Marketing an App in 2020 ft. Neil Patel

Speaker 1: Get ready for your semi-regular dose of random ideas from the guys at Codelation. We like to talk about big ideas companies that are winning, and those that aren't along with current events in our crazy world of software startups. So come along with Erick and Josh, who challenge you to think big, start small and turn your ideas into something on this episode of, from idea to done

Josh: Here, everyone I'm Josh.

Erick: and I'm Erick.

Josh: And in this episode from idea to done, we have a special guest, Mr. Neil Patel. Hey Neil, could you tell the audience a little bit about yourself?

Neil Patel: Thanks for having me. And, uh, yeah, just as quick background, serial entrepreneur, uh, done quite a few app related companies from CrazyEgg, uh, hello bar subscribers. Uh, my latest one that I spent all my time on is Uber suggests it's an app that helps you get more SEO, traffic and others rank higher on Google without spending any money. And, uh, you can start off for free. There's a free version of it.

Josh: Awesome. Yeah, that's a great tool. We use it a lot over here at Codelation.

Erick: I, like I said, I'm excited to meet you. I've listened to your podcast. I've watched, I creep on your social media quite a bit, and it's probably because you invented the algorithm so that it just shows up on my stuff. But, um, the main reason we wanted you here today is we're launching an app this year and we're kind of, I just want to get your thoughts on, you know, how to market a new app and validating a product before billing it. So we'll just kind of roll into it. How would you market an app in 2020 with no X or with no audience?

Neil Patel: So the first thing I would do is find your ideal customer and I will start interviewing them and get feedback from them, put them on a podcast interview. Um, and as you do that, talk about that, like, yeah, if it did something like this and that and the other, would you use it?

Neil Patel: And they'd be like, yeah. And then start sending it over to them. That works really well. If you have a high price point app, if you have a low price point app, um, you want quantity. So I would do it a little bit different approach in which I would market it by finding all the influencers out there in your space, give them a free version. Don't force them to talk about it, just give them a free version, help them use it, help them get set up. And if you give enough influencers a free version, eventually they'll start talking about it.

Josh: Cool. You mentioned high price point, low price point. What, uh, what's kind of the line that you said in terms of either monthly or annual revenue

Neil Patel: So a low price point would be under a thousand a year. High price point would be above a thousand year.

Josh: Okay good to know. Like that, is that a, is that your opinion changed for 2020 or is that kind of tried and true advice you'd give,

Neil Patel: Tried and true advice worked for the world this year.

Josh: Awesome. All right. So Neil, you've launched a number of apps have been kind of standalone, um, apps on their own. You've also done some stuff within your business. Can you talk a little bit about, um, how decide to, you know, either keep that as a core business line or it's its own standalone thing?

Neil Patel: Sure. When it's related to my core business and my core customer base, my existing revenue, I try to loop it in. If it's not relevant enough to my core business core audience, core customer basis, I'm already generating money, rubbing from a, spin it out and make it separate. Um, the reason you want to keep it together, when it's the same customer type and you already have existing revenue, it's easier to upsell people and get them to pay, uh, under the same company. Usually when it's a new company, new purchase order, new invoicing, et cetera, especially for high-end price points, the low end price points. It doesn't matter as much, but for high price points, it definitely makes a difference.

Josh: Cool.

Erick: I like that.

Josh: So as a software consultant, so we found that people build apps that they shouldn't, um, in your opinion, how important is validating an idea before jumping into the app build

Neil Patel: Very, because if you don't, you're just gonna waste money. Even if it's an app you should be building and you just jump in and you spend a lot of money without validating, you could go in the wrong direction and it can cost you time and money. So it's not just about building, it's about building what people want, the way they want it, make it work the way it should be working. All these things you won't know until you validate. Because even if you build a park, your audience wants to be bullet the wrong way. It's not going to succeed. It's very important to validate along each and every single step.

Josh: So there's a lot, there's a lot of stuff under the, under the hood before you even get going is what I'm hearing.

Neil Patel: Yeah, exactly. And you know this better than anyone else cause you guys code them.

Erick: Is there anything else you would think about building and marketing apps?

Neil Patel: So a few things, whatever I would build, I would make sure it's freemium. I think freemiums that easiest way to mark it up in 2020, um, marketing costs are continually rising because people are raising so much money, a software as a service, especially enterprise software services are really hot sector. And I don't think you can do well unless you go out there and figure out how to penetrate a market. And the easiest way to do that is bring me on because of this low barrier to entry, right? Someone can use you without swiping a credit card. Right? Awesome. Well,

Josh: Neil, we'd like to keep these pretty brief. We thank you very much for jumping on the podcast with us today and taking a little time to chat.

: Awesome.