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Focused Apps - Mark Johnson

Focused Apps – Mark Johnson

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About the Episode

Have you tried paid marketing to drive downloads to only spend a lot of money and not much to show for it? Well today’s guest talks about his cross-promotion strategy that has helped him reach over 30 million downloads. Also, if you’re doing consulting then listen to his tip about how to structure your proposals.

Mark Johnson is the Founding Partner at Focused Apps.

Show Notes

Cross-Promotion Strategies Which Equaled 30 Million Downloads

Mark had exclusively used Chartboost for cross promotions and had landed different partnerships through going to meetings and conferences and networking. Focused Apps had always steered cross promotion agreements to click for click, an equity-based exchange, wherein if I send a thousand clicks to you, you send a thousand clicks back to me. He also sets it up in a way wherein the partner will send clicks over during the time that you need them the most, such as Wimbledon season for their tennis app for example, and vice versa.

How to Structure Proposals in Consulting

Mark’s team was not afraid to negotiate on contracts, even turn away clients if the contract is bad for the company. They also structure things where they do multiphase projects where each phase is priced out. The first phase would be to help clients with theanalytics and come up with a prototype. The next would be coming up with an alpha version and then finally, the final design. The rationale behind doing this is that, they can finish one phase and they can cease after that if they choose not to move forward with the project.

Because they find that estimating projects are so hard and stressful, they also opted for hourly projects rather than fixed bids. The greatest tip from Mark is to work with clients who have money to spend…which makes so much sense!

What advice can you give to someone looking to build a mobile app?

If you think you need to keep your app as a secret, you are probably going to fail. Discuss your app with everybody as the chances of your app being copied by somebody are close to zero and even if they did, it’s all about execution. By discussing your app with other people, you will get feedback, your idea will become so much better and you’ll have more chances of success.

Show Mentions

– Fav app: Civilization: (iTunes)

Markj.net

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