If you’re a content creator who wants to get exponentially more engagement, response, and “brand power” from your content, this article will show you how.
Here’s the story:
A few years ago, I had created a niche-based digital course designed for a small part of my audience, which didn’t even come close to the sales of my other courses. So after I sold it, I told my small group of customers where they could consume the content on my website, and then went about business as usual.
But right after that, something very strange started to happen.
My little “niche” product that almost no one bought got over 10x more engagement than all of my most popular courses combined.
At first I thought I must have accidentally hit some kind of “nerve” with my list.
After all, I was getting several times more people consuming and completing the course, interacting with me about it, asking questions, and giving feedback than ever before with my much more popular products. So I decided to ask my clients what it was about this particular course that was so worth it. That way, he could do more of whatever it was next time. Much to my ego’s disappointment, it had nothing to do with the quality of his course. Nor had I magically stumbled upon some sort of secret demand on my list. It was all the result of an extremely embarrassing “rookie” tech mistake that was especially humiliating to a world-renowned software developer and former Navy nuclear engineer who prides himself on my attention to detail. You see, what happened was that I set up my product on a WordPress site and foolishly forgot to set the security permissions to protect the content from being illegally downloaded and shared. This is the first thing any responsible online marketer or software developer does. Failing to do so was as negligent as an airline pilot failing to check that there is fuel in the tank before taking off. And it turned out that my clients, who are tech developers and more software savvy than usual, not only started downloading my content (instead of consuming it via their desktops as I intended)… but they knew how to copy easily that content. on their phones. That’s why I was getting so much engagement, more questions, and a lot of comments.
However, it was not due to any “genius” on my part, but because the content was available on their mobile devices.
In other words:
That content was simply easier and more convenient to consume.
Naturally, I took this marketing “information” and started making my other courses, group coaching, and trainings easy to access on one phone. And while that certainly got better results, more engagement, new back-end sales, and more business overall… my content wasn’t getting the same kind of “feeding frenzy” engagement that my little niche product was getting. So after some more experimenting and testing, talking to my clients, and delving into the research on optimal learning and how the human brain wants to interact with content… I discovered another important piece of the puzzle. And what I found was that, to achieve that elusive hyper-engagement I was chasing, it wasn’t enough to simply make that content easily accessible on my customers’ phones by making my sites “mobile-optimized” or “responsive.” mobile response”. or “mobile friendly.” No, to get those extreme levels of commitment…
That content had to be delivered specifically within a mobile app.
What had originally happened was this:
My customers copied content to iTunes, YouTube, and other media player apps on their phones and consumed the content through those apps, not their mobile phone web browsers. And this ridiculously simple change in the way I delivered content drastically overhauled my entire business, the way my customers interacted with me, and my overall sales. After that, I became obsessed with learning and mobile sales and did a “deep dive” into the subject. I began by examining the research conducted by some of the brightest technology engineers at prestigious multi-billion dollar software, hardware, and technology companies. During this research, I discovered all kinds of interesting facts that I had never heard of before, even during all my years as a developer, and while creating multi-million dollar marketing, SEO, email and website automation campaigns using the most sophisticated software. systems on the planet.
For example, I learned:
The average person touches their phone almost 3,000 times a day
Those same people’s phones are always within 3 feet of them, even when they sleep, eat, drive, travel, fly, walk, work, wait for dates, exercise, walk the dog, watch TV, play with their kids, shopping, lying awake at night plagued with insomnia, at parties, sitting at the bar, or even when in the bathroom
- More than 70% of all digital content is now consumed on mobile phones
- A whopping 92% of the time spent on a phone is in an app, NOT a web browser
- Less than 8% of people log into a website through a web browser on their phone to consume
- courses, entertainment, or other content (which is why, for example, Facebook’s course completion rates are an abysmal 4% on average), yet web-based browsers and desktop apps remain the way the vast majority of companies deliver their content.
- Over 600,000 websites are created per DAY, creating armies of competition in the marketplace, while only about 60,000 mobile apps are published on the Apple and Google Play stores per MONTH (and about 1/3 of those are only updates, not new mobile devices). apps) where there is much less competition
- All of which means that hardly anyone in any niche or in any industry is offering their content in a legitimate mobile app… even though that is where all their customers are going, where they want to consume and interact with the content, and most importantly. … where they clearly prefer to buy your content.
What exactly does all this mean to you?
It means that if you are one of the few companies that offers and sells your content in a legitimate mobile app (and not just a “mobile-friendly” site or a cheap desktop app that pretends to be a mobile app).. .where your customers and customers already are, and where they prefer to consume and pay for content… you automatically have a huge “built-in” advantage over every business that doesn’t have a mobile app. Just like the early adopters of websites they had a huge built-in advantage over businesses that didn’t have a website.
And that’s just for starters.
I also quickly realized the importance of a business having their own app developed, rather than relying on and sending their customers to iTunes, YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo or any other company’s mobile app platform to deliver their paid content. or free. That way, you can stop sending your hard-earned customers to those companies and their “worlds,” with all the distractions, third-party ads, privacy violations, platform takedowns, and where your competitors are always fighting each other. yes for attention . And instead, you can send your clients, customers and prospects into YOUR world, where there is no competition and where you are the only one they pay attention to while inside your app.
I also learned many more lessons during this time.
But for content creators specifically, here they are summarized:
1. Put your content in a mobile app to make it easier to consume
2. Develop your own app
3. If money is an object (having an app developed can cost anywhere from $50,000 to $125,000) look for what is called a “container app”
These are apps within a mobile app that another company has built specifically for businesses that can’t afford their own mobile app, but still want the power that a mobile app can bring to their content and business.
This is how they work:
A company that sells a container app lists it in the Google Play and Apple stores. And you can have your own mobile app presence “within” that app, along with all the other customers of that business. It’s still your app (within the container app), but it won’t have its own app in the app stores. That means what you sacrifice in the ego boost and visibility and rankings of having your own app in the app stores, you make up for in a small monthly price and letting the company selling access to your container app worry. for keeping it in compliance. , updated and maintained behind the scenes for you.
Whatever the case, take a serious look at mobile app technology.
If you can afford to build your own, that’s ideal.
But if money is an issue, look into one of the many container apps available. Then put your content there and watch what happens to your engagement, sales, and response. If your experience is anything like mine and thousands of other content creators, I think you’ll be very happy with the results.
