Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • >>> Ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome Patrick Mork.

  • [ Applause ] >>Patrick Mork: Thank you. It's great to see

  • everybody today. Welcome to the marketing session of apps marketing 101 for developers

  • for Google Play. Delighted to see everybody here. It's been

  • a pretty amazing day, at least to say it's been a surprise, it's been full of surprises

  • even for some of us on the marketing team. It's been really exciting.

  • 20 billion app downloads, of course, on Google Play. One and a half billion downloads every

  • single month. And, of course, the source of a lot of those revenues, as you've seen from

  • some of the previous sessions, in application billing, of course, being on a tear.

  • We're going to talk to you about marketing today, spend a couple of minutes on how we

  • market the store and your apps to consumers, which I think could be of interest to a number

  • of you, and then talk about app marketing in itself, what is app marketing all about,

  • how should we do it? What kind of frameworks can we share with you and what kind of tools

  • can we share with you? Let's think about marketing for a second.

  • And probably some of you out there in the audience have heard of the famous four Ps.

  • Who's heard of the four Ps? Okay. A couple people.

  • Well, let's talk first of all what the four Ps are not.

  • Please, please, please, please download my application. Please, please, please buy my

  • app. Yes, you can do marketing that way, of course,

  • it's not the most effective. But we're going to talk about all the tricks in the books

  • that have to do with marketing, including the real four Ps which we'll get to in a minute.

  • One of the things I want to share is a little bit our friendly neighborhood checklist for

  • what it is to do marketing when we're talking about apps.

  • So if your eyes do kind of start glazing over at this point, it is 4:00 in the afternoon.

  • It's been a very exciting day. Don't worry. The presentation is going to be available

  • offline. And we'll have versions for you to download, especially of this particular slide.

  • What we're going to talk about is basically our apps, our business models, how to promote

  • applications, and how to distribute applications. And what we've done, actually, for all you

  • developers in the house to make this even easier is we've kind of color-coded everything.

  • So, basically, if you're a new developer or you're a developer who don't potentially have

  • a lot of experience developing or marketing applications, then there's a lot of this is

  • going to be new to you, especially the stuff in blue, which is the basic stuff on marketing

  • that you should be looking at. If you're already a little bit more advanced or an intermediate

  • developer with some basic marketing experience, you're going to want to look at all the things

  • that are highlighted in green. And, of course, for those of you who have

  • been really successful, or some of the larger developers who are making some money on Android,

  • which is always great news to hear, then a lot of the color coded stuff in red is advanced.

  • But before we go into the actual nuts and bolts, let's play a little video which gives

  • you a good idea of how we actually market apps to consumers.

  • This is gears and premiers exclusively at Google Play.

  • [ Video. ] >>> Suppose you buy an app on your computer

  • to send to your smartphone. You might need a cable to transfer it from one to the other.

  • And if you want it on your tablet, you need to transfer it again.

  • Suppose you used Google Play. You can buy an app on your computer and send

  • it to any of your Android devices instantly, with no cables.

  • Because Google Play makes your apps available anywhere, so you can enjoy them everywhere.

  • Google Play, your entertainment all simply here.

  • [ Video concludes. ] >>Patrick Mork: So this is kind of a little

  • bit just an example of how we're actually getting out there and really starting to market

  • applications on your behalf and going out and talking to consumers.

  • I think it's also worth sharing a little bit what are the other kinds of things that we're

  • doing to market Google Play. In particular, one of the things that's worth sharing with

  • all of you in the room and all of the people in our international audience who are live

  • streaming this today, is just how much effort is going into marketing the store.

  • In the first six weeks of launch alone, we did over 5 billion impressions to consumers

  • all over the world. Not to mention a lot of the other advertising that you may have seen,

  • for example, seeing Google Play available on the nav bar across all our Google properties.

  • Or a lot of the emails in CRM that we've been doing or a lot of the work that we've been

  • doing with partners. The advertising effort on behalf of the team

  • at Google Play and the marketing team has been nothing less than spectacular over the

  • past couple of months and is only going to grow and accelerate over time.

  • More importantly, though -- and this is really kind of, like, a big callout to all of you

  • in the room and to awesome of the developers who have supported us, as Hugo said in his

  • keynote -- is there's been a lot of love from the developer community, there's been a lot

  • of support from all our content partners, whether that's game developers, app developers,

  • books publishers, music labels, and movie studios. Really, kind of the feedback that

  • we've gotten from the community, from all our partners, has been tremendous. And has

  • really also helped accelerate the awareness of consumers of what Google Play is and as

  • a destination to get all the things content for their devices. So this has been amazing,

  • and we really thank you for that. But let's get to the nitty-gritty. Let's get

  • to the stuff that we're really interested in and excited about. And that is, how do

  • we actually market apps? Well, one of the ways that we look at things

  • at Google, and we encourage our partners to do the same, is really this very simple matrix

  • that our CMO, Lorraine Twohill, has come up with, which really guides the essence and

  • philosophy of marketing at Google. And that is really understanding users, building magical

  • experiences -- which in this case is you guys building magical applications -- and then

  • really connecting the two. So let's take a really kind of bizarre but

  • fun and specific example of how that works in reality when we talk about apps.

  • Let's say that you're a carpenter. Or you're doing DIY in your house. And you're fixing

  • chairs and you're hanging frames up on your wall and you're maybe adjusting beams, you

  • know, in your house and you're doing all sorts of work in your house. Well, how cool would

  • it be if when you're putting that frame up on the wall, the one that you kind of like

  • have to ask your wife to sit 50 meters behind you to tell if you it's crooked or straight,

  • how cool would it be if you had a little application that could do that for you? Like Ben Zibble's

  • bubble app. I could fire up my bubble app and place my phone on top of that frame and

  • see if the frame is perfectly aligned or not. Saves me a lot of time. Makes my life easier,

  • and to some extent as well, it's kind of a magical experience.

  • The point is that applications are either enhancing our lives or making our lives more

  • productive, or they're entertaining us. And they do it in such a way that really has a

  • magical quality and component to it. And our role as marketers and your role as

  • marketers is, how do we connect those two. How do we connect the magic of the apps that

  • we build with, essentially, an entertaining experience for a consumer or a productive

  • experience for consumers? But, really, before we actually get into the

  • nuts and bolts of the four Ps themselves, let's talk about research for a minute. Because

  • when you talk about users, it really starts with research. Before you even write that

  • first line of code, you really have to understand who your consumers are, what they're doing,

  • how they download apps, where they download apps, and how they consume and use those applications.

  • And, really, it's a lot simpler than would you think. People always think, oh, research.

  • They think about IDC or they think about Nielsen or they think about tens of thousand of dollars

  • spent on research. It's really not that complex or that expensive.

  • The way we break it down, for example, is we look at quantitative versus qualitative

  • research. At its very basic level, your quantitative research is basically when you go out and

  • you do extensive questionnaires and you survey thousands of different consumers or hundreds

  • of different consumers. And you're asking the basic questions that you're trying to

  • get answered. How often does this consumer download applications? What kind of handsets

  • are they using? How much per month are they spending downloading applications? How long

  • are they spending in an application session? You're really trying to understand kind of

  • the macro, broad picture of consumer demographics and habits and consumption to guide the development

  • philosophy for your application. Then, of course, as you start building your

  • application, you get near that famous milestone, that first milestone of having a beta or an

  • alpha, then, really, it's about qualitative research. And qualitative research can take

  • a lot of different forms, like focus groups, for example. Or screen focus groups, or just

  • sitting down with a bunch of people that you may or may not know that well around pizza

  • and beers and trying to understand what they think of your app. And this is really the

  • in-depth part of the market research, which is where you're really trying to understand

  • how's the consumer using my app? How quickly does my app load? What kind of features do

  • they like? How easy is the UI to navigate? And what kind of features could enhance the

  • application? Or better yet, what features should I remove because the consumers simply

  • don't either get the features or they don't really use the features?

  • The best news about research and its ability to guide our development philosophy, as I

  • said earlier, is that it's neither that expensive or that time-consuming. You can start right

  • now and you can do research online. You can go, for example, to google.com/insights, put

  • together three simple questions, survey 1500 consumers and get answers in three to four

  • days at less than $1,000. On the quantitative side.

  • And your focus groups -- again, this is something you just need to know enough people that you

  • can get together groups of people and spend an afternoon brainstorming and getting feedback.

  • It's really not that hard and there's a lot of tools available to do that.

  • And now introducing the real four Ps. So how did the real four Ps influence our marketing

  • and our thinking around app marketing? Well, of course, when we talk about the real

  • four Ps, we're talking about product, which is our app. We're talking about price, which

  • is our business model. We're talking about distribution, which ends up being how many

  • devices are we covering? What operating systems are we developing on? And what channels within

  • those operating systems are we distributing on?

  • And lastly, we're talking about promotions, which can be anything from the type of assets

  • that we build, the thumbnails, the screen shots, the assets, the videos, our banners,

  • search ads, all the kind of tools that we would use to promote our applications.

  • So talking about product, and I love this analogy, and it's actually even better to

  • use this analogy at 4:00 in the afternoon, because by that point, I know most of you

  • people have eaten, so you're not starving, and you won't just run out of the room when

  • you see all this stuff that's on the slide. But truth be told, the way I look at it is

  • it's about snacking versus feasting. Right? So around 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon, like

  • right now, you might have a little hunger. You might want a little something to snack

  • on. So you grab, you know, a Snickers bar or you'll grab a bag of chips. And you open

  • that bag of chips, and you will push your hand into the bag, and you will take out one

  • or two chips. But you're not going to put your hand in and take all the chips out of

  • the bag and stuff them in your face. Well, some people might, but you probably won't.

  • It's really something that you do just to kill the hunger at that particular point in

  • time, versus, of course, feasting, which is what's going to happen around 11:00 or midnight

  • tonight after you've been hearing Paul Oakenfold and you're starving and you need about five

  • courses. Totally different experience. Why am I using this example? Mobile app usage

  • and mobile app consumption is all about snacking. It's not about feasting. If you look at the

  • research, the research that we see and the research that's publicly available will tell

  • you that on average, consumers are spending probably around an hour and a half per day

  • using apps. So what does that tell us? Well, that tells us that if they're spending about

  • an hour and a half per day using apps, and they've got maybe 30 apps on their phone,

  • of which they use ten frequently, well, they're probably going to use your app no more than

  • nine or ten minutes a day. Sounds obvious. But what's the implication for product development?

  • There's a couple of implications. The first implication is that if I'm -- as

  • a consumer, I'm using my favorite app, and I'm using it for five minutes a day, if I

  • get a notification from you that says that I need to update my application, activate

  • my Wi-Fi, and download two gigabytes of files -- well, maybe with smart apps, now that's

  • going to be easier. But that still kind of goes against the philosophy of snacking. Why

  • am I going to spend five minutes downloading a file when I'm using the app maybe nine minutes

  • every single day? It has implications in terms of the load speed;

  • right? If I'm getting on a bus and I've got two stops and I want to check my sports scores

  • or I want to see what the weather's like in London -- we know what the weather's like

  • in London -- but if I want to see what the weather is like in London, I don't want the

  • application to take 20 to 30 seconds to load. I want to dip my hand into the experience,

  • dip it out, get my information, thank you very much, and I'm done.

  • And it has lots of other implications as well. Right? It has implications in terms of how

  • easy is the application to use. Let's say that I am on that bus in London and I've got

  • about 15 minutes' commute. Well, am I going to spend five minutes of

  • those 15 minutes actually reading through all, like, you know, the options that are

  • available in the app and trying to read and understand how the app works? Probably not.

  • I really want to get into the experience quickly, which means I need an intuitive UI, I need

  • very easy-to-use features, I need to be able to dip in and dip out very quickly.

  • So understanding your users and understanding that people snack has direct implications

  • for how you develop content. So let's talk for a minute about great applications.

  • And there are thousands of great applications. And, of course, we can't possibly cite them

  • all. But this is an old-school example that I like to use.

  • eBuddy is a Dutch developer that's been around since 2005, 2006, started originally developing

  • J2ME apps. I remember that fondly, because I started my career in games trying to sell

  • J2ME games to carriers five years ago. And hence the first slide about please, please,

  • please. You probably get the rest of the picture. Needless to say, obviously, you know, these

  • guys have been around a very long time. And they do a lot of things really, really

  • well. So what we did was we put together a handy

  • little checklist together for these guys for what we think they do well. A couple of things.

  • First of all, the product really solves a clear and present need. As I mentioned earlier,

  • at the beginning of my speech, you're either entertaining or you're addressing a specific

  • issue or making the person's life easier. eBuddy does that basically by aggregating

  • five or six different IMs into one easy to use client where you can be logged into all

  • your instant messengers and be chatting with your friends anywhere in the world no matter

  • what instant messenger they're using. They saw the need.

  • They had excellent device coverage. One of the things that amazes me about developers

  • is that sometimes we'll see these great apps, and they'll be, like, 500 megabytes in size

  • and have a black list of 1200 devices. Well, one of the ways that you basically get noticed

  • in the apps market is through virality. And virality means reach. And reach means device

  • coverage. These guys have a very simple app that works

  • very quickly, it's easy to use, it loads quickly, the UI is super intuitive and they're available

  • across lots of different devices. As a matter of fact, they're available on nearly every

  • device from Android 1.5 and up. Now, I'm not telling you guys need to go back

  • and develop on 1.5. But what I'm saying is, you need to be available on as many devices

  • as are relevant to maximize your virality. Of course, the other thing that's important

  • with this application which goes without saying and also helps virality is parity of features

  • across operating systems. If I have a great application that I get on Android and it's

  • got these cool features and I tell my friend about it and he's got an iPhone, he goes out

  • and downloads it and it doesn't have the same features, that's kind of a crummy experience

  • for him. Right? Likewise, if the opposite happens that somebody gets a great application

  • on iOS and then tells their friend and their friend downloads the Android version and it's

  • a port, that's not a really cool thing to do, either.

  • And, as a matter of fact, when you talk about placement and getting featured in the Google

  • Play Store, that is a sure way not to get featured in the Play Store. Right? We want

  • to make sure that Android consumers have the best possible experience, and, if possible,

  • a better experience than on other platforms. And lastly, continuously upgrading the application,

  • making sure that you're constantly fixing bugs, constantly removing features that are

  • out of date, constantly improving on new features, and making sure that the quality of your application

  • isn't just good when you launch, but it's continuously and consistently good across

  • all your revisions. And if you look at eBuddy, they have a 4.3 rating across 155,000 reviews.

  • And they have done 10 to 50 million downloads on Google Play, which is actually a lot more

  • than some of the better-known apps than we know here in the Valley.

  • So a lot of different things to (indiscernible) over on our checklist.

  • So you've heard a lot with productive from me, but I'd like to turn it over to a video

  • from one of our top developers to talk about their experience on product.

  • [ Video. ] >>> My name is Perry Tam, I'm CEO and cofounder

  • of Storm8. >>> And I'm Vatsal Bhardwaj, product manager

  • for growth initiatives here at Storm8. >>> At Storm8, we make social games for mobile. In

  • the past three years, we have created 30 titles, and they have been downloaded more than 300

  • million times on more than 100 million devices. >>> When we look at marketing and marketing

  • strategy at Storm8, it actually starts with the product concept. So when we are thinking

  • about what game we are going to build next, that's when marketing starts. So we do a lot

  • of rigorous market research, surveying of our users to understand what kind of games,

  • what kind of features, game mechanics will deliver the most fun.

  • >>> So to deliver high-quality product for our users, there are really three things which

  • go with that. The first is a very strong focus on the target consumers. The second piece

  • is a solid product and product management process. And then the third piece is add Analytics

  • and data capabilities. We pay a lot of attention to who are our target users, where are they

  • located, what kind of Android devices they are using.

  • >>> There was a time that we did, like, 40% of pricing to test out what would that drive

  • the effect of, you know, our users' behavior. We also did maybe drop the price to 99 cents

  • for a limited time period. And from those tests, we collect a lot of data as to whether

  • they convert more free users to paying users or actually could be detrimental to us down

  • the road. >>> We pay a lot of attention to packaging

  • of our games. So it includes things like the screen shots, the app icon, the description.

  • And we want to make sure that it's well optimized so that users who love that game can easily

  • discover it. We have a very strong data and analytics team. And throughout the process,

  • we make sure we do regress analysis and measurement to, again, create the game that's going to

  • be most fun for our users. [ Video concludes. ]

  • >>Patrick Mork: Great. So there you have a little bit from Storm8. But as I hope you

  • noticed, research, rigorous development process, really iterating and really understanding

  • the data, right, critical to getting the product right.

  • But, of course, although we like to make great apps and games, you know, if we can't pay

  • the water bill at the end of the month, it all becomes a little bit hairy; right? So

  • no conversation would be complete, you know, without talking about business models.

  • I'm not going to spend a lot of time here, because, of course, many of you just sat through

  • a session on monetization with Kenneth Lui and his colleagues. I think they did an excellent

  • job of describing the various models out there. What I will try and do is add a little bit

  • my two cents and experience based on how to look at each one of these individual models

  • and some of the unique variables that affect each.

  • So, you know, you've heard about freemium, you've heard about the march of freemium and

  • how well that's doing. As Chris mentioned, it's over 50% of our revenue now which is

  • exciting. And we've seen a huge takeoff in freemium over the last months. That's not

  • to say that it's the right model for you. That's not to say that it's going to make

  • you super competitive against the other apps on your system. As we see, freemium works

  • better in some categories versus others. We really have to understand what the right price

  • points are when it comes to freemium. What's going to be the way to engage with consumers?

  • How often do we provide notifications to consumers? What kind of notifications do we provide and

  • at what price points? So it's really about testing, testing, re-understanding, changing

  • the pricing, looking at price elasticity, and really measuring and analyzing what works.

  • More importantly, I think one of the questions I want to address directly is talked about

  • paid applications. Because many of your applications out there will still be paid apps. And as

  • mentioned earlier, freemium might not work for you. So let's spend a minute talking about

  • paid applications. And I really wanted to talk about two things

  • when it has to do with paid apps. Because even though we're in the world of smartphones

  • and Java is long gone from now, well, there's still a lot of things that don't change. There's

  • still a lot of constants that remain the same. One of those is the challenge around pricing.

  • So the myth around the 99-cent price point or the 99-cent dilemma as I call it, here's

  • the dilemma: The dilemma is that if you look at a curve and you look at the number of applications

  • available on the Android platform or on iOS for that matter, you'll see the left side

  • of the curve where the majority of the apps lie are where most of those apps are at 99

  • cents. And here's the problem with that. Well, the problem is that if you price your

  • app at 99 cents from the get-go, how do you discount? If you want to put your app on sale,

  • where do you go from 99 cents? You can't. It's a lot harder. And one of the rules of

  • marketing, you'll hear several of those today, is very simple, and it's this: It's always

  • a lot easier to take your price down than to raise your price. In any product, in any

  • category, in any supermarket, in any industry, it's always the same case.

  • So our recommendation there is, if you are going to have paid apps, always start at a

  • slightly higher price point, because it gives you flexibility to discount and make offers

  • on your application. The other reason why we believe pricing at

  • 99 cents is a risk is because, ultimately, most of us, when we go to make a purchase,

  • let's say we're buying a pair of sneakers or buying a pair of jeans or we're buying,

  • I don't know, a plane ticket, having a lower price tells us a certain thing about the product

  • that we're buying. And in many cases, low price equals cheap. So the question to you,

  • then, is, is that the kind of message that you want to pass to your consumer? The person

  • that's seeing your app for the first time? That maybe sees your app side by side with

  • five other competitors, and you're the cheapest app?

  • That sometimes works for consumers who are really price-sensitive. But for other consumers,

  • they'll look at that and say, "This app basically does the same, so it's probably not as good."

  • And that does happen. More likely what we like to did is we like

  • to encourage you guys to really think about the price life cycle of your application.

  • What we've done is build kind of a theoretical model on what that looks like. In this particular

  • case, an app developer launches an app or game at 2.99 and they get a certain number

  • of installs. The first month, it's 50,000. The second month, it's another 40,000. The

  • third month, it starts to drop. And at that point, because they priced at 2.99, they're

  • able to able to drop the price. So they drop the price to 1.99, and they get a whole bunch

  • of new users who go, "Oh, yes, great. An offer. I'm going to get this app now." And they share

  • with their friends, and they say, "You know, I was a cheap bastard before. I didn't want

  • to buy it at $3. But now it's at 2. I'm in." So they buy the app. And the friends start

  • piling in and you get a little bit of virality because they're getting a great deal. What

  • do you do? You raise the price. Once you start getting that volume build and that momentum,

  • you raise the price. A lot of consumers who may have heard about how great your app was,

  • they don't necessarily realize the price is no longer discounted, so they still buy it.

  • And you can basically get the difference of what you were charging before versus after.

  • And you can do that in cycles over time, until you get to the end of the life cycle, or maybe

  • 12 months or eight months out or whatever your product plan is, you decide you're going

  • to phase out that app and launch a completely new one. What do you do, since you priced

  • at 2.99, you're going to drop the price to 99 cents, that's a great bargain. You can

  • do that because you're at the end of your price cycle and you're going to introduce

  • another app anyway. There what I'm saying is theoretical model

  • but encourage you to think of what is the price life cycle of my app, how do I manage

  • it over a time and how do I give myself enough flexibility with my price point that I can

  • move and pivot and change my price if I have to?

  • Let's talk about ads. So this chart was taken from a Kleiner Perkins

  • presentation by Mary Meeker. Some of you guys may read Mary Meeker on occasion when she

  • publishes material on the Internet specifically and about mobile Internet. And the thing about

  • ads is this: There's some good news and there's some opportunistic news; right?

  • The reality about ads is that ads today in terms of ECPMs, which is the effective cost

  • per thousand or what you're getting paid for your ads, is the ECPMs on mobile are significantly

  • lower than on desktop. No surprise; right? Desktop's been around ten years, has a different

  • user base. They spend perhaps more time on desktop, so the value of ECPM is higher. Mobile

  • is still a lot lower. But the good news is, when you look at this graph, you'll see that

  • the yellow bar, the bar on the left across all of these different types of media, that's

  • the amount of time spent by consumers. So what do we see here? Well, we see that on

  • average, consumers are spending about 10% of their time on mobile, which is huge. That's

  • massively encouraging for every single one of us in this room and every single one of

  • us around the world who is developing great content.

  • The challenge is, only 1% of the ad dollars are flowing into mobile today. But that means

  • a massive opportunity. Why? Simple. Dollars always follow eyeballs. That's just the way

  • advertising works. There's always a lag. Which means, essentially, if you have a great product

  • and you really understand how to monetize through ads, it's a question of time before

  • that gap closes and before the ECPMs either get close to or match what we see on desktops

  • and enable you guys to really maximize the monetization of your apps through ads.

  • I think the last point I want to make -- well, two more points on monetization before moving

  • on -- is, use hybrids. We saw that earlier. We talked -- we saw paymium. We saw a combination

  • of different business models. And this is really exciting stuff because what we're seeing

  • is more and more developers are starting to do that and it's starting to pay dividends.

  • And it also reduces your risk as a developer. So if you have in-app payments, that's great.

  • Why not throw in app ads if it makes sense, and you can potentially monetize from both

  • or you can see which works better than the other. Having a hybrid and a combination of

  • different business models gives you more flexibility and maximizes your ability to monetize your

  • apps. Last point on monetization. We live in a global

  • world. Apps are being downloaded every single second, all over the world, on all sorts of

  • different devices. So what are the implications for you as app developers? Simple. Different

  • business models will work differently in different countries. So if you've got a great game in

  • the United States where you know that a lot of consumers, may be 60% plus of consumers

  • are on contract and have higher-end smartphones, chances are those consumers are more willing

  • to pay for your app, therefore, a paid app or in-app payments might make more sense for

  • you. But if you're trying to distribute and monetize

  • your apps in India, where, potentially, 90 to 95% of consumers are on prepaid cards and

  • they're still in the process of rolling out 3G networks where data is expensive, then

  • perhaps that business model doesn't work as well and you need to think of maybe I should

  • monetize through ads. The reality there is, try and look at your

  • market globally and see how you can monetize your app using different business models in

  • different regions. Be creative. So once we've built this great product and

  • we know how we're going to monetize it and keep all the lights on at the end of the day,

  • well, then we start thinking about, aha, how do I promote my app? Where should I spend

  • my money? Where should I spend those hard-earned VC dollars that are going to enable me to

  • get more users, yay, another rule of marketing, rule number two numero uno, don't invest behind

  • a weak product. It goes behind saying. But you see people do this all the time, and not

  • just in our business, but in tons of businesses. If you invest behind a weak product, you're

  • basically creating a negative consumer perception of your product and of your brand, if that's

  • what you're trying to build. You should go back to the drawing board and

  • rework your application until you're sure that you have the best possible experience.

  • If you're not excited about your application or you're not convinced you would pay, do

  • you think a consumer is because they're going to see an ad that you're seeing on AdMob or

  • somewhere else? Probably not. Once you're really sure that you have a great

  • product, then there's a number of great frameworks we can suggest to you that are going to help

  • you put together your marketing plan. The first of these is STP. Knowing your users.

  • It's all about segmenting, targeting, and then positioning your app properly. The second

  • one is once I position my app properly, I know who I'm going after, what's the message

  • I'm giving the consumer? What is my one liner? What are my points of difference? Why should

  • a consumer care? Third, once I have all my messaging down and

  • I've properly positioned my app and I know where I'm going, it's, well, how do I build

  • a structured marketing plan? What needs to go into my marking plan? What kind of activity

  • should I do? Lastly, what is my media strategy look like.

  • The good news is I'm going to go through each one of these in detail and explain in detail

  • a little more clearly. Let's look at our audience. So let's say,

  • for example, I'm a game developer and I've seen this great case study from Kenneth Lui

  • at Google I/O, I've decided, you know what, that's it, dude, I'm going for in-app payments.

  • I'm going to do in-app payments with, like, funky furry animals at different price points.

  • I'm going to get a ton of downloads to get consumers to basically pay me a the lot of

  • money. If you are going to do in-app payments on

  • games, then probably what you need to do is really segment your target audience properly

  • and look at how you target those people. Excuse me.

  • So if I'm using in-app payments for game, there's two axis probably that I'm going to

  • look at. I'm going to look at available time. I need people to have available time to play

  • my games. And then I'm probably going to look at disposable income. Because if a person

  • is 13 years old and has tons of available time but no income, I'm not going to make

  • much money from them. I segment my audience this way. I come up with all these different

  • segments that I have. Upscale adults, techies, middle income families, soccer moms, whatever

  • it happens to be. And when I look at my matrix, I think, okay, the right target audience is

  • probably these guys. Young adults 24-35 years old, no kids, right? So they have disposable

  • time and they have income. That's my target audience. Then it's a question of, okay, how

  • do I position my app? What's my one-liner to those people? What am I going to tell those

  • people to click and install my application? Which takes us to the next step. How do I

  • develop convincing messaging? What's the one line that I'm going to tell people about my

  • sports application that is going to get them so excited that they are going to want to

  • download it? Is it that I have realtime instantaneous scores? Is it the fact that I'm the only application

  • that has social engagement and built-in hangouts into it? Is it the fact that I have this application

  • that runs on all sorts of different platforms and backs up my data on the web? What's your

  • one liner? What's your positioning statement? After that, what are the two or three key

  • points of difference that are going to go into my product description? So that when

  • people land on my page, because they have searched or clicked an ad, they read these

  • three or four great things about the application. Not the bug fixes, but the stuff that really

  • matters. They think, this app is really cool because it has Android beam and I can do all

  • this crazy stuff like play multiplayer games without activating Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. That's

  • wicked cool. I'm going to get that instead of that other application. And lastly, what's

  • my call to action? When you start doing Get Creative, we see app developers do ad campaigns,

  • online stuff, banners, they advertise their little logo with a little dragon and it doesn't

  • tell me anything about what I should do next. Okay, so you've got me all excited about your

  • little furry animals and I can get these collectable items, what do I do? Where do I go? Where

  • can I find this app? Clear calls to action. On the right-hand side -- actually I thought

  • it would be fun to share this. Kushagra, who is working with us right here on the Google

  • Play team and actually is the one who really was responsible for a lot of this material

  • as well as the interviews, so I owe him a huge debt of gratitude on that. Kushagra put

  • together an amazing promotion at the end of last year around apps. Some of you guys may

  • have seen it. In December, we hit 10 billion downloads. We did a promotion called 10-10-10.

  • I really need a beer. [ Laughter ]

  • >>Patrick Mork: Water just doesn't do it. Anyway. We put together this promotion called

  • 10-10-10. That was to celebrate 10 billion downloads and that now seems like a long time

  • ago, right? 20 billion now, great stuff. We put together this promotion called 10-10-10.

  • We had three key things we want today communicate to consumers. 10 days, 10-cent apps, 10 apps

  • a day. Really simple. Yet, even though it was so simple, as you can see going from top

  • to bottom, we went through several different versions of creative material to get to the

  • right creative. You are not even seeing all of it because it wouldn't fit on the slide.

  • We went through version after version after version after version after version of getting

  • the creative right. And the point here is whether it's your thumbnails or your video

  • or your text descriptions, you iterate, iterate, iterate, iterate until you get it right. And

  • you test and test and test and test until you get it right. Just like you do with your

  • product. Creative is an iterative process, but it can be so effective if you do it right.

  • That brings us to the marketing plan. How do we build a plan? The way we look the marketing

  • plans is quite simple. Awareness. Trial. Purchase. And repeat.

  • It has to be generally in that order. Why? Because if I basically start jumping into

  • purchase, it's kind of like I met this pretty girl at the Paul Oakenfold party tonight and

  • I say tomorrow morning, let's get married. Uh, no, you're weird. I am not going to call

  • you again. It's basically, you have to go through the steps of the process so that you

  • can convince the consumer to get to the point where they are going to consider a purchase.

  • You start with awareness. Talk to them about what your product does. Where they should

  • get it. Why it's unique. How it's different. There's a couple tools you can do here. This

  • is not exhaustive, of course. Good PR. One of the most underused things I see in this

  • industry. Talk to the press, become their friends, make sure that you send them their

  • APKs, get them to your studio to see what you are working on. It can be one of the most

  • effective marketing tools you can do and one of the cheapest is to get these people to

  • write about your apps. I'll give you another tip. Getting people to write about your apps

  • has a direct influence on your search rankings in the play store. It's called web anchoring.

  • It means that the more people kind of like click on a link externally outside the play

  • store and come to your page, because they've read about you, the better you will index

  • in the search rankings. Social. We talked about virality. Have a blog.

  • Invite people to comment on it. Post your APKs on it. Create discussion. Get people

  • to talk about it. Of course, other basic tools. Search ads, mobile ads. If you get to the

  • point where you have the available cash, well, TV or above-the-line media.

  • Then we talk about trial. What can we do for trial? We talked about some of the business

  • models earlier today. We can have a free trial version. A version where I can use the app

  • for 30 days. And then it's great because I don't have to pay pour it and I can really

  • figure out if I like it. Why is trial so important? Very simple, guys. It's very important because

  • essentially many consumers out there have never experienced content before. Many consumers

  • out there are getting a smartphone for the first time and they will think this content

  • stuff is marvelous. Are they going to shell four five bucks or euros if they have never

  • tried content before? Probably not in some cases. By providing a free version of your

  • application, you generate that comfort level. When I was in the soft drinks business -- I

  • worked at Pepsi for many years. When we would launch a new drink in the market, we would

  • go out and give hundreds of thousands of cans to people. We'd have these pretty girls in

  • mini skirts and walking down in the middle of traffic and they would knock on your door,

  • how about a can of Pepsi max? Why did we do that? Trial. We want to make sure that the

  • consumers love the product. Hopefully they like the girls, too. But they love the product.

  • So that when they go to the supermarket, they have had it, tried it. Yeah, yeah, this is

  • pretty good stuff. I think I'll buy a six-pack. Same thing goes for apps and games.

  • We move on to purchase. Purchase, of course, there are other things we can do. We can do

  • direct response campaigns where we are pushing people to download the app. They have heard

  • about it. They have read about it on Tech Crunch. They have read the blogs. Talked to

  • their friends about it. We can do notifications. We are saying, hey, guess what, you have now

  • been playing my game for 30 days, it's time to pay up. They may or may not do that. But,

  • of course, at least they have had the opportunity to try it because you have gone through step

  • two. Lastly, repeat. Third rule of marketing. Always easier to get money from an existing

  • consumer than a new consumer. Makes sense but a lot of people don't follow that rule?

  • How do we keep the consumer interested. We heard about it in monetization panel. Right?

  • You give them more don't. You upgrade your app frequently. You introduce new features.

  • You give them new reasons to pay for this stuff. You provide updates. You have CRM campaigns

  • because you've actually been talking to your consumers for the past three years and you

  • have an email database of 150,000 loyal fans who have downloaded your app. That's all about

  • repeat. But we do have a pretty good idea already

  • of what kind of stuff works. So when I was talking about research earlier in the session,

  • we did this over the last couple of weeks. We put out a couple of questions on google.com/insights,

  • paid about a thousand bucks, whatever, basically asked people, what influences your decision

  • to install an app? U.S. only consumers, granted. We got about 1500 responses which is statistically

  • significant. And here's what they told us. I'm influenced by user reviews. Top apps lists.

  • User ratings. And screen shots. Those are the top four. Now, obviously, it doesn't mean

  • that they are not influenced by the rest. But they are influenced by a lot of stuff

  • that you guys control. You control the user ratings because you can control how good your

  • product is and how frequently you update it. And how many cool features you build in and

  • how many crap features you take out. You control the text description. Because

  • you read the great marketing slides that talk about how important creative is and you built

  • killer text, great assets and super powerful video that have gone totally viral on YouTube.

  • So you control a lot of that stuff. And search, you don't control that directly but you do

  • control it indirectly. Why? Tip number two: The other thing that affects your search rankings

  • in the Google Play store, is the number of installs. The more installs you have, the

  • higher you are on the search rankings. However, caveat, the more uninstalls you have, the

  • lower your search rankings, which is why you have to be careful when you use marketing.

  • Because if your product is not good enough and you get a lot of installs and then more

  • uninstalls than installs because people figure out your app was not good, it is going to

  • penalize your search rankings. The last one on the list is paid advertising

  • or search. Paid search, AdMob ads. That stuff can be very effective at scale but isn't necessarily

  • the primary things that drives interest from consumers.

  • Wow. Lots of stuff. It's time to advertise. It's time to get out there and spend my hard-earned

  • dollars advertising to consumers. What do I do? Well, we typically break this down into

  • two different components, if you will. One component is, of course, brand awareness or

  • brand advertising. Many consumers are very familiar with this, typically bigger brands

  • do this. But also developers who aspire to really build a long-lasting presence on mobile

  • are starting to do this. And the thing that we're starting to see after three or four

  • years now on the smartphone app space, you are starting to see the emergence of the world's

  • first mobile brands, which is really cool. Right? These are apps that have basically

  • built their reputation and built their brand on mobile. Angry Birds, massive brand started

  • on mobile. Lookout Mobile Security, security app, started on mobile. Uber, some of you

  • guys, little more niche, started on mobile. We're seeing more and more mobile brands and

  • brands being built for the first time through mobile. When we tuck about brand advertising,

  • that's stuff like if I come up with a cool video for my app and I promote that through

  • YouTube. I might not necessarily get a ton of people to buy it but I create a lot of

  • awareness. Why? Because a picture is worth a thousand words and a video is worth a thousand

  • pictures. That's brand awareness. That's brand advertising. TV, outdoor, YouTube, videos,

  • that's brand awareness. How do you measure that stuff? You might ask, why on earth would

  • I do this? I need to be able to measure this. If I do an AdMob campaign, I can measure the

  • clicks. That's true, but you can measure brand. It's a different way of doing it. Essentially

  • what you need to do is you run what's called a brand tracker which can be very simple exercise

  • of asking three to four questions to your base of consumers every single month. And

  • you ask them questions like, for example, among the following kinds of sports apps,

  • which have you heard of? You list all the apps, yours and your competitors. That's aided

  • brand awareness. You can ask another question which is, which sports apps have you heard

  • of in general? That's unaided brand awareness. You can ask questions, for example, of in

  • the next four weeks, do you intend to purchase a sports app? That's purchase intent. So there

  • are a lot of ways to measure brand awareness. Most of your time, however, is probably going

  • to be focused on the second bullet which is all about direct response. And in that case

  • what you're looking at is stuff like search, mobile ads, incentivized.

  • So tip number four: Search at least for us when we are promoting the Google Play store

  • has been one of the most effective ways to actually advertise. Why? First of all, because

  • the click through rate, which our colleagues previously mentioned, is higher on search

  • generally than any other medium. Why is that? Because search is an active advertising form.

  • Search basically provides a request, provides information to a consumer who is already looking

  • for something specific. Therefore, the odds are that that person is more interested in

  • that result because it's specific to what they are looking for. If I do a search on

  • sports apps and I see your app and I'm interested in sports, the probability is higher that

  • I'm going to download that. That's going to be more cost effective for you and higher

  • probability that that person is actually going to install your application. Typically, what

  • would you expect from a good mobile search campaign? For us, we see good search result

  • -- a good click through rate on mobile search through 3, 4, 5% click through rate, or at

  • least 2%, somewhere around there. Ads you can use and are a great way to scale your

  • marketing efforts but are typically going to be a little bit less effective? Why? Because

  • ads essentially are a passive means of advertising. The consumers playing a game on a web site

  • somewhere and they see an ad and basically it's a passive experience. I'm either interested

  • in or I'm not. But I'm not specifically making a proactive search for it, so I'm probably

  • not looking for your application. Web site typically a good response rate for

  • Mobile ad campaign can be .5, .6, .7, .8% CTR, vastly different from what you would

  • get on search. Perhaps more targeted in certain cases and perhaps we can get more scale but,

  • again, different results. So here we're going to actually run another video where we interviewed

  • another one of our top developers, this case it was Pocket Gems telling us about their

  • experience marketing and what worked for them. [ Video ]

  • >>> Hi, I'm Arjun Dayal, Android product leader for Pocket Gems.

  • >>> And Michael Dawson, I lead business development in Pocket Gems.

  • >>> Pocket Gems is a Mobile gaming focused company that was founded in 2009 and is backed

  • by Sequoia Capital. Our titles have been downloaded 60,000 times and on Android specifically we've

  • had five titles released in the past nine months. Marketing in Pocket Gems allows us

  • to inform our community about our new unique experiences. What we found is that by focusing

  • on creating unique experiences applied to the broadest audience what we're able to do

  • is get the most engagement out of our user base.

  • >>> For us the goal is to get our games in front of as many people as possible. Google

  • Play has been the most important for that with by far the largest audience.

  • >>> For marketing messages a lot of the data is really centered around engagement. And

  • for that -- we're able to engage the effectiveness of messages and how connected our community

  • and population is based on the amount of time they spent in the app and the number of times

  • they looked at different aspects. >>> We take a multichannel approach. The most

  • important channel is cross-promotion for us but we layer on to that and PR, paid advertising

  • channels, as well as work to start word-of-mouth campaigns. We love talking to game writers

  • and tech writers as well as Android-specific bloggers.

  • >>> We have a lot of fun with the creative. We take our iconic characters, we put them

  • in simple backgrounds and then create a bunch of versions of those and then we AB test that

  • creative. So as an example with Top Dragon Park, we took our little baby dragon Nixon

  • and we tried him in different colors and found people loved blue the best so we made blue

  • the icon in a lot of our ad-creating. >>> So in Tap Zoo and Tap Dragon Park over

  • the last couple months, we've had a number of different special promotions and specialized

  • requests that have allowed our users to get creative.

  • >>> We look to get the word out about our games right before they launch, so this can

  • either be pure mouth of friends telling friends or it can be in the games telling people about

  • new games we've launched. >>> When we're about to launch an app, we

  • create a number of different assets, including app icons, feature graphics, future graphics,

  • promotional graphics, viral videos and descriptive screen shots that allow users who have not

  • download the game yet to understand what it's like to actually play the game.

  • [ Video concludes ] >>Patrick Mork: Cool, that's about advertising.

  • The last thing I really wanted to talk about, the last P of the four Ps, is, of course,

  • distribution. So you guys may remember I said at the beginning of the presentation that

  • I was a Pepsi guy, that I had blue blood that flows throughout my veins. And I was one of

  • these freaks that would not drink a vodka Coke because it had Coke in it so I'd just

  • drink the vodka. So it does pain me to say this but why is Coke still it? Why does Coke

  • still beat Pepsi? Distribution. It's not necessarily they have a stronger brand. It's certainly

  • not that they have better advertising. Coke today is available in more countries of the

  • world freely and accessibly than bottled drinkable water. That sounds like a joke. It is very

  • true. The thing that built Coke distribution muscle, and some of these pictures prove it.

  • You can find Coke anywhere. I have found Coke the most outrageous places possible and, of

  • course, it pissed me off because I wanted Pepsi. The same kind of thing needs to influence

  • your decision when you think about distribution. Your distribution does not end when you go

  • live on the play store. Maybe it does on iOS but not on the play store. Our goal is virality

  • and virality means reach. So how do we tackle distribution, is that developers, all the

  • first stuff, of course, is device coverage, we look at all those devices, we look at the

  • market, we anticipate the new devices coming out on the market, and we think to ourselves,

  • what devices do I need to be on, what are the legacy devices that still have a lot of

  • attraction, what are the new devices that are still hot that I need my game to be on?

  • The more devices that we're on, the more people are going to talk about our great products

  • and it's going to go viral and I'm not going to have to worry if the user has the phone

  • or not because I have the app for it. The second step is channel coverage. Of course

  • we're thrilled you guys use Google Play and we think Google Play is going to be your main

  • distribution channel for a long time to come. But that doesn't mean it's the only distribution

  • channel. And the fifth tip of the day is distribute your application on as many distribution channels

  • as makes commercial sense for you. Wherever that might be. If you go, for example, to

  • WIP connector.org which is a site run by the wireless industry partnership which is a nonprofit

  • geared toward helping developers there's a whole section on that site that talks about

  • app stores and app distribution channels cross all the OSs, not just Android. So in that

  • respect, do yourselves a favor and distribute on as many channels as makes sense for you.

  • Whether that's carrier portals or carrier freeloads or third-party app stores, if it

  • makes sense and you can reach more people and you can get more viral, go for it.

  • The third step, of course, is in line with our thinking about virality and that's OS

  • coverage. And consumers have a great experience on an Android app, but if they have a lot

  • of friends who, God forbid, have iPhones, well, why should those people not be able

  • to get your app as well. It all helps you go viral, right? So have your app available,

  • again, on as many OSs as is commercially viable, as makes business sense for you because it's

  • going to drive your virality. When we look back at the case of e-buddy, these guys were

  • available on every single platform known to man, including, for example, Mobile web.

  • And lastly, of course, analyze, optimize, prioritize constantly. Look at your distribution

  • channels, look at your downloads by installed devices, look at your downloads by channel

  • and then reprioritize every quarter, look at the data, analyze. Rinse, repeat, and start

  • over. Lastly, of course, you're always going to

  • need a little bit of luck. Cross your toes, cross your fingers, hope it all works.

  • So we've been through a lot of stuff today. People are probably tired. People are probably

  • thirsty. We have a really cool fireside chat coming up which I hope you guys will stay

  • for. The other thing I wanted to point out is there's going to be a great session on

  • day three, 11:30 a.m, about measurement, it's going to go into a lot of detail, helping

  • you guys analyze how your performance of your campaigns are going. Today we've covered a

  • lot of stuff. We've talked about our product. We've talked about our business models. We've

  • talked about our promotions and how we advertise and promote our apps, the kind of assets we've

  • built. We've talked about distribution. All the different ways that we can go viral. And,

  • of course, we have our great checklist. So we really have a lot of stuff for you guys

  • to sink your teeth into. But before we go, a little gift for you guys,

  • it's a detail on the grand scheme of things that you're getting. So we really want you

  • guys to build great stuff. We really want you to play and work hard and when you work

  • hard we want you to play even harder. So we have a couple of tee shirts. These tee shirts

  • are pretty special to us. Simple reason. These tee shirts were created, there were only a

  • couple hundred created, and they were only created for members of the Google Play team

  • when we launched Google Play as a brand. That's part of the big celebration we did three months

  • ago. These are pretty much the last five that are left that have not been given out to consumers.

  • So I'm going to ask you a couple of questions to see how much of this stuff you absorbed.

  • See how fired up we are about marketing. Are we going to do research and know our users?

  • >>> Yes. >>PATRICK MORK: What?

  • >>> Yes. >>PATRICK MORK: All right. Are we going to

  • develop some really magical kick-ass Android apps?

  • >>> Yes. >>PATRICK MORK: What?

  • >>> Yes. >>PATRICK MORK: All right, that's better.

  • And lastly, are we going to build som awesome bad-ass marketing plans to connect those users

  • with our magical properties? >>> Yes.

  • >>Patrick Mork: What? >>> Yes.

  • >>Patrick Mork: What? >>> Yes.

  • >>Patrick Mork: All right. Thank you very much. Have a great time at I/O.

>>> Ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome Patrick Mork.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it