How To Market Your Web App
So after 1 year of fund-raising, planning and development, your shiny new beta web app is finally ready... and now you think it's marketing time. You want to reach thousands of users as quickly as possible. Aha, you think, the cheapest and shortest path is viral marketing - via blogs and social news sites. So you turn to your favorite sites like digg, del.icio.us, TechCrunch and (of course) Read/WriteWeb. Somehow your email to Michael Arrington or Richard MacManus gets noticed above the hundreds of others, so your site gets featured and then other blog coverage follows! Yippee, this is the fame you were waiting for! But a few days later....absolute silence. No one is talking about you anymore, the activity on your site diminishes to nearly zero, and the new 'poster child' web 2.0 app is something else.
Like a nightmare, isn't it? But unfortunately, this horrible peak-then-slump scenario is very common in the web 2.0 era. The Alexa graph below illustrates this with a well known example, in this case following a TechCrunch write-up:
The reasons for this very common pattern are simple to guess. The web 2.0 savvy audience is overloaded with all these fancy new sites that come up everyday; and this audience will try a lot of apps, but not necessarily become a permanent user. That's why you are very vulnerable to get quickly forgotten, if you don't offer them something very useful and enduring.
The upshot is that timing your app/site promotion is very important. Even though popular blogs and news sites are a great way to attract community and VC attention, you should know when to show yourself. Below is a categorization that we suggest all upcomers consider before any marketing push...
The WAIT List
The Wait list consists of sites that should be more patient to market themselves. This is certainly the largest category, with these 2 broad types of web 2.0 sites:
- Social / User Generated Content Sites
- Verticals
Social sites need existing user activity before getting promoted. For instance, a social networking site with no members won't be interesting at all. So if you get dugg, sure you'll get thousands of people arriving to check out your social network - and maybe even sign up. But more likely they will be disappointed that not much activity is happening, so they will leave your site with bad memories and may not come back.
In the case of verticals, the problem is more about competition. Rather than immediately publicizing your site, it may be better to focus on differentiating yourself from others and gradually building up a user base.
Also, most of the sites that fall under one (or both) of the above 2 categories require you to sign up first. But generally users will be reluctant to join ghost sites.
The best way of marketing for sites in the WAIT list is to focus on their niches, spend very little and attract targeted masses over time. One example comes from the March 2007 issue of Business 2.0 Magazine. A company called Betty, which sells dye for "the hair down there", spent just $2000 for space in a Las Vegas beauty tradeshow brochure and created enough buzz from that to get featured on the Jay Leno Show. The company expects $1 million in sales this year! Other successful examples are Dogster and Maya's Mom - they are both vertical and user-generated sites and they attracted most of their initial user base from pet and mothers magazines.
The bottom line is that WAIT list sites should find their niche, enlarge their user base there, then come to the web 2.0 savvy audience to show off their force and attract VC attention.
Spotplex, the site shown in the diagram above, is a very good example of a site that should have WAITED.
The WALK List
The walk list includes sites that should start promoting their site on web 2.0 blogs from the beginning. Most of the WALK candidates come from Web Utilities. For example:
- search engines (unless they're vertical);
- Instant Messaging mash-ups;
- Webtops;
- File hosting agents;
- Translators;
- Browser add-ons.
The reason why WALK list members are so different than the previous WAIT list members, is that these sites don't need prior popularity. The site's attractiveness depends solely on the quality of their service. So there's no critical mass of user base required before promoting themselves.
The RUN List
This is the smallest category, with perhaps just tens of sites. The success of these sites depends on web 2.0 media, so they should solely focus on getting themselves featured there. Actually most of them are no different than the WAIT list, except that their niche is web 2.0 itself! Two great examples are BuzzShout and Go2Web2. Obviously, the web 2.0 audience is open to such services, so there's no better place for these sites to get exposure. Blog widgets is another category can be added to the RUN list.
Conclusion
There are three main strategies then, to market your new web app or site:
1) WAIT list sites should find their niche, enlarge their user base there, then come to the web 2.0 savvy audience to show off their force and attract VC attention;
2) WALK list sites, such as search engines and browser add-ons, can go after that elusive digg frontpage or Read/WriteWeb feature now [Ed: preferably both!];
3) RUN list sites should do everything in their power to get attention from web 2.0 sites!
What are your thoughts on this - agree, or do you suggest other strategies?
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thanks - great analysis. Where does Entreprise 2.0 projects stand? are they "waiters" ? (being niche and social), or perhaps they could be "walkers", as the market need is already affirmed, big players (google) are there as well, and gaining traction from first day matters.
Interesting read!
@Uri, I think they're WAITers, because enterprise software targets very narrow audience, so it would be less costy to target them first.
rather than solely rely on blog writeups I think new web apps/startups should also look at getting organic growth from search engines, coupled with advertising.
Excellent*
I guess my UWayCoolr is on the WAIT List but naturally i wanna Start RUNNING out the Door!!
I went to the Web20Expo from yer Link & i was kind of underwhelmed by what i saw as far as c0ol new Web20 Apps coming out*
Maybe they're WAITing for Mike Arrington's TOP 20 in the Fall!!
Cheers! Billy ;))
build a userbase and then market u r website..is that what u suggest?
How do u build a userbase in the first place?My answer is apm like hell..
This is some great information for web 2.0 start ups. You definitely don't want to have an immediate leveling off after all of your promotion.
We took a slightly different approach where we contacted 1/2 of the blogs/web 2.0 sites that weren't the biggest but could still give us some buzz to build a decent user base. There has to be some promotion of your site to build the initial users and you can find your audience through Technorati or Serph searches.
Once we develop a strong user base that has had success using our site and enjoys the features we will be contacting the larger blogs/web 2.0 sites for coverage.
Don't hesitate to use your friends and family as much as possible as well!
This is a very interesting post. I've often wondered how and when new sites make their "move" to market and publicize their site/product. Your list helps clarify the different perspectives. I'll definitely consider your ideas when I try marketing my site(s).
Sometimes you don't have a choice and the social network you quietly building gets publicity prematurely.
For my small projects I mostly use natural search rankings to get new visitors. This is the best way to market narrow niche websites.
Over at TheFilter.com we really thought that our product would appeal to commuters who want to fill their iPod with new music everyday, so we took out advertising on the London Underground and in the Metro newspaper which is a free newspaper that they give out to users of the busses, trains and tubes in England. This didn't really work out for us, although we knew it would be a massive gamble anyway.
However, we were also blessed with 'The Digg Effect' and although our product wasn't quite ready for primetime we got a huge ammount of sign ups and because of that initial burst of interest we still get a good ammount of hits from things like StumbleUpon, and because other bloggers picked up on the story through Digg this helped our Google rankings - these things would have never had happened without the big fat digg burst.
But the problem is, how do you communicate to those early adopters again when you've got a new version of your software out?
A significant advantage of building Web applications to support standard browser features is that they should perform as specified regardless of the operating system or OS version installed on a given client
Very interesting read, thanks :)
Hopefully I will have a web app to market soon.
A significant advantage of building Web applications to support standard browser features is that they should perform as specified regardless of the operating system or OS version installed on a given client
Nice Emre,
The most common question I get from community-building entrepreneurs is "how can I get this kickstarted" and my advice is always the same, "spend as little money as possible because the longer you are in business, the greater your odds are of making it work."
Not one person has been happy to hear that if they just are able to last it out a couple years things could work out. Personally that seem pretty enoucouraging. It's a decent road map to success. However, I think to many people have already spent more then they should have or it hurts their ego too much to not think they won't be an overnight internet rockstar.
If you're a WAIT company, WAIT WAIT WAIT ;>
Very interesting and useful article: right now I'm in web 2.0 startup - gonna show the post to founders.
=)
so what we're saying is, narrow niche, focused marketing, broad niche, broad marketing??
as someone who is working on a social media site, my plan is to have a private beta for a couple of hundred users (friends) for both testing and data population. once there is sufficient data and thorough testing, i plan to enter the run phase through both marketing and allowing users to invite friends (and perhaps creating some type of incentive for them to do so)
Thanks for the great info and insights, Emre...guess that makes the old saw "world wide WAIT" all the more apropos to those companies who should wait before hitting the PR trail...
cant agree more with you!
great article, really suits my case a lot. was ready to make the mistake again. glad i read this.
the wait process is very important, dont get to fast to post it to news page like digg.
Great article, very timely post! I just posted on how
‚ÄúViral Marketing‚Ä? is your Buzz Word of the year
:)I'm putting this article on Yeeyan.com,translated.
Plz let me know if there is something I should taking care of.
Thx!
Thanks, this is great, but the one example mentioned that had any kind of revenue illustrated isn't a web app, it's a hair dye company. I'd much rather see revenues for the other examples.
Excellent insight. The categorization of marketing approaches was right on the money!
One of the things you didn't mention was the negative effect that having a slow or unresponsive site from a burst of users can have on everyone's perception of your site. It's like getting a crush of diners at your restaurant for the first time on Valentine's Day, giving lousy service and partially cooked food, yet somehow hoping people will come back after the holiday. Dream on.
Many sites simply aren't designed and tuned to take peaks of activity, especially when they're first launched. While it used to be okay before the dotcom crash to say "we got slashdotted and then crashed", it's not a badge of honor anymore.
At CrowdRules.com, we're primarily taking the "wait list" approach, as we're looking for long-term, regular users. But having lived through the dotcom era (I was CIO of edmunds.com) we've tuned the app to handle the bursts, just in case...;>)
Well, thats a lot of good points. How to time/market. But, let's say you're ready to market. Then what do you do? Digg is almost pointless, TechCrunch is inundated with requests, slashdot hits "deny" on any post that doesn't have "linux" in the title...
Basically I think its irrelevant WHEN you start to market, because it's probably not up to you unless you have a lot of $$ to throw at it. Sure if you're dropping a million dollars into advertising you should wait for everything to be ship-shape, but 99% of startups have $0.00 and all they can do is hope to be covered.
My site http://www.grapheety.com is growing nicely right now, but it peaks uncontrollably and without explanation randomly. One day we had 75 new accounts in 4 hours, then 0 for the next 5 days.
We'll have an incredible new release next week, but we haven't moved the servers to a big enough architecture to handle a techcrunch anyway. So how do you make enough money to advertise and be big enough? :)
It all boils down to how soon can your site be valuable to the users. If it's valuable from the get go then start advertising right away if it needs to acquire some resources (sizeable social network in this case) then wait until you get those and then go to the market. Nice classification though.
Bottomline Don't advertise to your audience unless you are valuable to then immediately.
Emre - well done and very timely!
I would add that whenever you do decide to jump on the PR wagon you need to prepare strategy that will get you a steady stream of PR. Even 1 or 2 mentions per week in blogosphere would float you up above the people with occasional spikes. To me that is the most difficult, yet key part to execute.
Alex
Thanks, this is great, but the one example mentioned that had any kind of revenue illustrated isn't a web app, it's a hair dye company. I'd much rather see revenues for the other examples.
http://zoomfm.net
I am in the RUN List. Hopefully you guys will post about TechJunkr.com!!!
Great article Emre. This is an interesting dynamic that bears further study. I'd love to see the correlation between startups that have failed, startups that have succeeded and their site traffic data.
Do all startups that fail spike and then drop off? Do all startups that succeed *not* spike but show a positive trend? And what are the variations for the segments you identify?
Hopefully there'll be further posts on the topic!
Very interesting article. Our site www.EuropeanHospitalRegister.com falls into an unclassified section - high(ish) price so volume is less important. I would be really interested in any ideas for marketing.
Very interesting article. Our site www.EuropeanHospitalRegister.com falls into an unclassified section - high(ish) price so volume is less important. I would be really interested in any ideas for marketing.
The most common mistake web marketers make is that they rely on porn images and promises of gay seex to sell their lame products.
I agree with fred. lol
@fred: would you classify 'nice or naughty' graphic on myspace pages as porn?
Alex
Nobody's talked about conversion. I guess it all really depends on your revenue model. If you can convince a good chunk of a traffic spike to convert (download, buy, subscribe, contribute or whatever), then it should pay dividends for a long time.
same happends with:
http://www.qualityunit.com/supportcenter
usefull~ thank you
People are too much in a hurry to build up success. I started a site/company in 2000. By the end of the year it had no more than 15,000 active users. "What a failure!!" some would say.
Well, 3 years later it thrived with over 7 million active users (over 10M registered). Today, the total number of users goes beyond 22 million (over 14M active).
Of course it's not all about sitting and waiting, but just because you launched a site, made the Digg front page, and could not hold on the momentum, doesn't mean you have no future or that you did things wrong, or even that you didn't calculate well your timing. Personally, I can't find a better way to launch a site than by getting a lot of attention - call it Digg, R/W Web, TC, A-listers, whatever. Once that's done and the graph line goes down, then the real work begins.
Tam 12 den vuran bir yazi, eline saglik.
Web 2.0 is the new USENET - without centralisation and easy search ...
It seems to me the WAIT strategy is a bit risky. While you're waiting someone else is out there jumping in with both feet and the opportunity is lost. Your best bet is probably to "astroturf" the site by hiring some college kids to populate it with profiles and content and then hope that your target audience will bite.
@Bob, evil plan :)
@Alex: you're right; that's what's happening these days with Twitter.
Your advice to the 'Wait' companies seems to run contra to conventional wisdom which has always been about 'speed to market'. It kinda speaks to a 'speed to market share' where patience and not haste is the currency...
Shouldn't entrepreneurs be more concerned with marketing their app to the target users and not to the Web 2.0 crowd? (Unless that is the target market, but as the article points out, their attention is spread pretty thin).
@Bill - that's what I'm trying to say here, yes...
Hi Emre, great post. We've noticed similar trends with TravBuddy. One of the main problems with the WAIT strategy, however, is that it often takes a lot of money and/or work to attract that targeted niche audience. We've been Dugg and mentioned in blogs before, and while most of that traffic boost is temporary, it usually levels off at a higher level than before.
We're now reaching the point where our site is starting to reach critical mass in terms of user base. Maybe it's time for some blog write-ups? ;)
"Bottomline Don't advertise to your audience unless you are valuable to then immediately."
This is quite hard to do if you have something socially based like forums or a social networking site. A site like that is nothing without people unless you fill it full of fake content and then promote it. What you really need is a lot of organic growth before you start spending money on advertising, which I guess is what you're alluding to.
I would say that any app that depends on Organic traffic should be a run as they're going to need more links that are aged.