Driving Mobile App Growth, Part 2: Essential Product-Led Strategies

Welcome to Part Two of my two-part article series on driving growth for mobile apps. The first part of this series was dedicated to discussing the advantages and primary strategies of utilizing the web to achieve your key product growth goals. If you missed that post, you can find it here.

In this blog post, I will share product-led strategies that will help you build your active user base and increase key growth metrics. While investing resources into the core product is both rewarding and necessary, product managers should not overlook the features surrounding the main product that play a crucial role in driving growth. These features are just as significant as the core product because they contribute to delivering the product's value, enhancing user engagement, and boosting revenue.

Before we explore these strategies, it's important to establish a clear understanding of what product-led growth means and how it specifically applies to mobile apps.

What is Product-Led Growth?

Product-led growth is a growth approach centered around the product itself rather than relying primarily on sales or marketing teams. This means that the primary drivers for expanding the user base, increasing conversion rates, boosting engagement, enhancing retention, and improving monetization all originate from within the product.

However, it doesn’t mean that Product-Led businesses shouldn’t or don’t have sales or marketing teams. Quite the contrary, it means that all teams actively participate in the evolution of the product and simultaneously harness the features and capabilities of the product to enhance their teams’ strategies aimed at driving growth.

How is it different for mobile apps?

When developing product-led mobile applications, several key distinctions from web-based platforms should be taken into account:

1. Fast Pace and Short Attention Spans – Mobile usage is characterized by a faster pace and shorter attention spans. As users often interact with their phones on the go, the usage patterns differ significantly. With this in mind, it's crucial for your product to convey key messages quickly and concisely.
2. Emphasis on Usability and User Experience (UX) – Mobile apps demand meticulous attention to usability and UX. Drastic changes to well-established interaction patterns are not well-received, nor are usability issues. Given the relatively small size of the screens, key elements should be within easy reach with a single tap, and essential features must be accessible. Failure to adhere to these principles can result in users abandoning your app in favor of a competitor offering a better UX.

While this isn't an exhaustive list, these points are particularly critical when considering growth-oriented features. With these considerations in mind, we can now delve into the specifics.

Strategy #1 – Initial Product Onboarding

The primary goal of any app, like any business, is to monetize effectively and increase revenue. However, before users make a purchase, they go through several crucial steps: acquisition, activation, retention, and engagement. In the previous blog post, we discussed the acquisition step, where I shared various web tactics to employ. Now, let's shift our focus to the subsequent stages of the conversion funnel.

If users fail to grasp the value of the product (i.e., they do not activate), if they lack engagement, or if they find no compelling reasons to stay within the product, they are less likely to make a purchase. Consequently, the initial steps that follow user acquisition are pivotal to monetization and the overall success of your app. This is precisely where product onboarding plays a significant role.

When you capture users' attention through ads and guide them to your app, the first step should be to introduce your product comprehensively. Explain its purpose, describe its use cases, illustrate how it works, and highlight the problems it can solve. This initial introduction prepares users for what to expect within the app, simultaneously working to improve activation and retention metrics.

Typically, product onboardings within apps follow a somewhat standardized format, often featuring a series of screens that provide an overview of the product and its primary features. This direct approach enables many businesses to convey the core value of their product concisely. For instance, take a look at the Flighty app's onboarding process, where they showcase their most vital features as an example:

However, some apps are too complex or have a strong understanding of the actions needed for successful activation, so they invest more in onboarding and come up with creative approaches. Tinder, for example, uses onboarding to set up a user’s profiles and help people complete the critical actions – adding interests and photos:

However, with this experience, onboarding doesn’t end. Now, you need to dig deeper and further introduce your product to new users.

Strategy #2 – Product Tours

Having introduced your product through the initial onboarding sequence, it's now time to gently guide your users towards the most critical aspects of your product. These are the features that drive user retention and engagement — your activation events — and they are the stars of your product tour.

But why is it so critical to guide your users into the heart of your product during their first session? Without a guided tour, your users may struggle to understand the product's value and will have to navigate its features independently. This can lead to a high risk of unsuccessful activation, with users arriving at your product but struggling to locate essential features. This is especially true for complex products. Instead of leaving users to figure things out on their own, it's more effective to assist them in finding their way and reaching the activation events promptly.

In a product tour, it's typically best to highlight the app's features that you want your new users to explore first. However, it's equally important not to overwhelm them by focusing on too many features — limit them to 3-5 (depending on the product's complexity). Overloading users with information can make it difficult for them to remember any of the features, diminishing the value of your product tour.

Let's take a look at how apps employ product tours to activate their user base. Here's an example from ClubHouse, where they guide users on sharing content:

And below is a tooltip example from Instagram on creating Live streams:

Strategy #3 – Product Offerings – Paywalls

Now that we've successfully onboarded and activated our users, it's time to focus on monetization. Your product's paywall is the ultimate destination for completing a sale. It should be concise, convey the primary value of your product, and be highly appealing. Let's delve into the key considerations when constructing the paywall: entry points and content.

Entry Points for Paywalls:

1. Immediately after the Initial Onboarding Flow

It's quite common for apps to present the offer screen right after the onboarding sequence. You might wonder, how effective can it be when users aren't fully activated? While this is a valid concern, it's important to recognize that purchasing cycles in most mobile apps, as well as user attention spans, are exceedingly short. During this brief window, app developers need to persuade users to choose their product.

The paywall following onboarding serves multiple purposes — it contributes to activation by showcasing essential features and summarizes the product's value. Even if users aren't ready to make a purchase immediately, we enhance our chances and simultaneously convey the product's value message.

2. Triggered by Premium Features

This represents the most straightforward entry point for paywalls: whenever users attempt to access locked features, they are presented with an offer screen. After completing the purchase, the feature is unlocked. This is also one of the most effective placements, as it seamlessly integrates into the context of product usage.

3. In-App Promo Banners

An alternative approach involves creating banners within certain product screens (e.g., within user profiles or between content) that, when clicked, open the paywall. These banners can promote sales, special deals, promo codes, or the main unique selling proposition (USP) – anything that you know helps in converting the user.

Paywalls should include:

1. Prices and conditions (e.g., subscription durations and cancellation policies, or in-app purchase details).

2. A clear call-to-action (CTA).

3. An easily identifiable CTA button.

   
   

Let's examine a couple of paywalls from the companies Vocabulary and Shape: Lucid Dream + Journal. Both apps demonstrate the main value propositions and present pricing details concisely.

However, Shape: Lucid Dream + Journal goes a step further by incorporating social proof in the form of customer reviews.

Strategy #4 – Push Notifications

One of the most effective tools for re-engaging users within mobile apps is push notifications. These notifications can seamlessly integrate into your onboarding process, retention strategy, and even monetization efforts. The optimal user experience occurs when push notifications are part of a comprehensive flow rather than isolated, one-time messages.

Effective as they are, push notifications require a delicate balance to avoid becoming disturbing. Push notifications should be contextually appropriate, timely, relevant, and not overly intrusive. For onboarding, they can serve as helpful reminders to users about key features they may have missed. In terms of retention, push notifications can revive user engagement by reminding them of unfinished tasks or providing reasons to return. In the context of monetization, they can be used to promote sales and special offers.

One of the most noteworthy examples of push notifications being used effectively for retention is Duolingo. Their notifications are unique, highly relevant, and seamlessly integrated into the language learning experience. It's no surprise that the app has millions of active language learners.

Monetizing through push notifications is a widely adopted practice in the e-commerce industry. Although some brands overwhelm their users with constant messaging, those who tailor these notifications with personalized deals and discounts tend to excel. Amazon, for instance, has effectively leveraged personalization by considering users’ past purchases and browsing history when crafting their messages.

Strategy #5 – Product Referral Programs

Once companies have successfully retained and monetized their user base, it may be time to explore new opportunities for acquisition channels. For apps with a strong and loyal user base, leveraging user connections through a referral program can be an effective approach.

However, it's important to note that this feature may not be suitable for every business. Not all apps possess a strong virality factor, and some may not align with a referral acquisition model. Nonetheless, it's a feature worth considering. The key lies in providing significant value to both the referrer and the referred party. The value should be substantial enough for referrers to confidently recommend your product.

Monzo Bank serves as an excellent example of how to implement this strategy effectively. They provide rewards to both referrers and referees, accompanied by a user-friendly dashboard displaying earnings generated through the referral program:

Wrapping Up

In this article, I've shared some of the most popular and effective techniques for driving mobile app growth. As in the previous part of the series, the strategies discussed here cover the entire funnel, from top to bottom.

Activation of users relies on essential elements like product onboarding and tours, which are crucial for achieving success. They help you prepare prospects for the ultimate goal – making a purchase. The effectiveness of your monetization strategy is closely linked to how well you implement another product-led growth feature – paywalls. Your offer screens serve as the face of your value proposition and are critical for conversion rates. Push notifications, when used wisely, provide support for your engagement and monetization initiatives by re-engaging users. Lastly, for some products, referral programs can be a go-to source for acquiring new users.

This series of articles has been dedicated to growing mobile app products at every stage of the funnel. While the first part focused on web tactics to support your app, this article has delved into essential product-led strategies. I hope you found this information helpful, and I wish you the best of luck with your mobile app growth!