To anyone paying attention to the digital publishing space in recent months, it is clear that the already fraught relationship between digital publishers and platforms has frayed even further. Publishers have long been critical of the power of Apple and Google, the two major mobile operating system operators, which dominate the mobile app economy through their respective app store platforms. However, in just the past month, intensifying antitrust investigations, legal action from gaming publisher Epic, and publishers’ vocal concerns have all highlighted concerns about Apple’s anti-competitive practices.
As digital media consumption has become ever more mobile, a broad cross section of publishers built mobile apps. Their goal has been to build deeper audience connections and try to regain some control over customer relationships increasingly mediated by social platforms.
In that endeavor, publishers have historically had a friend, or at least frenemy, in the OS providers that allow them to access mobile audiences through their app stores while exacting sometimes onerous terms. As that complex relationship transitions to open hostilities, the industry is asking itself some fundamental questions. Among them: “Are app stores even worth it?
To better understand some of the drawbacks of the app economy, we spoke to Paul Bannister, Chief Strategy Officer at CafeMedia. He discusses some App Store challenges that have led his company to forgo apps altogether.
Discoverability
First among these challenges, according to Bannister, is the limits of discoverability in the app store environment. This is a particular issue for niche and emerging publishers that don’t have globally recognized brands. Prominent legacy news brands like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal can use existing channels to drive a critical mass of dedicated audience members toward an app. However, this is far more difficult for publishers that are still building a business, or for those with niche audiences.
Instead, says Bannister, publishers should build properties on the open web that can be discovered through multiple channels by people searching for the kind of content they excel at producing. Smaller publishers can’t solely rely on a dedicated core audience that’s dedicated enough to a brand to seek it out and download an app.
Monetization
Bannister also points to the limited monetization opportunities offered by the existing mobile app ecosystem. The advertising model has taken a beating in recent years. Critics blame both the market-distorting presence of Google and Facebook and, more recently, the advertising pullback spurred by the global pandemic. However, he argues that advertising remains a significant source of revenue for almost any digital publishers, be they niche brands, publishing startups, or household names like the Times and the Journal.
By contrast, Apple favors monetization through in-app purchases transacted through its own App Store, through which it extracts a 30% transaction fee. This fee is the subject of Apple’s current fight with Epic. But, according to Bannister, it’s this self-interest on the part of the tech giant that curtails the advertising opportunity of publisher apps.
“It’s clear that Apple is really opposed to advertising,” says Bannister. “They prefer to make everything about in-app purchases so they can collect their pound of flesh. They don’t have a presence in advertising so there’s nothing in it for them. So they make it harder to make money in other ways.”
Market dominance
When it comes to the app sector as a whole, Bannister takes a historical view. He compares the role of today’s two dominant mobile operating system providers, Apple and Google, to the monopolistic dominance of telecom giant AT&T’s Bell System in the 1980s.
“They’re the gateway to content for all consumers,” Bannister says. “If you’re any sort of digital publisher, you have to go through one of the mobile operating systems or one of the browsers. And those two companies control 99% of the mobile OS market and 95% of the browser market. That’s unhelpful to competition and they need to be opened up.”
The Bell System was famously broken up and regionalized following the landmark antitrust case United States v AT&T. Bannister isn’t necessarily recommending similar action be taken to reign in the power of OS makers and their app store platforms. However, he does believe that change is needed.
“I have no strong opinion on whether that means regulation or whatever that means breaking them up, but it’s not healthy for two companies to dominate all access to information,” Bannister says. “The desired outcome is a level playing field where everyone can compete, and win, and do well. How we get to a level playing field is up for debate. But a fair competitive environment is the goal.”
The world of mobile is built on scroll and swipe actions. Addictive and habit forming, infinite scroll became the defining characteristic of social media networks for a time. Clicking is making a decision. Scroll is an everlasting stream of possibilities.
Readers do love to scroll. However, it is also a better way to read and digest long content. Usability studies by the Software Usability Research Laboratory show that users can read long, scrolling pages faster than paginated ones. And they absorb the same level of information from the content.
‘Participants using the paging condition took significantly longer to read the passages than either the full or scrolling conditions. They stated that they found the Paging condition to be “too broken up,” and that they had to “go back and forth” quite a bit to search for information.’
Publishers, hoping to establish the kind of enthralled readership seen on social media, built infinite scroll and swipe navigation into their UIs, expecting readers to drip through page after page of their content. Scroll and swipe seemed to be purpose-built for news and entertainment sites.
Unfortunately, the results of scroll and swipe for publishers didn’t hit the mark.
A bottomless pit
Infinite scroll gave readers a bottomless pit of publishers’ content. But dig into the data and you can see that most readers are still only skimming the surface of the content. According to the readership data studied here at Marfeel, we find that 75% of readers never get beyond 10% scroll depth in an article.
Here you can see how ‘content chunks’ are added to the scroll to give readers escape points to new content. These cues are easy to digest, understandable, and have a simple navigation.
Content may have infinite depth. But even engaged readers are unlikely to ever stray from the shallow-end.
When it comes to publisher content, if a reader is not engaged, they are unlikely to continue scrolling. So, if your recirculation strategy relies on readers scrolling past the bottom of an article, you’re losing out on 80% of your audience.
With swipe, the results aren’t as damning but still deeply flawed. Swipe has been shown to potentially increase page views per session by over 400% for some publishers. However, only about 20% of readers ever discover it.
Infinite scroll needs structure, variation, and novelty
Infinite scroll works so well on social media because the content and the formats change on every swipe. You’re rolling the dice for another chance at entertainment. On a publishers’ site, a swipe may just lead to another few paragraphs of content.
Traversing this dead-zone is cognitive work. There’s a lower dopamine response from making a judged evaluation on a longer article or piece of content. Faced with a paragraph of dense analysis on Euribor inflation before the next crumb of content is offered up, a reader’s first instinct will be to leave the page, not continue.
A Chartbeat report found only “slight evidence” infinite scroll contributes to deeper scroll depth, but no definitive evidence that infinite scroll improves depth of visit.
For infinite scroll to work for publishers, varied and exciting content is key. It needs to be digestible as single-scan content chunks. Users must be able to look at once and make a decision about whether they want to read or not.
Grouped titles, images, and instantly understandable content give readers more bursts of information they can use to make quick decisions. These atoms make up a proposition that a user can decide to delve into or keep scrolling. Publishers need to spot scroll-stopping points and introduce alternative exits at these points to keep readers engaged. Writing in Psychology Today, Susan Weinschenk explains, ‘If there is a small, specific cue that signifies that something is going to happen, that sets off our dopamine system’. UI/UX cues that more content is available become a dinner bell that connects to a Pavlovian response inside us.’
Without these cues, infinite scroll becomes an endless litany that unengaged readers will choose to leave rather than find the end. With these tools, publishers can reconsider scroll depth as their most crucial metric and start focusing on recirculating readers, which techniques such as ‘inline articles’ as seen above can increase recirculation by an average of 60%.
Take a lesson from Tinder on swiping
Swipe removed pagination from the mobile experience. However, not every reader discovers it in mobile publishers’ content. Imagine a world where only 20% of visitors to Tinder realized they had swipe for more content.
Apps such as Tinder and TikTok are built around swipe because they make it explicit. Publishers’ audiences are not expecting to swipe, rather follow the sections and pagination of traditional news sites. Publishers that have managed to make swipe work for them use clear and simple UI cues that make swipe a logical and intuitive cue.
Another major difference in what swipe offers us – compared with clicking new content, changing pages, or switching apps – is that we’re unsure of risk/reward ratio. And this can deliver higher rewards than evaluating decisions.
Provided we have some information about a user’s tastes, such as broad interests, swiping to a new article in a relevant or category or similar topic can even be more rewarding than choosing a new link based on rational decision-making. To do this, swipe needs to be integrated with cues to show that swipe is the intended action. As it is not yet a natural motion on content sites, this behavior needs to be taught and established.
By re-working these born-mobile techniques, publishers can re-define swipe to make it a more natural and established action. This will help publishers turn swipe and scroll from well-intentioned but ineffective tools into powerful and essential components of any content-based UI.
Perhaps the word of the year for 2019 should be “connectivity.” According to Deloitte’s new report, 2019 Connectivity and Mobile Trends (CMT), the average household now has 11 connected devices, with seven different smart screens to view content. Smart home devices are also popular with more than a quarter of U.S. households (28%). Consumers are using connected thermostats, security, lights, and other connected products.
Consumers are also enthusiastic about 5th generation
wireless networks (5G) and the promise of higher performance, greater
reliability, and more cost-effective usage. Awareness is quite high with close
to two-thirds of consumers reporting that they are familiar with 5G wireless
networks. In fact, 28% of consumers say they are “very likely” to buy a
compatible smartphone when the service is available in their area.
According to Deloitte’s findings, both Gen Z and Millennials
plan to use 5G for its promise of speed and bandwidth for gaming and
entertainment services like augmented reality and virtual reality (AR and VR).
These services require high-speed, low-latency connections. Further, mobile
gaming will also see a surge in usage. Nearly half of both Gen Z and
Millennials familiar with 5G (49%), report that they will play more mobile
video games using 5G connectivity.
Data collection
With consumers more connected than ever before, they are also
more aware of the realities of the data economy including the collection of
their personal data. Nearly three-quarters of consumers (72%) agree that they
are more aware of how their data is collected and used than a year ago. Connected
devices are a way of life. So too is the exchange of personal data for free
digital services.
It appears that over half of consumers (52%), agree that the
value they derive from digital services overrides their privacy and security. It’s
important to note, this study did not differentiate between the data collection
of publishers compared to social platforms or between first-party or third-party
in its line of questioning.
Vulnerability is key here. More than half of consumers (58%)
are “very” or “extremely” concerned about the privacy of their smartphone data,
and 59% feel similar about its security. Consumers are also concerned about the
privacy and security of smart phone speakers (73%) and about the privacy of
home automation devices (72%). Importantly, 90% of consumers report that they
should be able to see and delete data that companies collect about them. Further,
84% state that they want to be paid by companies that profit from their data.
Data protection
Consumers see platform and online services that collect their
data as “most responsible” for protecting it (35%). This is followed by
consumers themselves (26%), and the government (15%). Nearly two-thirds of
consumers (61%) report that platforms and online services are making it harder
for them to understand how their data is being used. A full 56% also state that
they have less trust in these companies than they did a year ago. Interestingly,
most consumers (84%) agree that the government should do more to regulate the
way companies can collect and use data.
Consumers clearly welcome better connectivity and improved service
performances. However, this comes with heightened awareness and concerns over
their data privacy. While they value the online services they use, consumers want
more control and transparency on the data collection, usage and a share in its monetization.
When we look back at audience engagement insights this year, we confirmed what we’ve known for some time — mobile readership is growing rapidly across the world.
Overall, about 40% of direct visits take place on mobile devices, according to Chartbeat’s global publishing data. As if that weren’t enough to get your distribution strategy in order, we’ve found that poor mobile user experiences could be impacting your ability to drive reader revenue.
This quarter’s snapshot of the global audience engagement landscape points to many of the lessons media and publishing communities can use for strategic planning moving forward. Also, it’s worth taking a look back at our previous international reader engagement data published here earlier this year to see how those trends have evolved in just the past few months.
Africa, Southern Europe see mobile jumps
Mobile pageviews continue to climb in Africa, increasing from 77% to 79% in the past quarter. Mobile readership jumped across the rest of the world as well, notably in Southern Europe, which grew from 61% to 65%.
We previously noted that one of the newest, yet largely unknown, drivers of traffic is coming from mobile-first aggregators. A significant portion of this growth is driven by Google Chrome Suggestions and Google News, which each grew more than 50% this year. Outside of the US, we’ve seen platforms such as TikTok and TopBuzz drive an increasing amount of mobile traffic. Our data tells us to expect more of the same heading into the new year.
Search traffic in Central Asia, China rises
Pageviews coming from search engines continue to climb across Asia compared to last quarter. Search engine traffic in Central Asia is up 2% (now 30%), while China is up 3% (now 29%), and Southeast Asia increased by 1% (now 23%).
Southeast Asia still leads in social pageviews
There’s been something special about social interactions in Southeast Asia throughout 2019. For the third consecutive quarter, this region has made up the greatest share in percent of all pageviews coming from social platforms, holding steady at 31%.
Latin America: Home of the engaged reader
Three quarters in a row, readers across Latin America showed the highest Average Engaged Time at over 34 seconds. Close behind, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. We’re continuing to look into the drivers of growth, but we have seen major innovations among publishers in the region.
Northern Europe loyalty drops, but still tops
Northern European readers have lead loyalty metrics for three straight quarters, with the highest percentage of loyal* pageviews (46%) compared to total pageviews among readers.
This matters — there have been clear lines drawn between reader loyalty and the willingness to subscribe.
Audience engagement insights: This quarter and a look ahead
The themes we’ve seen across global publishers this past quarter align with the broader trends across digital media — we’re in a mobile-first environment that rewards user experiences as much as the quality of content. With the data we’ve outlined in mind, here are a few takeaways that can be taken into 2020:
Strategize for regions and devices. Segmentation is key to reaching new audiences and expanding current readership. The surge in mobile and search traffic across the world can show publishers:
How regions interact with content irrespective of one another.
Where readers are and how they engage with content, which will ultimately benefit their audience development efforts.
Leverage Engaged Time. High Average Engaged Times across the world, particularly in Latin America, present new opportunities to build loyal readers. Our research shows loyal readers consume more content, so optimizing articles to ensure readers are Recirculating will help media companies get the most out of their increased engagement.
There’s still an opportunity to expand your regional audiences by optimizing for the platforms and devices where they interact with content most — this trend will continue into the new year.
And, as mobile engagement continues to grow in influence, this places an even greater emphasis on making small adjustments to your site and digital content. Why? These trends we’re seeing may evolve as reader habits continue to change, but improving audience loyalty is an opportunity that digital content creators can’t afford to lose.
* A loyal reader is someone who returns to your site in at least 50% of days in a two-week period.
When you’ve been in the publishing business since 1857, you can rightfully say that you’ve learned a thing or two about longevity and how to make a product continually appealing to ever-changing consumers. The key to maintaining that allure today, apparently, is to make things look simple without losing your sophistication. For The Atlantic, that means taking an A-to-Z approach, beginning – literally – with a capital “A” and ending with a close eye on Gen Z, your future readers.
Investing in
growth
To better compete for eyeballs in an
increasingly digital world, the publication recently undertook a significant
redesign of its magazine, website, and iOS app and rolled out a new digital
subscription service. To support these initiatives, the brand made several
prominent new hires, including creative director Peter Mendelsund, senior art
director Oliver Munday, and director of photography Luise Stauss. And over the
past year, the product, engineering, and growth teams were doubled.
The results so far have been promising. September
and October both drew record numbers of subscribers—more than double the number
of subscriptions and revenue originally forecast. The website now tallies 30 million
unique visits monthly and the magazine boasts a paid circulation of 500,000.
And in the five days following the redesign rollout, The Atlantic had twice the
number of subscribers daily, on average, as there were in the same period
before the redesign.
New look, same savvy
Readers who visit the website or use the
app today will likely take instant note of the streamlined design and sparse
template at work. A bold red “A” logo has replaced the title’s previous iconic
emblem. The words stand out consistently in a clean new custom typeface. Clustered
or crowded content is a thing of the past thanks to a generous infusion of
white space. And the top navigation bar is a simplified element better served
by a hamburger menu icon in the upper left corner.
But what hasn’t changed, insists Adrienne
LaFrance, executive editor of The Atlantic, is the quality writing, diversity
of content, and journalistic integrity. “The way we will continue to stay
competitive is by showing people how we are different than other publications—reminding
them of our extraordinary writing, unmatched narrative journalism, beautiful
design, and photography,” she says.
“Were lucky because we have a really
differentiated and highly valuable product that people already love and have
loved for a long time. But it was time for a redesign, with a focus on giving
people the best possible user experience and helping them get to the best of
our work even more easily.”
Mobile matters
First introduced in 2011, the improved iOS app (plans are afoot
to launch an Android version) is designed to function as a compact version of
the print magazine while retaining the cleanly legible look and unconstrained
feel of the website. A dedicated editorial team exclusively manages the app,
which has more carefully curated and diverse offerings for subscribers, thanks
in large part to its Today feed.
“The Today feed walks the reader through
what’s happening but gives them deeper context behind the news – stitching
together the larger patterns so people can derive meaning from the day’s
events. There’s a narrative arc there, not just a list of bullet points or
headlines. There’s definite value for people who want to come away with a complete
and rich sense of what’s going on in the world and why it matters,” LaFrance
explains. “You can choose how deeply you want to delve into the feed, whether
you want to read every single story or browse through it. The app and entire
feed are free. Where you encounter the need to subscribe is when you click
through to a particular article.”
LaFrance notes that the app and website
are two distinctly different products. The mobile experience is focused on
making it simple to brush up on the news of the day and discover articles of
interest to on-the-go users.
“We want to respect people’s time and
intelligence, and we understand that there are so many different options for
getting information and reading. We know people come to The Atlantic for
extraordinary journalism. And we want to make it easy and delightful for them
to experience our stories,” she adds.
While she couldn’t yet disclose numbers
post-revamp, LaFrance says that, historically, The Atlantic’s mobile app
audience was a fraction of its overall digital audience. Previously, “in any given
week, about three-quarters of subscribers who used our existing app came
three-plus times per week,” she notes.
New routes to
revenue
Simplifying the subscription model was
another priority. Now, readers can opt from three tiers:
Digital ($50
annually, which includes unlimited access to TheAtlantic.com, the iOS app,
digital issues, and a subscriber-only newsletter);
Print and digital
($60 a year, which comes with the aforementioned plus delivery of 10 print
issues); and
Premium ($100
annually, for all of the above goodies plus exclusive access to podcasts,
ad-free web browsing, a complimentary digital gift subscription, Atlantic
product discounts, and priority access to exclusive events).
Subscriptions and print advertising serve as complementary pieces of the monetization pie (comprising approximately 20% of revenue). However, the lion’s share comes from digital advertising (45%). The remainder is derived from various sources, including live events (like The Atlantic Festival, Future of Work seminar, and Aspen Ideas Festival 2020).
“It’s actually a wonderful time to be a publisher because the incentives for the highest-quality journalism and what journalists want to make are aligned with what readers are willing to pay for. So, we can be incredibly ambitious knowing that the highest quality product is what people will want to subscribe to,” LaFrance says. “I think one of the reasons The Atlantic has remained so urgent and relevant for 162 years is that we’ve been really aggressive about diversifying revenue and one of the first media companies to demonstrate extraordinary skill in the live event space.”
That’s not to say the waters won’t be
choppy ahead.
“This is an intensely competitive
environment. That’s not just among publications and magazines but in the way
people spend their time nowadays – from Netflix to TikTok to Instagram to news
organizations. There is no other publication out there like The Atlantic, and
that’s why we’re having so much success with our subscriptions,” she continues.
“But the key for us going forward is making people understand what makes us
special.”
Eye on the horizon
LaFrance, who joined the company in 2014
and served as its website editor for years, lives by an important credo:
Nothing is guaranteed, especially in the world of digital publishing.
“No publication has a right to survive.
You have to really serve your readers. That means doing the best quality work
and finding the places where your readers are so that they can connect with
your journalism, fall in love with it, and keep coming back.”
While mum on the details, LaFrance hinted
that other exciting changes are coming soon to The Atlantic’s digital
offerings. Right now, her team is focused on further perfecting the digital
user’s experience and gauging reaction to the redesigns.
“We’ve done a lot of audience research and
looked closer at how people are finding our stories, what they like, and what
they are excited about on our site. All of that has been factored into our
editorial thinking process. So far, the feedback has been overwhelmingly
positive, almost to the point where we’re waiting to learn what we can do
better.”
Referral traffic to content has risen in recent years due in part to a largely unknown channel — mobile-first aggregators. Here’s what we know about mobile aggregators, why they matter, and importantly, their growing influence over reader traffic.
What is the mobile aggregators story?
Mobile-first aggregators present a growth story — the referral traffic they send to publishers has doubled in the past two years. A significant portion of this growth is driven by Google Chrome Suggestions and Google News, which each grew more than 50% this year (and drives significantly larger shares of referral traffic than Twitter).
The field of global mobile aggregators is also growing. Tokyo-based SmartNews and China-based news aggregator TopBuzz have shown rapid expansion, driving an increasing amount of traffic to sites. More importantly, their growth has changed the traffic landscape. Smartnews and TopBuzz are both now sending as much traffic as Yahoo.
Why content creators should pay attention to mobile aggregators
Digital-first organizations are still in the early stages of understanding the primary drivers of subscriptions. However, effective strategies rely on identifying the behaviors content creators can (and want to) encourage that will ultimately lead to more reader revenue.
From our research thus far, publishers have had far less success in converting readers from mobile-first aggregators compared to more traditional channels such as email. Connecting the dots is crucial.
Therefore, a deeper understanding of mobile-first aggregators can open up a whole new level of engagement, and by extension, a new reader revenue channel.
Next steps: Demystifying mobile aggregators
Based on what we currently know about mobile aggregators, here’s what content creators should keep in mind:
Strategize around these new mobile referral sources
Overall,we see the mobile-first aggregators as more of a missed opportunity than an unsolvable problem. We believe content creators can take advantage of this mostly untapped source of traffic by understanding their unique impact and optimizing content accordingly.
Audience development tactics are needed
For too long, mobile-first aggregators have been categorized as a subset of the larger platforms (i.e., Google search) we know well. However, we believe they should be seen as their own channel, which would get publishers closer to segmenting (and therefore optimizing) key drivers of traffic.
It’s all about attribution
Segmentation of traffic leads to better attribution. The ability to uncover mobile aggregator-specific patterns and better track their impact. Moreover, it can clear the path towards leveraging the channel for higher engagement, loyalty, and conversions.
Our data shows that the growth of mobile-first aggregators has significantly upended the traffic source landscape. Publishers would be remiss to take this shift lightly, as they may be missing out on a major source of referral traffic in the long-term.
This also coincides with a trend we’ve long seen — the fact that mobile-first readers are demanding better experiences. Therefore, it’s unsurprising that aggregators have become this increasingly influential source of traffic.
Frustrated by fierce competition in a marketplace that counts over 6K new Android apps added daily to the Google Play app store alone and infuriated by reports that suggest Apple routinely favors its own apps in App Store searches, app companies and developers are adopting bold approaches to get their apps in front of potential audiences. The outcome is a flurry of activity and experimentation that could make 2019—destined to be the biggest year in mobile and apps yet—the best year for mobile app distribution models that pay real dividends.
A company writing the playbook is Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite. The shooter game on PC, consoles, and now mobile and apps has become a cultural phenomenon; as of March 2019, it had amassed an audience of almost 250 million worldwide. Addictive gameplay is certainly a big factor that has contributed to the blockbuster success of Fortnite since its launch in 2017.
However, if we dig deeper, a
critical driver is a brilliant direct distribution strategy shaped by the company’s
determination to bypass the app store. “Avoiding the 30% ‘store tax’ is a
part of Epic’s motivation,” the
company’s CEO Tim Sweeny told Forbes. “It’s
a high cost in a world where game developers’ 70% must cover all the cost of
developing, operating, and supporting their games.”
It’s also high time to ask some basic questions about the app store distribution model that hasn’t changed since the app stores opened for business in 2008. Leave it to the edgy El Reg to call out the elephant in the room. “More pertinently, after a decade, is the question why Apple and Google still take a 30% cut. In a competitive marketplace, wouldn’t that rate have been whittled down over the years?”
In a world where prices are
falling everywhere, the article concludes, “that 30% over a decade is
starting to look plain embarrassing.”
Clever moves to cut out app
stores
The Apple-Google app store
duopoly is increasingly the focus of broad government antitrust investigations.
That’s because these two companies serve as gatekeeper for a massive
marketplace where consumers are expected to spend an incredible $120 billion this
year, according to app market intelligence provider App Annie. Think of it:
That’s 5 times the growth rate of the global economy. So, its little wonder
companies are lining up for their share of the action (and revenues).
A pioneer in the alternative app-marketplace was Facebook’s Instant Games. The platform where consumers can launch games from within Facebook’s chat apps has gained significant traction this year. The content library—6,000 Instant Games compared to over a million Android games and over 800,000 games on iOS—may seem tiny, but the goal here isn’t size. Facebook leverages its social connections to power an app-like ecosystem that doesn’t require an app store.
In China, the mobile messaging
app WeChat has done one better. It has evolved into a one-stop-shop platform
for a wide array of content and services. Consumers rely on it every step if
their daily journey. With the help of “mini-programs” they download
directly into WeChat, users can access content, order meals, make payments, and
call a cab—and that’s just the start.
The alternative app marketplace
The ranks of companies
building the capabilities to take aim at Apple and Google’s dominance of the app
economy are growing. Realistically, though, it’s a strategy only a handful of
companies can afford to pursue. So, what are the options for the masses of
companies and developers that want to reach new audiences with their apps but
lack the resources to construct and command their own alternative app marketplace?
One approach gaining traction is the Direct 2 Device (D2D) model. I learned about this one through my own informal survey at Mobile Growth Summit. D2D is the choice for an increasing number of app companies—particularly media and entertainment apps eager to engage more users across more regions. In this scenario, app companies work with Digital Turbine, a mobile delivery platform that leverages more than 40 partnerships with handset makers and mobile operators worldwide to pre-load apps on devices. Apps are delivered directly to the device because Digital Turbine’s technology sits at the operating system level of new Android phones, enabling companies to reach consumers as they set up new devices.
Delivering a frictionless
user experience
In practice, the approach gets apps directly in the hands of consumers. It also puts consumers in control of their apps, giving them the option to keep what they like and delete the apps they don’t. The result is a frictionless experience that streamlines app discovery, which saves users the hassle of sifting through digital shelves packed with millions of apps.
This is a big deal in a global
app economy where app store search, though not broken, is clearly not optimal.
Many apps show up high in search results because the companies that made them
have mastered app store optimization or bid on the right keywords, not because
the apps are the best fit with what consumers are looking for in the first
place.
Digital Turbine’s EVP of global
revenues and growth Matt Tubergen tells me his company has preloaded over 2
billion apps via its software platform, which is installed on more than 270
million devices. Shopping and gaming—hypercompetitive verticals where too many
apps are chasing too few users—were the first to embrace Digital Turbine to capture
and convert new audiences. More recently, media and entertainment apps have
joined the party.
From CNN to the BBC, and from
Smart News to News Republic, companies are making D2D the cornerstone of their
customer activation strategy. News portals and social platforms, including Yahoo!,
Opera News, and Reddit, are also harnessing the platform to fuel growth.
Significantly, Digital
Turbine’s Tubergen says many media companies don’t just see D2D as a play to bypass
the app stores. “It’s about augmenting their channels—increasing reach in
a way that allows them to take back control of the download experience and
determine their distribution in addition to the app stores.”
You have options
Whether companies have the
wherewithal to build their own app store marketplaces (without a store), or join
the ranks of companies making their apps available to consumers directly on the
smartphone at the time of device activation, it pays to explore other ways to
distribute your app and grow your audience.
Media consumption on mobile is headed for the stratosphere this year. In fact, roughly 10 minutes out of every hour spent consuming media will be on a mobile. So, it’s no surprise that the dominant distribution channels are noisy and crowded. Harnessing alternative distribution channels allows media companies to drive customer connection—without the friction. It also lets them focus on an even bigger challenge: ensuring that consumers engage frequently and deeply with their apps.
In a market where the cost to acquire an app user is rising through the roof, and the increase in app abandonment (the number of users who quit an app after one use) is alarming, it’s clear that the traditional focus on top-funnel metrics is fatally flawed. Our focus on a linear journey is completely out of line with user lifecycles. Mobile had forever altered the consumer path to purchase and funnel models no longer fit.
Architecting campaigns and strategies that prize acquisition over retention doesn’t just force marketers to burn considerable cash. It blinds them to the key engagement activities and metrics that are the sure-fire indicators of highly valuable and deeply loyal consumers who are primed to engage with content—and more.
It doesn’t matter whether the goal is to drive registrations,
encourage consumers to volunteer information such as personal preferences that
will allow you to deepen the customer relationship, or sell subscriptions: Ensuring
a predictable and sustainable cash flow quality trumps quantity every time. In
the App Economy, success isn’t a numbers game. It requires strategies that get
the right users into your app—and keep them coming back.
A strategy that harnesses AI and machine learning to connect
with customers in a relevant way based on an analysis of the millions of data
points and signals that communicate their context via mobile and in-app can be a
bonus. But even the best mix of analytics and analysis will miss the mark if
marketers segment their audience by static demographics, not dynamic actions.
Embracing the engagement pyramid
First and foremost, marketers need a firm grasp of the hard
data around the “who” of their customer base. However, they must also command
the soft skills around the “why.” They need to understand what motivates
their audience to take action in the first place. Effective app marketing
engages with users throughout the lifecycle based on these two inputs.
But an ongoing data investigation by Phiture, a leading mobile growth consultancy based in Berlin, and CleverTap, a full-stack customer retention platform, ads a third dimension. They’ve built a framework to measure and analyze the user engagement we observe.
Published for the first time last month, Phiture’s framework offers marketers a more nuanced view of user engagement and a roadmap to increase retention. The authors of this must-read resource (Andy Carvell, Kevin Bravo ,and Tessa Miskell) present the Engagement Pyramid, a model that breaks engagement down into three layers:
Acknowledgment, where users show an appreciation
for the app, but not high intent. (For example, opening the app or reading a push
notification.)
Interest, where users deliberately
interact with the app and demonstrate a willingness to do more. (For example,
tapping on items in a feed, consuming content and initiating search queries.)
Conversion, where users follow through
and complete a core action that is aligned with the purpose and value
proposition offered by the app. (For example, booking a trip with a travel app
or managing money with a finance app.)
Maslow and measurement
The framework gets high marks on several counts. It bravely questions the practice of monitoring DAU (Daily Active Users) or MAU (Monthly Active Users), or employing performance metrics that simplify engagement into binary terms (counting users as engaged or not). It also gives the concept of a purchase funnel a rehaul, literally turning it on its head in a hat tip to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Maslow’s theory in psychology divides our human needs into
five levels, placing the most basic needs at the bottom of the pyramid and
elevating our most complex needs to the top of the pyramid, the Engagement
Pyramid inspires marketers to aim high—and be highly focused on outcomes.
Above all, the authors open our eyes to the model and the mindset marketers must embrace to increase meaningful engagement and stop churn before it starts. “It’s important to understand that engagement is a continuum, ranging from low-value to high-value actions,” they write on their latest blog. “A user may traverse this spectrum rapidly within the space of a few sessions, or remain stubbornly stuck in a low-engaged state for days, months, or years, without necessarily abandoning the app.”
Tracking events and asking questions
Applying the framework doesn’t just equip marketers to analyze
key user actions and assign them to the proper layer in the Engagement Pyramid.
It enables marketers to assess the value of user engagement and the potential
impact on the business. “Observing how layers grow or shrink over time gives
an indication of how well the app is performing,” the authors write.
Are more users performing actions that demonstrate Acknowledgement
at the bottom of the pyramid than are striving to complete events associated
with Conversion at the top? Review your app onboarding strategy and double-check
that your user acquisition campaigns are designed to attract the right
users from the get-go.
Is there a high correlation between the number of users who
belong to the Acknowledgement layer and the number of users who progress to
Conversion? Read that as a signal that you can scale campaigns, increase spend
and aim high—because you can.
Courtesy of Phiture
Piecing together the retention puzzle
While the authors don’t specifically address it in their framework,
insights into how users engage and how much it’s worth also empower marketers
to enhance the user experience and—ultimately—increase customer lifetime value.
This was the focus during Cutting-Edge Retention Strategies,
a recent webinar and fireside chat where I was a guest along with Jessica
Osorio, Lead, Mobile Growth at Mozilla. While she doesn’t formally apply the AIC
framework (our discussion preceded its release by roughly two months), her analysis
of engagement metrics and their impact is just as rigorous.
“All apps face a really steep drop in retention on Day
1, just 24 hours after the app install,” she told me. To plug this “leaky
bucket” and deepen user engagement with the app, Mozilla has improved the onboarding
experience, adding what it calls the “welcome journey.” It’s during
this stage that Mozilla delivers a series of automated push notifications and
in-app messages to “walk users through all the things to do with the app that
we know will drive the most value for them.”
Osorio is also realistic about the “natural usage frequency”
and the importance of setting reachable targets for how (and how far) her
company can drive app engagement. “We want users to come back and enjoy
the app, but it’s not a target we miss if the users don’t come back on a daily
basis,” she said. “For us, it’s not DAU or WAU. It’s about building
products that meet users’ needs and journeys that surface that value from the
start.”
Audiences evolve, and marketers must keep the pace with app
messaging, ad creative and the value proposition tailored to match with the
needs of users as they move through the app journey. Whether companies embrace
new frameworks to assess engagement or architect customer journeys to boost loyalty,
the increased interest in retention marketing has profound implications. It
also demands marketers master the capabilities to reach and segment users based
on what users do (and don’t do) in-app with messaging that motivates them
throughout the customer lifecycle and the life span of the app.
The advance of high-speed networks and affordable data plans hasn’t only whet audience appetites for unlimited anytime, anywhere access to the content they desire. It has created ideal conditions for data-hungry streaming apps to proliferate, displacing traditional broadcast TV, and driving the meteoric growth of on-demand video. The phenomenon is global in scale, but nowhere is the impact as profound as in India, the fastest-growing video streaming market in the world. In India, on-demand entertainment services are forecast to account for more than 74% of mobile data traffic by 2020, up from 47% in 2014.
Streaming viewership is soaring, but it’s Hotstar—part of the Walt Disney entertainment empire and India’s largest premium streaming platform —that is seeing numbers climb into the stratosphere. In June Hotstar set a new global benchmark for live events. It reported a record 18.6 million users simultaneously tuned into the company’s mobile website and app to watch the deciding game of the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket games. This sort of high-octane content has allowed Hotstar to grow the number of monthly users across app and web to 300 million, up from 150 million the previous year.
Hotstar balances a mix of blockbuster entertainment (including rights to popular movies and shows from ABC, HBO, and Showtime) with a bouquet of content aligned with India’s obsession with Bollywood and demand for local language translations. (Note that India hosts hundreds of dialects and over 20 official languages). As a result of this winning combination, Hotstar dominates India’s on-demand video streaming services market. The latest research from Jana pegs Hotstar’s total market share at 69.7%, compared to Amazon (5%) and Netflix (1.4%).
Using data to differentiate the customer
experience
At first glance, it’s remarkable that large global players with deep pockets continue to struggle in the Indian market—despite significant investments to ramp up local content. But look under the hood, and you may be surprised. Hotstar’s success may start with broadcast rights for live premium sports paired with high-quality vernacular content that attracts record numbers of viewers. However, it’s driven by a strategy that harnesses personalization, recommendations, and psychographic segmentation to keep them coming back.
Finding
the right balance between acquisition and retention is crucial for a company
like Hotstar, which thrives on live events. It pays to spend millions of
dollars to acquire audiences at scale—but only if users don’t leave in droves
when the event is over. Hotstar turned a potential problem into a massive
opportunity by mapping individual user journeys to move audiences across the
funnel from freemium viewers to paid subscribers.
How
Hotstar moves viewers from fremium to subscription
In an
exclusive interview, Mihir Shah, VP of Product & Marketing Growth at
Hotstar, distills the company’s data-driven approach into the four fundamentals
companies must get right to turn casual users into committed fans.
1. Personalize the entire user experience
It’s
important to look beyond demographics to gain a deeper understanding of who
your user is, what job your product solves in their lives, and how they use
your product, Shah explains. In this scenario, actions are just as important as
inactions to develop relevant engagement and re-engagement strategies. How many
times has the user opened the app or viewed the content? How long has it been
since the last interaction? How quickly or slowly is the user moving through
the funnel, and what“nudges” might convince and—ultimately—convert them?
Shah says these are critical questions marketers can only answer if they get a
firm grasp of behavioral segmentation models aimed at understanding and
predicting user attitudes and outcomes. “Once you establish a degree of
predictability around how your users behave, the way is clear to progress users
through the funnel with the help of content that is packaged and promoted based
on a deep understanding of user personas and psychographics,” he says
2. Recommend your content along the customer
lifecycle
User
acquisition burns money if audiences don’t stick around to explore and consume
the breadth of content available on the platform. This can be a major marketing
challenge, and why a big part of Shah’s job revolves around “converting the
sports fans who come to our platform—about 70 to 80 million daily for live
events like IPL—to start watching more of the entertainment we offer. And,
ultimately, get them to commit to a subscription.”
Achieving
this objective requires the ability to identify and segment users based on
digital details, including their browsing and viewing history, content
consumption patterns and other preferences. “Based on a collaborative filtering
method, we recommend entertainment titles that other sports viewers watch,”
Shah says. “If the user is a free user on our platform, we move them through
the funnel by recommending content from our Premium library that they are most
likely to appreciate—content suggestions based on freemium viewership patterns.
The relevant recommendations are then delivered to users off-platform as part
of an omnichannel campaign strategy that spans push notifications, social and
programmatic.
3. Messaging must be personal and perfectly
timed
Keep
up the momentum with campaigns that seek to influence user behaviors, not just
move metrics. Shah illustrates using the example of users who have streamed
live cricket matches. “We know that sending them push notifications based on
the actual game event will encourage them to relaunch the app and view the game
in progress.” In practice, he says, this means “delivering over 100 million
push notifications tailored to the moment and timed perfectly within a very
small window of just a few minutes.”
It’s a critical timeline that Shah says Hotstar reaches with the help of CleverTap, a customer lifecycle management and engagement platform that is capable of delivering more than 25 million push notifications a minute/ Shah says it was essential to reach Hotstar’s app install base of over 250 million. Significantly, “event-centric” campaigns appear to resonate most with audiences, boosting engagement and the average watch time per session by 12% and more.
“As we
cross-sell entertainment content, let’s say a movie, to our sports viewers, our
marketing creatives bring out a connection between the sport and the
entertainment content, thus making the content more appealing to a sports fan.”
But making the connection is just part of the strategy. Shah stresses it’s also
a good idea to pinpoint the days and times of the week that different user
segments are the most active and receptive to push notifications. Hotstar used
these insights to optimize send times, increasing click-through rates by 3x in
the process.
4.
Engaging with users in real-time is a game-changer
RFM
(Recency, Frequency Monetary) analysis is a behavioral segmentation model that
examines user activity to identify how recently and frequently they performed a
key action. To make sure the effort marketers invest in this model also drives
returns, RFM also looks at the monetary value of the action (such as purchasing
an item or, in the case of Hotstar, subscribing to programming). Shah is a huge
proponent of RFM, a framework his company has harnessed to bring context to
user engagement campaigns and, more importantly, predict churn. In both cases,
Hotstar segments users in real-time based on certain actions or inactions they
undertake within the app.
Imagine
a scenario where users who were watching a particular episode of a series
simply leave the app for some reason. “We see that as a trigger and send them a
customized push notification encouraging them to come back to finish viewing
that particular episode at precisely that moment.” Similarly, users who have seen previous episodes of
a series but not the latest one, are sent a contextual push notification as
soon as the latest episode is released. The outcome, he adds, is “more
conversions and increased content consumption.”
The future is interactive
As Hotstar continues on its impressive
growth trajectory, Shah says, the company is ready to take on one more bet:
that “the future of all sports streaming will be social.” As he sees it,
there’s no reason to limit the flow of content to push or pull. “Why should
content consumption be one way?,” he asks. “Why can’t it be immersive and
interactive?”
To enable two-way exchange, Hotstar is
laying a new layer on top of its platform. Last year it introduced Watch`N`Play, a game that challenges
users to guess cricket gameplay and outcomes, as well as social features and
streaming using virtual reality (VR) to make the match more immersive. This
year Hotstar is going one better, adding “another layer of chat” to the
platform, allowing fans to invite their friends from their Facebook account or
phone book contacts to the platform.
Effective user acquisition ends in
advocacy, and that means meeting and anticipating needs that consumers
themselves might not be able to identify. “It’s becoming increasingly clear
that customers are hungry for more, even though they don’t know what they are
looking for,” Shah explains. It’s up to companies like Hotstar to pave the road
for this future, building a platform and adding what he calls “unique,
inevitable and incremental experiences” that go beyond just entertaining
content.
Publishers attempting to unlock new sources of reader revenue are understandably honing in on device usage, particularly when there are an estimated 5.1 billion unique mobile users around the world that could be paid subscribers.
Chartbeat data between May 2018 and April 15 of this year shows that mobile continues to dominate device-based engagement across the world, with between 55% and 60% of readers engaged through this channel, followed by desktop and tablet. This trend is also reflected across North America, where approximately 57% of readers prefer mobile devices to consume content.
However, simply possessing the analytics to know whether readers prefer your mobile, tablet, or desktop experience is only step one. The next and crucial step is understanding the sources of retention and churn.
Therefore, we wanted to take a closer look at the relationship between devices and subscriber behavior, specifically where subscribers most often convert or churn. From there, publishers can uncover the solutions that will improve subscriber retention rates.
Analyzing subscriber conversions by device
We began by analyzing subscriber status changes (i.e., conversions or churns) that took place across publishers in January. In order to be included in the dataset, a user* would have had to visit a site on their device at least once in the last quarter of 2018 and at least once in January.
Quick note: Why do we refer to the data population as “users”? Since we don’t track individuals across devices, it’s possible for a single person to appear multiple times in the data if they’re accessing a publisher’s site on multiple devices.
Subscriber patterns
Our findings show that while tablets have the most subscribers (as a proportion of total audience size on each device), they are also the most likely to convert, as indicated in the chart below. This is followed by desktop and mobile, suggesting on first impression that publishers should be focusing their web conversion UX efforts on tablet and desktop.
You can also see that the churn/conversion ratio is highest on mobile (which also has the greatest number of users), followed by desktop and tablet. This suggests that the mobile web subscription and/or login experiences on websites is simply not up to par with their desktop counterparts. This could potentially take the form of slow loading speeds or difficulty navigating through form fills, for instance.
What can publishers do to improve subscriber experiences?
Chartbeat’s analysis demonstrates that publishers will want to shore up their mobile UX and subscription flows, thereby improving the likelihood of subscriber conversions and retention while reducing churn. This is particularly important on mobile devices, given that those sites are now the predominant way new users experience a publisher’s website, but through which so few are being converted.
We also think it’s worth noting here that this slice of data does not include app users, which tends to be where mobile loyalists congregate. That said, we see a good opportunity for experimentation—publishers can analyze the impact of tailoring experiences towards acquisition, engagement, and conversion on the mobile web versus re-engagement and retention on the mobile app.
All publishers need to take a deep dive into new and churned subscribers over various time periods, their reading patterns by device, and whether their user journey flow would encourage, or turn off, a potential subscriber from converting. Our approach is to help publishers integrate subscriber analytics in an effort to provide a clear idea of the connections between audience engagement, loyalty, and more paying subscribers. Clearly, publishers need to develop a deeper understanding of their subscribers’ device-based usage.
The mobile app ecosystem will turn 11 years old this summer, and it has evolved into one of the largest industries globally with forecasted revenues of almost $190 billion. There are now millions of apps in both the Apple App Store and Google Play. And they account for over half of digital media usage and time spent in the US. We are obviously in a mobile-first world – at Teads, mobile traffic represents over 70% of our publishers’ traffic worldwide.
However, we find that many publishers continue to focus
investment on web while either treating their existing apps as side projects or
not developing an app presence at all. Given the rapid shift in consumer media
consumption and shift in the publisher landscape, combined with digital
dominance by the “duopoly” (and soon triopoly), the time is now for publishers
to prioritize their mobile app presence.
The Daily Beast
recently confirmed this trend, noting that their app
users average 3x more pages per session than their mobile web users. Bleacher
Report is a prime example of a publisher whose audience is primarily in-app vs.
mobile web – with its users averaging 5
minutes per day in the app. More and more editorial publishers are now
appearing among top apps, as names such as The New York Times, CNN, Bleacher
Report, The Washington Post, BBC News, and USA Today, among others, continually
rank in the top 500 apps in the US (per
comScore, July 2018).
Mobile apps > mobile web
The mobile app user experience (and native apps in
particular) is superior to mobile web for both content and advertising, which
is probably a core driver of consumer engagement in-app. Native apps are
typically faster, lighter, more interactive, and can often allow offline
content browsing. They’re also easier to access for consumers, especially if
apps are loaded on to the home screen of a smartphone.
These benefits extend to ad experiences in-app as well, where advertising growth continues to explode and expected to reach $77 billion in the US this year. Mobile app ads have evolved beyond just traditional display and rewarded videos, which are typically fueled by app-install spending.
The market has evolved to include video, outstream, and
native formats, many of which provide more innovative and interactive
experiences then web since these ads can tap into the native features of
smartphones (i.e., Bluetooth, GPS, gyroscope, camera, compass, etc.).
Measurement is also greatly improved with the IAB’s Open
Measurement SDK, which facilitates 3rd-party viewability and
verification measurement in-app, and this is poised to further accelerate
mobile app ad spending. In addition, mobile apps are relatively immune to ad
blocking which is pervasive in web environments.
Better personalized ads
Mobile app inventory for publishers could become an even more critical component of a wholistic digital ad strategy as industry concerns around data privacy escalate and tech giants clamp down on tracking and personalization in browser environments. Apple’s ITP (Intelligent Tracking Prevention) in Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox browsers have placed significant limitations on cookie usage and hence programmatic ads on mobile web. And Google is rumored to be evaluating similar restrictions in Chrome, which would then effect the majority share of mobile web browsers.
Mobile apps represent both a hedge against these limitations
and a superior environment for personalized advertising. In-app ad targeting
can leverage Device IDs, which are tied to specific users rather than browsers,
as well as more accurate location (GPS) and detailed demographic/behavioral
data (particularly if the app requires registration).
Revenue diversification
Ultimately, mobile apps provide a new path for publishers to diversify their revenue streams. Not only do apps provide more opportunities for advertising, but also a channel for subscriptions, in-app purchases, e-commerce, etc. In-app subscriptions actually fueled growth in consumer spending in non-gaming apps by 120% since 2016. App stores also provide an easy way for engaged audiences (which are generally more prevalent in-app than web) to subscribe and make payments for transactions.
It’s time for publishers to start investing in mobile apps,
which should no longer be an after-thought. While mobile app development and
maintenance is not an easy task for many publishers, it should be considered an
integral part of long-term digital strategy and a major growth driver. A
successful transition of web users to app users can result in significant increases
in loyalty and engagement, leading to new revenue opportunities while defending
publishers against threats in a rapidly changing digital landscape. Mobile apps
are no longer just a game (pun intended).
Nielsen numbers released last month show media consumption continues to climb with more attention being diverted towards smartphones than ever before. The total percentage of time spent on mobile among 18 to 34-year-olds has reached a new high — 34% up from 29% the previous year — at the expense of more traditional TV viewing. It’s a dramatic development that turns up the pressure on companies to produce content that is digital, mobile and video first. However, it’s not enough to get the array of platforms right. The approach to storytelling has to reflect a broader range of emotions and appeal to the desire of digital natives for news that is as personal as it is pertinent. ABC Owned Television Station is doing both. They are focused on creating a consumer connection with hyperlocal stories, which drives revenue.
ABC’s Jennifer Mitchell
Peggy Anne Salz —mobile analyst and Content Marketing Strategist at MobileGroove — catches up with Jennifer Mitchell, SVP Content Development for the ABC Owned Television Stations. Mitchell is responsible for leading the content strategies and original, digital content production for non-linear platforms across the group. She works directly with the station content teams to fuel expansion of the digital footprint. She leads production teams in New York and Los Angeles to develop new content and revenue opportunities. The most recent is Localish, a digital-native media brand that brings out the good in America’s cities, which launched on ABC platforms in fall 2018. Mitchell discusses how Localish has combined local storytelling and a diversified distribution strategy to engage Millennials and enhance the value of branded content.
Salz: At ABC, which owns its local affiliate in six of the eight largest media markets, you are building a new type of local-nation brand through Localish. What is the motivation and distribution strategy behind it?
Mitchell: Our eight local television stations have strong connections to our communities. With our Localish brand, we tap into those existing strong connections to broaden the types of content we produce. We provide more diverse storytelling than what you might normally see in a traditional newscast or local news website. Drawing on the demand for authentic and relevant local storytelling, Localish launched with four series – “More In Common,” “Secretly Awesome,” “My Go-To,” and “Worth the Wait.” Each individual series helps viewers live like a local by sharing insider tips on hot trends, cool digs, and best-kept secrets around food, travel, and culture. We’ve since added six additional series under the brand.
Our view is that this
is a brand and a type of content, locally sourced yet nationally relevant, that
can be everywhere and discovered anywhere. To support this, we have a very
diversified distribution strategy. To start, you can find the Localish content on
our eight local stations, both digital and linear. Because our stories generate
interest across the country, and not just locally, as well as around the world,
they transcend geographic boundaries. To reach
and engage these audiences, we have built out a footprint across the major
social platforms, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and
Instagram. We also have a presence in Oath and
there are other distribution opportunities that we are currently pursuing. The
goal is to seed the content where viewers prefer to consume it; what we call
the next generation of news and information.
Salz: You have a presence on the abc.com platform, which is where localish.com lives, and you have chosen not to have a standalone mobile app at this point. Was this decision deliberate?
Mitchell: Our brand is a digital-native media brand, and we want to be discovered and enjoyed by our audience, where our audience is. Our research on our top target audience tells us that 50% actively consume content on their smartphone across the day. They are also increasingly interested in local content. This trend is mirrored in Mary Meeker’s 2018 Internet trends report, which showed a 900% increase in Google searches for things that are “happening near me” or just nearby.
Our goal is to bring
in the audience from wherever they are and familiarize them with the brand so
that they continue to come back no matter where we are. Mobile websites do
this. Social is also a big component of driving traffic and audience for us.
From the perspective of discoverability and growth, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have been strong
platforms for us.
Salz:Granted, social is critical for discoverability and virality. However, there can also be tension.
Mitchell: It’s a delicate balance. And we weigh each decision about every additional distribution point very carefully. Data and research tell us that consumers congregate in certain places, and Facebook is one of them. Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube are also important platforms. We will continue to play in that space and we are also pursuing other opportunities to diversify the portfolio.
Salz:Nationally, TV is experiencing a difficult shift in business models. But local news appears to be experiencing a comeback. At Localish you recently marked a milestone of 140 million video views. What do you think is driving this renewed interest in local?
Mitchell: There is a local renaissance. And this isn’t just about there being increased interest in local stories, although our research shows there is. It’s about trust. With the public concern about “fake news” it’s local that is emerging as the most trusted source. In some cases, local news is more trusted than national news brands. We have that trust, and we are leveraging it in our markets. So, trust—consumers wanting to believe in the news—is driving a lot of this.
Audiences also want to
connect with the people and places that are important to them, both locally and
nationally. Localish becomes the connection point, connecting dots for people
and introducing them to things that they might not otherwise have known about. And when we talk about local news and
information, we have to recognize that the definition of news has changed and
evolved. It is not just about the day’s top stories. It’s about things that are
happening near people, where they live, and they want to know about it. It’s
our goal to surface that type of information locally. But we also want to
introduce it to a wider audience, using the platforms and technology that can
bring these stories to national and
international audiences who have an interest or are just curious about these
places.
“Secretly Awesome,” a
show uncovering the hidden gems in communities, is an example of this. We see
from the engagement, particularly on Facebook Twitter, and Instagram, that
people are sharing this content with others who don’t live in those cities
saying, “Hey, the next time you’re here, we must go to this place” or “we must
visit this business” or “we must buy this product.” So, what we’re seeing is
content locally sourced, resonating with national audiences. It’s conversion
and the activation of audiences through a new approach to storytelling that
focuses on communities and connection.
Salz:Local news has evolved. What’s different about storytelling at the local level?
Mitchell: In a word: everything. It starts with the categories and topics we’re covering and extends to how we’re shooting pieces and telling the stories. The content is the focus, and many of the shows don’t have presenters. We’re finding it’s resonating with audiences because we’re getting right into the story. Our rule of thumb is to make sure the first three to six seconds of every piece of video we produce is compelling so that we draw the viewer in right from the start. We are also focused on positive storytelling. In many ways, it goes back to our brand attributes. Authenticity, curiosity, optimism, connected, unconventional: These are the words that we associate with the Localish brand. And this is the lens we use when we think about story selections.
We also extend the
concept to tell stories about commonalities people share that transcend local
storytelling to be more universal.
“More in Common,” which is different from many of the other lifestyle
travels shows we launched, is an example of this. It’s a show we did for
Facebook telling stories about people who are seemingly very different, from
different parts of the spectrum. But despite differences in their backgrounds,
politically, economically or socioeconomically, they come together and find
common ground and a common purpose. It shows the bridges being built between people of various races,
religions, genders, and backgrounds in
cities and towns across America. These are stories that resonate with our
audience. They defy the odds and remind us that, in a time when many Americans
feel divided, we can be the best when we can be together.
Salz:By design, these are stories that move our hearts and minds. How do you measure impact and gauge success?
Mitchell: Virality is certainly one. However, that’s something no media company can control, so it’s not something we count on—or measure—from a business perspective. Engagement is a key metric. Real-time data that we can see on our social platforms shows our audience is extremely engaged. We’re a video brand and so we naturally focus on video views and completion rates. In just 30 weeks since launch, we’ve seen over 140 million video views.
Performance is measured in audience and revenue. It’s
important to build a business and grow revenue opportunities. To this end,
we’re pursuing a number of traditional
and non-traditional revenue opportunities as it relates to this new brand. In
addition to licensing fees, we’ve also had some very successful ad sales deals
around sponsorship and branded content. As we evolve the brand, we will look
for ways to align our goals with the goals of our advertisers. There are local advertisers who want to acquire
local audiences at the granular hyperlocal level. This is at the heart of what
we do. We make connections with local audiences through content that they
genuinely appreciate.
Salz:It’s interesting that you can achieve this level of engagement without a strong emphasis on technology to enhance the experience such as AR/VR, for example.
Mitchell: Content is the central focus for us. Our distribution strategy is diverse and we’re always looking for new opportunities in technology to deliver the story to our audiences. But, through all of these mediums, the content comes first. To broaden our reach, we’ve packaged the digital content into linear television specials airing across stations, hosted by up and coming talent. To expand even further, the brand is additionally shown on TaxiTV in New York City and in major airports around the country. What excites me most about the future of Localish is the continued evolution of engagement, how people are consuming content the way they want. Where our content lives, and how it can be accessed will always be aligned with the consumer first.
We approach all
branded opportunities in the same way. The
aim is to seamlessly integrate the brand into the story in a way that our
audience views it as quality content, not advertising.
We were recently chosen as
one of seven premium brands for the Local Media Consortium and Local Media
Association’s Branded Content Pilot Project, which will further help us
accomplish that goal. With this support, we’ll have additional resources to
develop branded content with strong storytelling that makes sense for our
audiences. We’ll also have tools to better
understand which types of content work for our advertisers.
Editorial and storytelling are the priority, and we make that very clear with our clients and advertisers. We have the creative control, and these stories will be released in the weeks and months ahead. In many conversations with advertisers, clients and agencies, they tell us local content and our approach to storytelling is “new and shiny.” This is interesting because the technology isn’t the attraction. It’s the brand and the positivity—and the feeling of community we reinforce with content.
About the Author
Peggy Anne Salz is the Content Marketing Strategist and Chief Analyst of Mobile Groove, a top 50 influential technology site providing custom research to the global mobile industry and consulting to tech startups. Full disclosure: She is a frequent contributor to Forbes on the topic of mobile marketing, engagement and apps. Her work also regularly appears in a range of publications from Venture Beat to Harvard Business Review. Peggy is a top 30 Mobile Marketing influencer and a nine-time author based in Europe. Follow her @peggyanne.
