💎 Growth Gems #90 - Influencer Marketing, Retention
Hey,
This week I’m sharing gems on:
These insights come from Alice Muir and Irina Ashkenazy.
Enjoy!
🥇 TOP GEM OF THE WEEK
Retention: premium onboarding, lifecycle marketing, winbacks
Alice Muir (Retention Squad Lead at Phiture) is the author of The Subscription Stack.
The last time I featured insights from her was in Growth Gems #60, and they were primarily focused on retention.
In the Sub Club episode How to Boost Retention with Subscription Lifecycle Messaging, she re-emphasizes some of the same points and shares new gems and perspectives.
💎 The retention low-hanging fruit is the lifecycle strategy and targeting the right lifecycle stages. Many apps have nothing in place for people who have started a trial or are already subscribers.
Alice Muir (Retention Squad Lead at Phiture)
at 03:58
💎 To engage/activate users that opted-in a free trial or subscribers, consider a dedicated post-paywall “subscription” onboarding and make sure people know where the premium features are.
Alice Muir (Retention Squad Lead at Phiture)
at 04:32
💎 There are usually features that are part of the free experience and additional features that are part of the paid experience. Make sure that the onboarding for the premium experience is focused on these paid features/value.
Alice Muir (Retention Squad Lead at Phiture)
at 08:20
🤔 My 2 cents: since most premium users opt-in for the free trial or paid experience during onboarding, you need to find the balance between encouraging them to go through the core experience (part of which might be free) and emphasizing the paid features.
💎 Choosing between email and push:
Email is really good for discount drip campaigns. If you know that most users purchase within X days, you can start the drip campaigns with increased discounts after that timeframe. Email is also a good way to push long-form content to keep users engaged.
Push notifications are better to get people and try something, and for winbacks.
Alice Muir (Retention Squad Lead at Phiture)
at 10:40
💎 In-app messages can give you great flexibility":
Use them as proxies for in-app paywalls. Just be mindful that sometimes they might not be received by everybody, for technical reasons (so use a native paywall in your onboarding)
Test banner formats
Test interstitial formats
Introduce flash card functionalities
Include videos
Alice Muir (Retention Squad Lead at Phiture)
at 13:30
💎 You can use dynamic links and price points within in-app messages to have only one campaign but different pricing based on user attributes (e.g., age, country, device) or even behavioral data.
Alice Muir (Retention Squad Lead at Phiture)
at 17:50
⛏️ Going Deeper: read The Ethics of Dynamic Pricing: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly by Alejandra Escobal for more on dynamic pricing and using ”Connected Content” in Braze.
💎 For apps already operating at scale, you can run a correlation analysis to find the path or features that lead to becoming a premium user. You can then try to get more people on that path or to use these features.
Alice Muir (Retention Squad Lead at Phiture)
at 20:15
⛏️ Going Deeper: in some cases, you can use Amplitude or Mixpanel. Amplitude has a Compass chart that shows how a new user firing an event correlates with that user being retained. Depending on your setup, you might need to go through your data team.
💎 Use personalized strategies so people project themselves into what life could be like if they kept using the app, so they stay engaged. Example with MyFitnessPal: if every day was like today, here’s where you would be in 5 weeks (part of the free experience).
Alice Muir (Retention Squad Lead at Phiture)
at 31:40
💎 Leverage “commitment pacts” to re-onboard users when they become less active by reminding them why they subscribed in the first place. Example of Headspace: “commitment” campaign “here is the reason you decided to join Headspace”.
Alice Muir (Retention Squad Lead at Phiture)
at 36:49
💎 When people turn auto-renew off, remind them of the features they will lose. Give them a sense of urgency as well. Example: you have 7 days left to use this photo filter.
Alice Muir (Retention Squad Lead at Phiture)
at 37:55
Influencer Marketing: going local, referrals
At the App Promotion Summit London, Irina Ashkenazy (Head of Growth Marketing at Sweatcoin) gave the talk In Fueling your Growth Engine through Influencers and Referrals.
She shared some fundamentals about influencer marketing and how they turn referrers into influencers.
💎 Don’t narrow your influencer niche: think wide and seek influencers outside your category. Example: Everyone can promote Sweatcoin, but entertainment/lifestyle guys and meme pages work best.
Irina Ashkenazy (Head of Growth Marketing at Sweatcoin)
at 08:15
⛏️ Going Deeper: this is exactly what Gessica Bicego was advocating in one of the insights I shared in Growth Gems #86.
💎 When working internationally, find local interns to provide insights into the market and be your navigators there.
Irina Ashkenazy (Head of Growth Marketing at Sweatcoin)
at 09:20
💎 Leverage the influencer content you obtain in paid ads. Particularly if you use locally-created content, performance will be much better than regular ads or ads localized from US content.
Irina Ashkenazy (Head of Growth Marketing at Sweatcoin)
at 10:19
💎 Develop referral features that not only incentivize invites but also encourage people to invite quickly (e.g., time limit). Example: Sweatcoin’s piggybank feature increased K-factor by 30% and decreased CAC by 70%.
Irina Ashkenazy (Head of Growth Marketing at Sweatcoin)
at 12:25
💎 Light a fire under referrals. Identify users that are able to successfully bring referrals (e.g., at Sweatcoin -> 20+ people) and turn them into influencers.
Irina Ashkenazy (Head of Growth Marketing at Sweatcoin)
at 13:40
💎 Try to understand what influencers need, treat them with respect, and give them some fun and engagement.
Irina Ashkenazy (Head of Growth Marketing at Sweatcoin)
at 18:05
💎 Leverage TikTok’s creator marketplace. If one piece of content performs well, localize it to all languages and test it in other markets.
Irina Ashkenazy (Head of Growth Marketing at Sweatcoin)
at 29:22
And before I leave, here is a quote on the importance of selecting what you test from an episode of “Good Question!”:
“It feels really good to run a lot of tests. But you only get points for results.” - Ethan Garr (Growth Trainer & Coach)
See you next time. Stay savvy!
⛏️ Sylvain
🔗 sources:
How to Boost Retention with Subscription Lifecycle Messaging on the Sub Club Podcast by RevenueCat
Fueling your Growth Engine through Influencers and Referrals at App Promotion Summit London