source of knowledge on ‘enduring’ that the coastal redwoods, the giant trees that out live just about everything on earth?
The Coastal Redwood also importantly controls growth. Most trees grow too fast reaching for the sun. Overreaching is one of most common causes of death in trees as it creates an air pocket in the trees’ pipes, xylem, which is why trees will often rot from the inside out.
If you like this kind of content, let me know, and I will post more of it.
The post How To Build Wealth, Knowledge & An Enduring Business appeared first on Chris Franco.
The 10-Step Formula Startup Founders Use To Pitch Investors 21 Mar 2016 1:18 PM (9 years ago)
The best tech startups build great products that solve real problems. These startups are also excellent at communicating the value of their products, both to investors and their target market.
Communicating the value to investors, specifically in your pitch deck, is crucial. The problem is making a pitch deck is one of the most frustrating processes on the planet, even if you like doing it. Having a communication formula will save you a lot of time.
One of the most successful startups of all time is Airbnb. Pitchenvy features the Airbnb pitch deck. The formula Airbnb uses to make their case can be applied to a variety of situations where you need to be persuasive. It goes like this:
1. Identify the problem.
This is where you make your audience care. Why should investors in the crowd want to pay attention to the rest of your presentation? This slide is easy if you build a product that solves a real problem. It sounds logical, but you’d be amazed how often it is done in reverse-order i.e. products get built, then the pitch wastes time trying to convince the audience that there is a problem.
2. Describe the solution.
Let’s imagine your startup has successfully identified a real problem. What would solve this problem? Keep it short and sweet, and if possible, re-iterate how it addresses the problem(s) described in your opening slide.
3. Validate the money-making potential.
Is the problem worth solving? For investors, the money-making potential matters most. After all, they want a 10x return on their investment. Is solving this problem going to bring that return?
4. Show-off the product.
This is big for credibility. More than ever, having something tangible will separate you from the startups with their hands out.
5. Explain the business model.
How will this make money? If your idea doesn’t make money, then it’s probably not solving a real problem. Some may disagree with that, but I’m a realist. Money is value. If your product/business offers value, people will exchange value (money) to get it.
6. Show the market validation / growth / traction.
Depending on how far along you are in the fundraising process, you will have some traction to show. If you are a seed-funded startup going for Series A, you better be able to show traction. Nothing validates your assumptions more. Even if you’re not racking in the big money yet, proof that people want to use your solution will go a long way.
7. Describe competitive landscape.
You need to show how well you know the competition and potential threats. I’ve been in pitches before where I was asked, “what if Facebook makes this tomorrow”. Be prepared to answer all sorts of questions like that. Think of this slide as a place to proove that what you are doing is unique.
8. Outline your competitive advantages.
Investors don’t want to invest in your business, only to find out that it can be crushed. This principle is not limited to tech. When Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger invest, they look for businesses that have competitive advantages. Here’s Warren Buffet in his own words:
“The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage. The products or services that have wide, sustainable moats around them are the ones that deliver rewards to investors.”
Pitchenvy has a section of their site dedicated to showcasing the best startup pitch decks. Ever heard of Mixpanel? Buffer? Square? Their pitch decks are available on Pitchenvy.
Top tier engineering without communication skills is like acquisition without retention. You need them both. I will write more on this in the future.
The post The 10-Step Formula Startup Founders Use To Pitch Investors appeared first on Chris Franco.
How To Make An App People Love 6 Mar 2016 2:45 PM (9 years ago)
The foundation of any marketing strategy should be a deep understanding of your customers. If you don’t like people, you will probably have a tough time coming up with a great app that people will love.
Amazon began with a mission to be the most customer-centric company on the planet. Customer centric companies identify their most valuable customers, develop a deep understanding of their wants and needs, and develop products and services for them.
How does a company like Amazon, that releases hundreds of new products every year, stay customer centric?
A couple months ago I read an article offered insight into Amazon’s product development process. What struck me was what Austin Carr (@AustinCarr) revealed about Amazon’s internal approach to product development. I thought that was really, really cool.
Bezos requires employees to write these pretend press releases before work begins on a new initiative. The point is to help them refine their ideas and distill their goals with the customer in mind.
Yesterday, Jillian D’Onfro (@jillianiles) published an article that confirmed this detail about Amazon development process via Amazon Web Services SVP Andy Jassy. Amazon Web Services (AWS) produced over 500 products in 2014 alone:
Before Amazon developers write a single line of code, they have to write the hypothetical product’s press release and FAQ announcement. Amazon uses this “working backwards” approach because it forces the team to get the most difficult discussions out of the way early […] They need to fully understand what the product’s value proposition will be and how it will be pitched to customers. If the team can’t come up with a compelling press release, the product probably isn’t worth making.
The working-backwards approach helps Amazon stay true to their mission of being customer-centric. But there are other reasons to take a backwards approach. Backwards thinking is a mental model that dates back to Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi:
Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, the German mathematician said, “invert, always invert” recommending that “many hard problems are best solved when they are addressed backward.” This model is one of the most powerful thinking habits we can adopt. “Indeed,” says Charlie Munger, “many problems can’t be solved forward.”
Thinking backwards helps you avoid stupidity. Putting customers first is smart.
The post How To Make An App People Love appeared first on Chris Franco.
Brands Are Paying 345% Too Much For Loyal App Users 1 Feb 2016 8:57 AM (9 years ago)
How do you determine if you are marketing your mobile app the right way?
Metrics matter, but some matter more than others. Cost per loyal user (CPLU) is an app marketing metric that deserves attention. While most marketers focus on cost per install (CPI), CPLU is a better indicator of your app marketing performance.
What is a loyal user?
A loyal user, according to Fiksu, is someone who installs your app on their smartphone and uses it three or more times. Therefore, CPLU is measure how much you spend on average to acquire on loyal user.
Acquiring loyal users is challenging, especially considering that 25% of all downloads apps are never used once. I recently learned that it is super expensive for most brands with mobile apps.
Fiksu reports on how much brands who actively market their app are spending to acquire loyal users. In December 2015, the average CPLU for brands actively marketing their apps was $4.23, up 101% year/year.
I am blown away by this because in December, our CPLU at Miner was $0.95 cents. This means my team and I out-performed the iOS industry by 345%.
All of this goes well with my internal narrative that most people marketing apps have no idea what they are doing. Rather then be critical (and a jerk), I want to offer some ideas for how to lower your cost per loyal user.
How To Lower Your CPLU
Why are app marketers and developers spending so much to acquire loyal users? What can you do to lower your CPLU? Here are some ideas based on my success.
1. Know your customer. I begin every marketing strategy by developing a deep understanding of our target audience. This helps you to choose the right acquisition channels, write more persuasive copy and much more.
2. Pay attention to your app analytics from day one. If you notice poor retention, then you need to address this before spending more money to acquire customers. If you continue to spend money acquiring users, but have most of them never come back, your CPLU is going to be sky high.
3. Identify the ‘Aha’ Moment of your mobile app. This goes along with the previous point. If you can figure out what keeps loyal users coming back, you can optimize the first-time experience to show other users the “loyalty-inducing” moment.
4. Invest in App Store Optimization. Start by reading my ASO tips. If you want to lower your CPLU, get more organic downloads. App Store Optimization is one of the most effective ways to do this. Furthermore, as I’ve seen first hand, users that discover your app via App Store search tend to stick around.
Acquisition means nothing without loyalty. Paying for people to install your app isn’t going to help you create sustainable growth. You need to get the right people to download your app; smartphone users who will use your app again-and-again, recommend it to their friends and family, share it on social media, etc. This is where true marketers succeed.
One of my goals this year with my blog is to show you how there is a better way to market products like apps. The best way to do that is by being transparent with my results. The more content like this I publish, the more I can help people with apps evaluate their marketing acquisition options. It’s hard enough building a great app; it shouldn’t be that expensive to acquire a loyal user. Four bucks and change to acquire one loyal user is not sustainable. Get in touch with me if I can be of help.
The post Brands Are Paying 345% Too Much For Loyal App Users appeared first on Chris Franco.
Our Instagram App is Now #2 on the Social Networking Charts 22 Jan 2016 12:11 PM (9 years ago)
I have had the pleasure of directing the marketing and acquisition for some great mobile apps. Recently I have been focusing on WhenToGram. Right now WhenToGram is the #2 paid app on the Social Networking charts. Thank you!
The post Our Instagram App is Now #2 on the Social Networking Charts appeared first on Chris Franco.
The Aha Moment: The Key to Improving Mobile App Retention 22 Jan 2016 12:04 PM (9 years ago)
If you have a mobile app, you know the importance of app retention. What is the best way to improve app retention? It begins with finding the ‘Aha’ moment of your mobile app. This post explains.
App retention is difficult to achieve. The typical smartphone owner uses less than 28 mobile apps every month. If your app is going to be one of the 28, you need to show the user the value of your app as quickly as possible.
Does Your Mobile App Have An Aha Moment?
Look at the mobile apps on your home screen. Those apps have something in common. At some point when using those apps, you experienced an ‘aha’ moment.
The “Aha!” moment is the point at which your value proposition ‘clicks’ for your users. (Trakio)
Because you experienced the ‘Aha’ moment, you use the app again and again. This is marketing 101. Customer loyalty comes from value delivered over time. People who find value in your mobile app, once and again and again, will use it again. Simple as that.
How do you get first-time users to your app’s aha moment? Let’s explore.
1. Identify the ‘Aha’ moment of your app with focus groups and analytics. Do you know what the Aha moment of your app is? To identify the ‘Aha’ moment, have focus groups and watch people use your app. Do this before launch. Once your app is in the market, live and breathe your analytics. Look at the actions that distinguish loyal users from one-time users.
2. Illustrate the ‘Aha’ moment during on-boarding. If you chose to have some tutorial screens appear when the app is opened for the first time, make them count. Use these screens to communicate (with text and visuals) the ‘aha’ moment of the app. Inbox by Google is a good example.
3. Provide a call-to-action (CTA) that leads to the ‘Aha’ moment. Amazon does a great job of this. The value proposition is clear. Amazon makes it easy to search for and buy an enormous variety of products. When a new user opens the Amazon app, the first thing they see is this. The question ‘what are you looking for?’ prompts you to take a desired action i.e. search. By searching, Amazon is confident it can deliver the ‘aha’ moment in the search results.
4. Get right to the ‘Aha’ moment. You can bring new users right to the value of your app by eliminating anything in the way. Scannable, Evernote’s much-improved scanner app, does just that. When you open Scannable, you do not have to select anything. It opens in scan mode. Scannable can tell if there is a document to scan, and when it finds the document, the scan just happens. Furthermore, Scannable automatically crops the image to only show the document. I had Scannable a year ago, and it would crash all the time. No more. Now Scannable just rocks your world with the ‘Aha’ moment.
5. Reinforce the ‘Aha’ moment throughout the first 7 days. I downloaded BillGuard recently. The day after I installed the app, BillGuard sent me a push notification. The push told me the value of the charges I had to review. The push notifications reminded me that BillGuard is making sure I do not get scammed. Through these push notification, BillGuard reinforces the Aha moment. Sure enough, I re-opened the app.
What are some other Aha moments? I’ll revisit this in the future. In the meantime, let me know in the comments.
Want to read more about Aha moments? This is a great post about Facebook’s Aha moment.
Also, if you like hip-hop like I do, then you know Jadakiss’ most famous adlib is the ‘aha’ laugh. Enjoy this:
The post The Aha Moment: The Key to Improving Mobile App Retention appeared first on Chris Franco.