Aki Spicer’s talk this morning was about adapting marketing strategies and creativity to technology and specially planing and selling applications. These are some of the tidbits he discussed for planners (*wink*).
“Liminal space” - we’re in this hinge period where new things are happening, we don’t have rules for them. It happens all the time in advertising, we’re in this weird space… you need to address new mediums for what they can do.
Your customer, your client, and your company’s futures demand new approaches. We’re all making it up as we go.
Application = advanced functionality to achieve a task (utility). Be sure to ask the client: why do you want to build an app? Work hard to differentiate your app idea, make sure it works for your target audience
Kill the Unicorns – ideas that sound good on paper but when it comes down to it, you can’t build it. You’ve got to know how the technology works, and you must have the resources yourself or at least be able to find ways to help it get solved IF it’s an idea you believe in (go to it planners!).
You’ve got to be the critic in the room. Everyone will be all excited about their ideas, but who’s going to think it through? But don’t be the “party of no,” consider being the “yes, but we need to think about it in this way…” type.
A planner’s job is to often develop a brief and hope that something great happens with it. At first, everyone will be all excited but then there will be a trickle off. As a planner, you need to embrace a hustler mentality, wear a bunch of different hats. And you’re doing all of this next to your normal day job. In essence, you’re acting like a guy who wants to start something, like the guy who started Foursquare, you have to chase it. Stop it early if it’s just a bad idea.
Don’t be a lone ranger. Find people who can help. Creatives think of it as a two-man shop. Find Tonto(s). Get outside your own walls. Call people and talk through ideas. Don’t be afraid to ask dumb questions and get advice. Most tech partners are happy to assess your idea and needs earlier. Determine if you can build from scratch, or do we improve on top of another platform?
Wherever possible, apply App Judo. – build on top of already existing platforms. They have user trust and they’ve already overcome the challenges you want to avoid. People don’t want yet another NEW behavior. They just got trained on Yelp, and Facebook, and Foursquare, etc.
Get something down on paper – get the basic core functionality, not just the elevator pitch anymore, map out the step mechanics (10 pages or less) of the app from the POV of the user
How are you going to sell your app? Don’t sell the app, sell the client’s objectives. There’s no line-item in the client’s budget for “experimental shit.” They don’t want to buy the app, they want to buy what their goal is. Sell safe – make the pitch feel real and not risky,
Now get it out in the world. That’s what’s going to tell you what to change. Make sure to do Q& A – it means quality assurance. Make sure this thing works and gives people the experience you’re promising. Google has a term internally known as “dogfood” – we don’t want to eat our own dogfood; make sure enough people have used it and vetted it. It’s to your benefit to find a way to dogfood your product. 10-20 users is better than 0 users. Turns insights into actions.
Don’t forget to define your app’s success metrics. Set expectations. Set them up so that whatever happens you win. And don’t forget to get the developer to tag user actions you want to track:
- not about click-throughs but rather the # of conversations about it
- # of downloads
- time spent with it
- # of passalongs, recommendations
- press coverage
And don’t forget to make sure you’ve got awareness for this app. You’ve developed it but make sure you have a plan in place to get exposure for your product.
6 odd jobs and responsibilities for the planner when designing and selling an app:
- Research & rationale – make nervous clients feel safe, they will demand case studies, comparitive gap analysis, best pratcies, user data and trends
- Technical copy – from user instructions to FAQs to the thank you SMS copy after signing up
- User (Experience) Flows – developer partners will need diagrams and “beat lists” that outline the full user experience. Think “if x, then y” the details may get maddening but soldier on for the user. And don’t forget to make it visual for the client, get a design team to help you out.
- PR Synopses – Write the crisp headline you want to see out in the world about it. You should be the best person in the agency to describe the thing in 2 sentences.
- Promotional awareness – Tweet it, Facebook it, email it, push early for media budget to garner real mass awareness. The app needs users ASAP!
- Mea Culpa – more often than thought, if and when the app fails, you will be called to help explain it with metrics or any other kind of sorcery #imjussayin
