How I started to be able to marketing

Hello! I would like to talk about my past - a wonderful project Withme, but "without cuts."



In the publications here, I have already tried to tell about all the events in chronological order, but many facts were “a little” hidden under ridiculous “fakapami”, unbridled fun from our sleepless nights and prizes at hackathons.



Now, looking at this whole situation from the outside, I understand that I can tell you about strange things that I met while working on my first project in my life. I believe that with my short story I can help young enthusiasts starting their journey to mobile application developers in Russia or just dreaming about it. I will expound in the format of a small story (even with “parts-chapters”), with an attempt to preserve the chronology. Let's go.

Part one. "Hello, Pash, hello ..."

It was the end of July, as I had already quit my student work as a phone seller for 2 months and was looking for a full-time designer job - I really wanted to try myself in this area. Unfortunately, the rules of the game do not change over the years: in order to get settled, I had to have experience working for about 100 years, so that in the eyes of employers I would be a competitor for the rest ... In order to have something to eat, I was engaged in modular repair of mobile phones: change screen, button, * NO BGA * in general. This allowed me not to wallow in the biggest human problem - stability. By stability, I mean “unloved work” as a tool for subsistence and basic needs.



Now I understand that if Vitya hadn’t called me, I would have returned to phone sales or something else, but from the same series, in a maximum of six months.



Vitya at that moment, it seems, had worked for almost a year in a small company as an iOS developer. They were creating games for kids from the category: color the mouse, find a steam locomotive in a haystack and the like.



We met in the evening in the park, which was exactly between my house and the place where Victor was renting an apartment. He told me a story about how global changes occurred in his company, and one of the main uncles quit, and indeed disappeared. The Most-Most Important Uncle asked an interesting question: “What will we do next?”. Vitya, a man who does not miss opportunities, suggested starting work on Ridewithme, a project for active people who are having problems finding partners for joint sports and other activities. The Most-Most Important Man listened, became interested and gave the go-ahead to gathering a team, preparing a development strategy and, in general, a biography of the entire project. Vitya asked me then: “What do you think, would you be able to work with us as a marketer?” And I said to myself: “damn, why not?”. We discussed some aspects of the project, exchanged ideas on promotion and successfully dispersed, Vitya promised to call when he agreed with the investor. Over the next few weeks, I was getting ready to meet with the Most-Most Important Uncle.

Part two. "Acquaintance"

On August 25, summer, the center of Moscow, I arrived at the office on time (it doesn’t happen often, but there’s a meeting with an investor right there), in general, everything was as wonderful as possible. On the small porch of the office stood Vitya, with a second person still unknown to me.



Vitya introduced me to Irik, a designer who migrated to a new project. I have not met such people. He was a real artist, just the way he is painted, shown in all films about artists: silent, with a dreamy look, a man in his own mind. In general, I did not like him right away.



A little later, Magomed appeared, with whom Vitya and I studied at the university, but, after graduation, unfortunately, we had not seen each other for a long time.



We were waiting for an investor. Victor gave me parting words before the conversation, we discussed the project and just chatted about nothing, everything, as always, everything was like everyone else.



And then a new BMW of the 5th series slipped behind me, completely ordinary, one of the many cars that drove past us, but it was on this Vitya and Irik that they glanced briefly. I understood - it was an investor.



I remember how worried I was then. I have never talked with such important people, and even about my employment. The investor made the impression of a very large and important person. I want to note that this was not an oligarch from a Hollywood movie with a tailcoat and his own helicopter, no, he was an ordinary person, however, he seemed to achieve what he wanted.



We discussed all our ideas for a long time on the open veranda of a nearby restaurant. My emotional stress quickly left me. Our communication with the investor took place in a very informal atmosphere, we drank tea, often joked and even dreamed that Facebook would buy us =)

Part three. "I do not know anything"

After meeting with the investor, the weekend passed, which I spent in a state of euphoria, because almost immediately, on the same day, Vitya called me and said that I was accepted. Do you know what I did not think about on the weekend? I’ll tell you, I didn’t think about the fact that I don’t know anything about how to do marketing. From the word - "absolutely."



And here it is, the first working day! I was allocated a table, an armchair, a nightstand and even a mouse pad and other personal belongings with a print of a map of Russia, which has changed over the past 10 years.



Let's start.



The next month was one of the most difficult for me, because I, logically, had to start building marketing strategies, collecting semantic kernels, preparing draft advertisements and other cool things. What did i do? - Ah, I read, because at that moment I did not understand at all what semantic kernels and projects of advertisements are.



Imagine a friend, creator and ideological inspirer of the project asks: Pasha, what have you done today? And you answer - I read. Strange answer, right? It is unlikely that you would like to receive one. Start imagining - I'm starting a story.



Of course, I didn’t read romance novels or even comics. I built myself an effective scheme ("funnel", if you want) for studying a fundamentally new and incomprehensible material. The first thing to do is enter an absolutely stupid simple question into the search engine: “how to make% the desired task%”, and the level should be as high as possible - a question that a completely uninformed person will ask. On an abstract example - building a house: you should not ask “what foundation to choose”, but “what is a house”. After receiving the answer to the question “what is a house”, you can safely begin to read about what this “house” consists of: walls, floors, roof, windows, doors and further down the list.



Using this scheme, I was able to learn the basics of Direct, Adwords, SEO, SMM, ASO and even a little PR. (Just once I googled something about PR and then it started).

Part Four “I know what to do or the first problems”

The second month of my work in the project came, and I began to slowly understand something in marketing. I already knew approximately what we would do when our project was released at Stor. It was this month that I began to invent the first small and clumsy strategies to promote the project. I tried to paint everything on paper. Eh, if someone from the professionals saw that I was getting wise there on endless A4 sheets, they would probably laugh for a long time. But what was I to do? I just found out what they are doing at home and I already wanted to start building at least a little bit. But since there was still time before the release, I was still reading. He expanded the scope of his interests to the experience of other marketers, read reports, studies and looked at the experience of other teams. From morning to late at night, I absorbed gigabytes of material, photos, videos, texts, diagrams, everything that could give even the smallest experience. In order for everyone to understand the degree of madness, I watched advertisements of marketing agencies to understand what kind of result they were offering, and then I studied what was needed to achieve the same, but on my own.



In parallel with my personal insanity, I participated in the craziness of the rest of the team, shared my opinion about design or what I saw in similar projects, listened to conversations between Viti and Magomed, mostly in silence, because I did not understand anything about programming and their implementation, encapsulation and other polymorphisms.

Part Five “Life after release. The beginning of awareness ”

A few months of endless study passed, and I could already be considered a seasoned beginner, one who had already read about everything. And we finally started! Joy knew no bounds. Then I probably did not fully understand what happened in my life. I, just yesterday unemployed, a week without a year, a graduate, at 23, became part of the team (and part of the ship, of course) that released the app on the App Store. How many of my classmates can boast the same? That's right, zero, right zero, even today. Now, after several years, I warmly recall every important event in our common life.



I still remember getting a free blog on Megamind during interviews, because it was one of the fundamental events in my life. It was through Megamind that I learned to convey information to professional and very demanding on the quality of content, community, and we brought a huge amount of information about our project through this section of Habr.



After the release, having read articles about advertising campaigns from other and / or related fields, I began to understand that marketing with a minimal budget (more precisely, with almost zero) is one of the most difficult areas, because if you do not read the cliche about “creating an idea in the head of a person ”,“ viral marketing ”and“ word of mouth ”there wasn’t much information about how to be and what to do.

Part Six “Why is it wrong with us? or I don’t know anything again ”

In this “part” I will try to state the pain that I had to experience. I, as a person who had already begun to understand a little bit about the aspects of promotion, studied competitors and the market in principle, understood that we needed investments and, judging by the experience of other colleagues, were not small.



I studied the blogs of many mobile projects in Russia and the world. From the available data, I learned that the budgets for marketing alone for each of the projects, at the very, very initial stages, exceed the entire available budget of our project by 2 or more times. And then it turned out that it was in dollars. A joke, of course, but with a grain of truth, and this truth was a strong blow. Once again, I did not know what to do.



I had to start all over again: new schemes, new articles, new videos, new thoughts and new pencils, which I re-wrote on paper. It came to the understanding that, like Facebook or Instagram with a social network, we won’t succeed, for no reason we are not interested in anyone. Apparently “those” times are over.



The hardest thing to experience at this moment is the views of the guys. Now I again appeal to your imagination , begin to imagine: a strong team that went to meet the dream and fate, putting at stake all that was and you are part of it. Do you think it’s easy to answer a person who hasn’t slept for the last 5 nights that this time he couldn’t reach an agreement with any group on social networks to make an advertisement for no reason?

I think you have just introduced my feelings. But what if we add to this that this person is not just a worker, the same as you, but the creator of all this? And if you season it all with the fact that you, absolutely “zero”, were given a chance to become a specialist? Damn, I have even now, years later, rolling up my throat.



Okay, let's move on.

Part Seven. "No one is to blame, but what to do?"

At that moment when you do not have a budget, you are looking for information on the topic: “How to make% SomeThing% without a budget / free / without registration and SMS. And this, of course, is logical. But what to do when the budget appears? Going badly? Buy ads everywhere?



When we got the first money for “marketing” something about 100 thousand rubles, plus or minus, we at the team meeting (at that time I could not make such serious decisions, it was scary to take so much responsibility) decided that we need to study key Russian-language it-publications and try to publish articles there. So to speak, the beaten track, along which we saw many other projects from games to photo editors with “unique” filters.



And we were mistaken, for us it was not effective.



Of course, immediately after the publication of the publications, the first downloads flew. We, of course, rejoiced, but not for long:

• firstly , the effect “Oh my God, the servers can’t stand it, someone stop it” was not achieved;
• secondly , these downloads very quickly stopped. (very, very fast)

It is calm. I went crazy, and I think not only me.



Investor, dissatisfied with the result, we, of course, too. What do startups with budgets do at this moment? That's right, draw the necessary conclusions, change the strategy and launch other ads on other platforms and in a different format. We did almost the same thing, ahem ... everything except a new launch of advertising.

Part Eight. "It's too late, it's easier not to go to bed"

A tough time has begun, but the best for me. It was in the following months that I, realizing the complexity of the situation we were in, spent all my free time searching for additional, but free opportunities to promote our project in at least small but proud masses. It turned out that there are ways. Not the most effective and few, but there are.



We made ad units in the events feed, and suggested that various organizations of a sports or near-sports nature show their ads in them. In the pilot, this idea was proposed on the basis of barter: "You place our information desk at home, and we place your advertisement at home." As soon as we did this, a line of advertisers immediately lined up for us (no).



What I did? I bought a suit, tie, nice shiny shoes and went all over Moscow. For all my 23 years I have not been to so many places in my city. I became a walking guide to anticafe, sports shops and centers, what can I say, I even entered the genital museum on the Arbat. Countless times they refused me, and someone did not even deserve a meeting ... but the result was, racks appeared here and there, and in some places we were even allowed to hang up an A3 format poster at the entrance. Jeffrey's Coffee guys for this special thank you. You will be on the Arbat - go to them, buy a cup of coffee - remember Withme :)



Along the way, on the move, I was looking for communities on Vkontakte and athletes on Instagram in order to offer their sports audience something that she might like. Then, by the way, I met Natasha Bystrova, a Russian skater and a very cool person, an athlete of the Komsomol, not otherwise! I’m still following her on Instagram.

Part Nine. “Ringing coins”

Once we got money. It was a small amount, which Vita managed to approve with the investor.



I, in turn, again began to re-read every article in which I ever found useful information and life hacks on advertising and all kinds of marketing there. I gathered a handful of cases, experience and data from marketers on the network. It was decided to enter the Vkontakte community through a still-new advertising exchange. What can I say about the exchange - a really effective thing, at least in the framework of our project. For the little money spent on advertising through Vkontakte, we got a result that would not go to bed with the scanty exhaust that came from publications in eminent It-publications. It was a complete success. I really felt that advertising campaign, it was a continuation of me and all that jazz. I started and ended the day the same way - I sat on the stock exchange and sent applications to various communities from skiers to bowling, and everywhere we got a response, where big, where smaller, but received. The joy was short-lived. Unfortunately, two months later the money ran out.



As a summary, personalization of advertisements played a huge role, that is: for bowling groups we had our own picture, our text where there were balls and pins through the word, while there were knitting needles and frames for cyclists.

Part ten. "Guys, here I have one idea ..."

This day I remember now, but I forgot it as I could :) We were engaged in activities quite usual for us, Victor and Magomed sawed out features and sawed bugs. Or vice versa, it is now difficult to say. Irik made an announcement picture for an article on Brain, and again I studied the experience of my senior colleagues and tried to think of something else. And then for some reason I drew attention to the next picture with white text on a black background where there was something super-motivating: “Drop everything, lift anything”, “Stop having patient patients”, “Be bold insolence” and all that. A thought crept in my head: “Why don't we make a provocation? One that would make a person see "what our project is about." I needed clickbait, but without cheating, I didn’t want to look stupid, but the force in truth is all the same.



Drum roll, welcome! The hashtag #SportsFirstWalking and it blew up the team. Even “Magomed” laughed at the slogan “It’s been no sport for a long time - go in for sports with the first comer”, and he, for a minute, was a model of morality and decency. To the investor, surprisingly, this also came in, and through laughter we agreed on a little money for advertising.

Part eleven. "E-mine ... did we come up with moderation?"

Guys, it was a complete success, having finally received a little more money from the investor, I began to replicate this wonderful slogan in the previous communities and “Mom is one! Shaw has begun! ”Downloads of the application jumped to unprecedented heights, we even flew into the Top 20 sports applications! Well, isn't it a victory? For me, as an experienced marketer with 0 years of experience, this was a triumph, and you want it to be. Periodically, I saw fantastic indicators of the average cost of transition - 2.8 rubles, Karl! And this is at a 50% rate of “downloadability” from the AppStore (I mean: half of those who visited the application page in the store downloaded) This was a breakthrough for me. It was a breakthrough for us.



Then I realized that I began to succeed. As I understand? In one of the articles, the author spoke about the results of his campaigns as a kind of “standard”, it sounded (read) like this: Here, we spent 3,000 rubles for publication and get 100-150 clicks from it. What was in my statistics? The publication for 325 rubles brought 300+ clicks. I realized that now I can draw conclusions myself, and I can tell people about something.



Once, inspired by such results, I decided to try a “little joke” and posted several applications in the “Dating” groups. Announcements were published, the response of the participants was expectedly high, but I did not count on their further activity. Jessica, how wrong I was.



These people began to create events with activities of this kind that we rejoiced that we did not realize the addition of our own types of activities with pictures. Oh may gadble, the entire list of sections of the pornhub has moved to our application. But we had a super-weapon - Magomed. Our moderation turned on the "Stalin" mode and the repression began. For particularly frank descriptions of events, accounts were shot on the spot.



I really remember the married couple who created the event - they were looking for a company for joint leisure, the company had to be harmonious and preferably not tall. Apparently, it’s more convenient to spend time, I don’t know. (I am not very good at the "rice" genre). Horror.

Never again advertised in such publics. (in fact, posted a couple more times).

Part twelve. "Wow! It is not joke? I'm not ready ... or ... "

That morning Vitya explained something to the investor for a long time in his office and as a result came out with a genuine smile on his face, and after the story we were also inspired. It was, as it seemed then, a gift for all the hardships and hardships we had to endure. I was very excited. The investor agreed on a budget for advertising, so much so that the hairs stand on end, already 5 times more than we spent all the time! Rock'n'roll! I was probably the most happy because I can finally launch a full-scale advertising campaign! It was like in an advertisement for famous razors: “Your first real advertising campaign.” Later, at home, I started to wind up myself: “what if I can’t cope and lock everything up?” Oh, until the end of the week and even until the middle of the next, I turned myself on to a tornado state. It stopped working for me, advertising stopped working and in general everything flew out of my hands like sand through a sieve.



I was able to get together and make a strong-willed decision, you know which one? I decided to quit ... Why did I decide so - I don’t know, I probably doubted my abilities, I was afraid to let the team down.

The next day we talked long enough with Vitya.



Thanks to him, I was able to calm my nerves and regain my confidence that we are doing a cool job and not only the result is important, but how important it is to make every effort to achieve the maximum. This is precisely the measure of what we can. Thanks for that conversation, friend.

Part thirteen. “So, this is here, this is there”

At a general meeting, it was decided on distributed spending, as they say, in an adult way. Already on a flipchart, as a top 100 marketer, I drafted a rough budget development plan. Together with the investor, it was decided to do as follows - take 1/5 of the budget, and “pump” all the ways that you had wanted to try for a long time. And only then, according to the test results, start up finances through the most effective channels.



Maybe professionals will not appreciate my desire, but I wanted to try fully motivated installations. Why?- It's simple, I read a large number of articles that said that the appearance in the top gives a mandatory and good increase in downloads, which, of course, is quite logical. The stream of motivated installations was planned to be used as a kind of damper between advertisements.



The search for a “downloadable” agency was very short-lived. Nothing supernatural, I was looking for according to my favorite scheme - "How to buy the installation for free, without registration and SMS." There is no unique case, all agencies are essentially the same. I don’t remember why I chose one. (It seems like a logo).



The second direction of advertising I wanted to try small publications that previously offered us placements in different "tops of useful applications for% usergroup%" However, so as not to spend most of our "one fifth" on publications. it was decided to choose one online publication, as they say, "try it purely."



The third direction, of course, was advertising on social networks. Of course, we have already tried this, but very, very timidly. I wanted to bite harder. While preparing the campaign, I looked through a large number of publics and various kinds of interest communities. Learned a little to understand the wrapping up and fake activity. Not until the end, but outright rubbish sifted out quite effectively.



This was my first big ad campaign. I, surprisingly, was ready for it.

Part fourteen. “Result and Outcome”

The month passed very actively, interestingly and informatively. I studied analytics, carefully studied our results, watched every advertising placement, so that later, as agreed, to demonstrate all the results to the investor, firstly, and secondly, to build the most effective and at the same time economical way to promote our project .



A little about the results: The experience with motivated attitudes was, as for me, very successful. A small but constant flow made it possible to smooth out the download schedule. Before using motivation, we observed a mountainous landscape, with bright bursts and no less bright falls, apparently, this negatively affected the ranking in the stores. After the “introduction” of this method, a trend line began to be traced, which was directed to the upper right corner of the screen. What did it give? I will tell you what it gave - the top 3 sports apps in the AppStore.



Objective: to calculate the height and frequency of joyful jumps, given the hysterical cries of "TOP-3 your mother" was heard by the workers in the neighboring workshop. (Then we sat in the industrial zone, it was cheaper there.).



It was again a triumph, mine, Viti, Magomed, Irika - all of us. First of all, we proved to ourselves that we can, that there are no boundaries of age, experience, money ... nothing could interfere. We won.



After catching our breath, we went to workplaces and went about our business, Vitya sawed new bugs, Magomed sawed out old features, Irik painted funny pictures and called them design, and I, as an experienced marketer, just thought where else to spend money, calling it by the cut. All of us were united by two things: our triumph and the expectation of a meeting with the investor.

Part fifteen. "Everything."

Money was handed out, it was time to report. I collected all the multi-colored markers and painted, and wrote down all the surfaces on which you could poke a finger and say here we are great, and here are handsome. We presented all the results and even demonstrated future plans. The investor all looked and grunted approvingly.



Two months have passed since the presentation of the results to the investor, but there were still no new budgets and movement according to the presented plan, we managed to go to Stavropol for a hackathon and move to a new office, which was opposite the cemetery.



One day I returned to the office after another meeting with potential advertisers, Vitya and Magomed consulted with an investor. After about an hour, they left ... Irik and I did not even immediately understand what the hell was happening here. And exactly the following happened: “I lost interest in Withme,” our investor told us. This is a very free interpretation of that “real” phrase. Even for “without cuts”, she sounded too defiant, vulgar and even somehow rude to us.



Then everything was complicated. It’s as if we ended up in the end of the first part of Silent Hill, we seemed to have ceased to exist for the outside world, I certainly. The place where I grew up as a specialist and as a person, the place where I did a bunch of interesting things, the place where I made new friends, the place where I strengthened friendship with old ones was destroyed. To the very bottom. One phrase. Poplar fluff flew all over, like ashes from the same Silent Hill ending.



I will give some tips, do not switch.

Afterword.

After our project “officially” came to an end, I can say with confidence that we have achieved great and important results. We quickly assembled a powerful team and created a quality product that solved the problem of our users. Over the year we developed professionally and were able to realize the dream of many - we had our own, real startup for 10 thousand users. What about my results? I learned internet marketing, learned to negotiate when there is nothing much to offer you, learned how to make ads that people liked, and learned how to make it inexpensive and effective. For those who like numbers, the average cost of the user at the time the project was closed was calculated and amounted to ~ 40 rubles per person. Most importantly, I determined my future life path. Thanks guys.



We scattered across different companies, who where. Vitya and Magomed great skills pumped and could apply for respected positions. I first worked in a small company, in a similar position, worked for two years in another, already large organization, now I went on again, in the third :)



Now, I would like to finish this already long story with a small squeeze of my experience - 5 tips for beginner beginners. So,













In general, that's all for today. The last thing I want to say is to rather ask ...

First, the preface: On social networks, especially on Instagram, a crazy amount of info-gypsies divorced who talk about promotion, business and in general. I thought that it would be nice for me to do an honest direction of publications on marketing, without courses, ext. materials for the dollar and without any motivating pieces to talk about certain aspects of marketing for free and in full.



[Well, sobssno, the request itself]

If my article is not completely sucks and at least a little bit came to you - it’s subscrib pliz May Instagram: SpmInDaCity I just started publishing parts of this story there, then, as they say, more.