eMarketer: Do brands typically come to you with an app already? Or do they say, “We have an idea for an app, but we want you involved from the very beginning as we develop it?” What tends to be the process?
Eric Litman: Actually, it runs the gamut. We tend to have a lot of brands reach out to us early in their process, when they’re just thinking about an application, when they’re just starting to build. We love to get involved as early in the process as we can. If there’s an opportunity late in the process to integrate or introduce ads into an application, we’ll do so.
eMarketer: What are the qualities that make for a successful app?
Mr. Litman: Number one is build an application that fits the platform. If you’re building an iPhone app, think about what iPhone users like and want.
“Think about the unique things that make iPhones iPhones.”
Think about the unique things that make iPhones iPhones. It’s a beautiful user experience. It’s access to cool technologies, like the ability to tilt or shake or rotate content or functionality in an application. It’s the gesture. It’s the ability to touch and pinch and wipe and grab content on-screen.
Elements like that are key ingredients for success. That’s what makes the Zippo and Charmin apps so popular. They took an existing Web property and added things that were uniquely iPhone-y—like the ability to pull things up on screen that are location-based. With a little bit of marketing spend behind it, with a little bit of push, they were able to get themselves some significant traction.
That’s actually point two. You can’t expect that your audience is simply going to find you. You can’t rely upon natural discovery. You need to treat apps like a product. You need to market them like a product.
eMarketer: Are there any brands you’d say are just not ideal for apps?
Mr. Litman: It’s less about the category and more about willingness to appropriately approach and dialogue with the audience and invest in the space. There are some brands that may see the attractiveness of audiences in mobile, but haven’t yet made the internal commitment to treat it as a long-term opportunity.
eMarketer: What should marketers know about the cost of developing and maintaining an app?
“Developing and maintaining an app doesn’t need to be a big spend.”
Mr. Litman: Developing and maintaining an app doesn’t need to be a big spend. But you need to spend on media. That’s a self-serving statement, but I would say that regardless of whether or not they come to us.
You have to promote your application or you’re just not going to see any traction.
You need to consider this to be a long-term investment. Essentially, applications live on indefinitely, so you want to make sure you’re doing things like building update-able content and preparing to support the app for the long term, otherwise there’s the potential to undo the goodwill you may have built up.
eMarketer: Anything else brand marketers should know before they consider an app?
Mr. Litman: It’s easy for brand marketers to get wrapped up in the excitement of the platform, because if consumers are excited about it, marketers should be excited about it. But when thinking about what they want to do on a platform, marketers can’t forget the fundamentals of marketing.
The flip side of that is the execution should be done in a way that reaches the right audience with the right message.
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