4 ms·

I think you need to reframe your pitch. Your messaging is heavily focused on "not being just another app with points and badges." Yet, the primary mechanism of

by bryans 5y ago

I think you need to reframe your pitch. Your messaging is heavily focused on "not being just another app with points and badges." Yet, the primary mechanism of your app is receiving coins (points) to buy plants (badges), which all gets put on a rated monthly calendar (points) representative of your mood (badge). And then in your roadmap you even mention wanting a leaderboard (points and badges). Your entire concept is points and badges, so trying to make it sound like something completely different comes across as disingenuous and somewhat antithetical to the actual purpose of the app. You're probably not going to attract users with that strategy. More importantly, I think you're missing a huge part of the marketing picture. You're banking on paying for influencer placement and random TikTok luck, and then saying you'll make your own content "sometime down the road" and "when you can afford to." But if you can afford to pay influencers, you can definitely afford to make content, at which point you'd be making additional revenue while also promoting your app to a captive and targeted audience. And since you need to at least be producing a minimal amount of social media content as standard business practice, it's not exactly a huge leap to be producing longer form content. In fact, it would make far more sense to focus on producing videos that serve as their own content and marketing, but can also be cut up into social media posts. The most obvious example would be to start your own ASMR YouTube or Twitch channel based around the garden concept. Perhaps even integrating it, so that watching the ASMR videos will grow your garden. The material startup cost for a market-competitive ASMR channel is roughly $1,750 worth of equipment, and that includes a capable computer, monitor, camera, video capture device, lighting, audio interface, mics and all of the necessary cables. For the same amount of money you spend on influencer placements, you could pay two people to produce and edit videos, and at that point you are simultaneously creating highly reusable content, generating additional revenue, marketing and legitimizing your brand, and creating a dedicated community around your product -- all while avoiding paying some influencer to get 1/100 the results. That's just one of countless methods that don't involve sinking your entire budget and available time into hoping something goes viral on TikTok. Content is king. If you're not the one creating it, you're paying a heavy price to the people who are.

GoodD0ctor 5y ago
Appreciate the feedback and will definitely keep these in mind. Content such as blog posts take months to years for anything to come into fruition. A single 15 second tik tok talking about the app can get millions of hits within a 24 hour window. Not saying this will happen, but it has the highest risk/reward ratio and bang for buck. Almost sounds like I'm playing at a casino, but will keep you updated on this I also have an instagram and pinterest which are doing pretty well, so it's not like I'm making no content. But I don't want to be posting crappy articles I spent a couple of hours writing, good articles they a lot of effort and the meditation space is very competitive on google. I've dabbled with SEO but am no expert by any means. I'm also on a time constraint, have to get traction before and hit certain MMR before I graduate which is in a couple of months. But will definitely dig more into it.
- bryans 5y ago
  You seem to be very focused on blog posts both in your post in and your reply, as if the only options are blogging and paying TikTok influencers, and there's nothing in between -- but there are tons of options for content that aren't blogging. Blogging was never a very good marketing strategy, even back when blogs were still popular and the SEO was still easy. And I still think you're putting way too much emphasis on virality as a marketing strategy. Product placements are almost universally NOT the Toks that go massively viral, and even when they do, it's not as big of a payoff as you're hoping. One million views will result in 100-300 people actually trying the app, and at least half of those users will drop off within a matter of days. So, your entire strategy is to pay other people lots of money in hopes of an extremely rare event that gives a marginal bump in users (if you're lucky). Even traditional paid advertising is far, far more effective than that, and you'd only be paying ~$2 per customer acquisition.
  - GoodD0ctor 5y ago
    I recommend listening to the sub club podcast (founders of revenue cat) but multiple app founders that have gone on to the podcast this past year have said they have literally gone from unranked to being in the top 100 of the App Store thanks to this “virality”. Almost all agree it’s one of the best marketing funnels right now and one of the best to invest into if your app is new. If your app is some B2B software then yeah probably you’ll get a small conversation rate but considering my app is relatively broad and meditation is something most people want to get to I consider it a good investment

by bryans 5y ago

GoodD0ctor 5y ago

Appreciate the feedback and will definitely keep these in mind. Content such as blog posts take months to years for anything to come into fruition. A single 15 second tik tok talking about the app can get millions of hits within a 24 hour window. Not saying this will happen, but it has the highest risk/reward ratio and bang for buck. Almost sounds like I'm playing at a casino, but will keep you updated on this I also have an instagram and pinterest which are doing pretty well, so it's not like I'm making no content. But I don't want to be posting crappy articles I spent a couple of hours writing, good articles they a lot of effort and the meditation space is very competitive on google. I've dabbled with SEO but am no expert by any means. I'm also on a time constraint, have to get traction before and hit certain MMR before I graduate which is in a couple of months. But will definitely dig more into it.

bryans 5y ago
You seem to be very focused on blog posts both in your post in and your reply, as if the only options are blogging and paying TikTok influencers, and there's nothing in between -- but there are tons of options for content that aren't blogging. Blogging was never a very good marketing strategy, even back when blogs were still popular and the SEO was still easy. And I still think you're putting way too much emphasis on virality as a marketing strategy. Product placements are almost universally NOT the Toks that go massively viral, and even when they do, it's not as big of a payoff as you're hoping. One million views will result in 100-300 people actually trying the app, and at least half of those users will drop off within a matter of days. So, your entire strategy is to pay other people lots of money in hopes of an extremely rare event that gives a marginal bump in users (if you're lucky). Even traditional paid advertising is far, far more effective than that, and you'd only be paying ~$2 per customer acquisition.
- GoodD0ctor 5y ago
  I recommend listening to the sub club podcast (founders of revenue cat) but multiple app founders that have gone on to the podcast this past year have said they have literally gone from unranked to being in the top 100 of the App Store thanks to this “virality”. Almost all agree it’s one of the best marketing funnels right now and one of the best to invest into if your app is new. If your app is some B2B software then yeah probably you’ll get a small conversation rate but considering my app is relatively broad and meditation is something most people want to get to I consider it a good investment