Browse video analytics appsHow to build a unique product story and boost your app sales
You hear a lot about software industry success stories. In fact, only a tiny fraction of new apps sell successfully. Reason enough for us to support developers in marketing their products. The first step is to develop a unique (product) story.
As a developer, you focus on turning your great ideas into groundbreaking software products. But what is the most innovative app good for if nobody knows about it or understands the value it creates for users? That's why you have to manage both, develop great products and make them popular. At Azena we aim to help you successfully market and monetize your apps through content marketing.
Content marketing is a marketing technique to address your target group with value-adding content rather than product features. Educating potential customers on how to make business operations more efficient is more valuable than telling them how great your product is. That's exactly what we do at Azena.
Building a stunning (product) story
Successful app developers make their products visible by creating catchy stories and engaging content around their products and placing them where potential customers are. This is what content marketing is all about.
“People are open to useful education that helps them do their job better, but ignore advertising that doesn’t match their interests. Therefore: don’t sell, but educate.” - Andrew Penfold, Content Marketing Specialist
Example: Classic (advertising) marketing vs content driven marketing for a retail camera app
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Advertising Marketing |
Content Marketing |
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Message |
“Our app for surveillance cameras detects occupancy at checkouts and queues using video analytics.” |
“Here's how you can use Video Analytics to reduce waiting time at your checkout from 5 to 2 minutes.” |
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Focus |
How? Technology |
Why? Customer Experience |
Can you see the difference? What catches your attention if you are a retailer having no idea about technology? The key to sales success is to make the value your product creates for your customers tangible. This also applies if you market your camera app in our Application Store.
Find a detailed guide to our open IoT Platform, Camera OS and Application Store at www.azena.com/for-developers
Address customers’ pains & gains
What drives people to buy technology is either pain that keeps them awake at night or gain that makes them strive for higher ground. Both are where you can add value through content. Here is a simple example:
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Pain |
Gain |
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Challenges that prevent potential customers from achieving their goals. |
Incentives that encourage potential customers to over-achieve their goals. |
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Examples: Lack of personnel, new legal or business requirements, increasing costs, decreasing quality. |
Examples: Improve operations and process efficiency, enhance customer experience, and be perceived as innovative by the team. |
Your challenge is to create content that provides answers to urgent questions that your target group face in their daily business without being too sales-oriented. Stop selling, start helping!
Use the Value Proposition Canvas to find relevant topics for your content
Successful App developers offer their customers relevant content that helps better master business tasks. Therefore, content is very similar to a regular product, like your app is. So why not develop content like a product?
Source: Strategyzer
The Business Model Canvas is a great tool to identify your target group's potential needs and how to meet these needs with content. In our marketing white paper for app developers we explain in detail how to use the canvas to develop the right stories for your content marketing.
What makes your product special?
Using general professional content you demonstrate expertise, with a compelling product story you show that you understand your target group's needs. To attract potential customers, you need to cast the spotlight on your product from a user’s perspective:
What’s in for users?
The Product Positioning Framework by Geoffrey Moore helps you describe your product's value proposition in a comprehensive but compact way. By using this formula, you answer all your customers' questions in one shot. See our white paper for details and examples on how to use Moore's formula to develop your product history and positioning.
More to learn about app marketing in our whitepaper for developers:
• Illustrate user experience with screenshots & videos
• Trigger interest with inspiring use cases
• Showcase your app in webinars and live demos
• Reaching users who benefit from your app
• Building a Customer Acquisition Roadmap
and much more!
