Smashing Boxes – Hillary Pitts
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About the Episode
Today’s guests talk about how they used ASO to determine their app category and how that simple change led to an Apple feature and increased downloads. Also, listen to the part of the show where they share how they used local outlets to get press coverage on major sites like Mashable and Wareable.
Hillary Pitts is Digital Strategist at Smashing Boxes.
Alicia Midland is the Senior Growth Engineer at Smashing Boxes.
Show Notes
App Categories and How Changing Theirs Led to an Apple Feature
Smashing Boxes uses App Annie, Sensor Tower and Mobile Action as tools to find out where their opportunities are to rank highly in the App Store amongst relevant users. If a certain key word is already widely used, they would come up with synonyms where there is opportunity for better ranking. They would also use these tools to look at overall category competitiveness where they can look at all their competitors at a glance so they can refocus in other categories so they would not compete with these larger apps that already have loyal following.
They were doing okay for an unknown app with their PR push but things really heightened when they were featured in Apple’s Fun in the Sun category. The feature (which happened multiple times) came about after they switched their category from Sports to Weather. They are definitely looking at doing more tests to see how many more features they can get.
Using Local Outlets to Get Press Coverage in Major Sites
Smashing Boxes had a lot of help from the local side since the community they were in in Durham had a lot of good publications which, even if they are local, had national reach. Because they were heavily involved in the community, they started with these existing contacts and eventually, the bigger publications saw it. Wareable, for example, was not based in North Carolina but heard about Smashing Boxes from some other PR efforts that they have done through small, local publications such as Exit Event and The Triangle Business Journal. It was a process of cultivating relationships over time and the ladies share that it is most effective when you already have those existing relationships versus reaching out to them for the first time to get them to feature you.These relationships were mainly gained through their Director of Growth who had lots of community contacts through immersing herself in the freelance and tech community the moment she joined in. She did them favors so they would reciprocate.
Show Mentions
– Fav app: Robinhood: (iTunes | Google Play)
– Crnt app