Now that Funeral Notebook is available in the iTunes Store, I’m focused on generating awareness. As I mentioned in my previous post, marketing this app is a challenge. Most people don’t want to think, read, or talk about death-related topics until they’re forced to by the death of someone close. This, combined with the fact that users will probably only use it for about a month and then not need it again for possibly several years, makes for some unique challenges.
I should also mention that Marketing and promotion are not skills that come naturally for me. The process of starting a business and designing and building a product in an unfamiliar space has resulted in a lot of learning and some mistakes. This phase has been and will be full of both I’m sure.
So what am I doing to market and promote Funeral Notebook?
Support word-of-mouth-marketing
There will always be a latest and greatest marketing tool or technique but so far none of them have replaced the effectiveness of a customer recommending a product to another person. To support this we did two things.
- We gave it a name that is easy to remember
We considered a lot of different names and Funeral Notebook came out on top as the most descriptive and easy to remember (and the URL was available – which is becoming more of a challenge). The word “Funeral” is heavily associated with a person’s death and “Notebook” describes the functional aspects of the app. The hope is that even a few years after someone uses it they’ll be able to remember the name well enough to tell someone else about it. - We focused on the user experience
If the user experience stinks, who cares about the name or how well you promoted the product. Actually, if the user experience is bad, having a memorable name and effectively promoting it will have a negative effect. We focused on making the app useful (helpful functionality and content), usable (clear and efficient interactions that don’t violate Apple’s standard models), and desirable (strong, simple visual design and a human voice). It’s not perfect (yet) but I think we’ve made a good v1.0.
Online advertising
Given the nature of Funeral Notebook (a mobile app) and the context in which it’s used (an urgent need in a stressful situation) advertising online seems like a worthwhile investment. When someone is suddenly facedwith the death of someone close and they don’t know what to do, many times they’ll go online to find help. As a starting point we’re initially focusing on Google and Facebook simply due to the fact that there are so many people using those two sites. Learning the tools and best-practices for creating and managing online ads has been really interesting. So far the results have been decent considering I’ve kept the daily budget pretty small until I figure out the most effective ads and keywords. (BTW, a book I found extremely helpful is “Ultimate Guide to Google Ad Words” by Perry Marshall and Bryan Todd. I’d definitely recommend it if you’re new to Google ads.)
We’ve also looked at advertising on specific magazine sites and blogs but have found Google and Facebook to be less expensive on a Cost Per Click (CPC) basis.
Using the network
We’ve been working on making use of our offline and online networks.
Offline
Making pastors aware of Funeral Notebook has been one of our goals because they’re often one of the first people contacted when someone has passed away. Via email I’ve been offering pastors a free download of the app and asking them to spread the word to other pastors they know.
Online
There are a couple of different things we’ve done online. We created a Facebook page for the app (which was a rather convoluted process complicated by a redesign of Facebook’s Pages just after creating the page for Funeral Notebook) and am now looking at ways to engage our personal Friends and those who are now fans of Funeral Notebook. Again, figuring out topics related to Funeral Notebook that people would be willing to discuss when they’re not currently dealing with a death is challenging. I’ve also been mentioning the app in my personal LinkedIn and Twitter accounts.
Offline promotion
In addition to trying to spread the word online via email, ads, and social media we’re trying to make it easy to share information about the app in the physical world. Our initial means of doing this is pretty revolutionary – business cards. They’re inexpensive, easy to transport, easy to share, and give people something physical to reference when they’re not online.
In a learning curve
As I mentioned, marketing a product is new to me and, to be honest, pretty humbling. I’ve worked with a lot of marketers over the years and have had my ideas as to what they could or should be doing to be more effective. Kind of like how I always used to yell at basketball refs – until I had to ref a junior high scrimmage and learned how hard it is. Marketing and refing seem easy until you have to actually do them.
Let me know if you have any tips, ideas, or good stories to share.
