December 20, 2013 at 16:07Is there life without marketing or public relations social project
Hello, Habr.
We are doing a simple and useful project. No one except every second citizen needs him. But the project has no money. Not at all. Zero.
Understanding the close prospects of monetizing the service, we nevertheless took up its implementation. Partly, this decision was justified by our social responsibility, partly - by dreams of a brighter future, and partly even by self-PR (which, by the way, was particularly successful). Everyone here knows: to make the technological component of an IT project is one thing; show the result to everyone and train the end user to use it - is another. Two completely different activities requiring completely different specialists and solutions.
No financial investments were required by the development task - the whole team was motivated non-financially. Creating a miracle, we moved on to its widespread planting. And then began what I want to talk about today.
As a ready-made solution, we received a service for monitoring public transport for smartphones. The perfect Android app and almost ready for a complete upgrade to the iOS App . First - in Yekaterinburg, a little later - throughout the country. So, let's move on to marketing.
Our task was to tell the whole city (and especially students) about the wonderful mobile application. We did not have money for these purposes. Without hesitation, we came up with a simple plan and gradually carried it out, constantly inventing something on the go.
We completed the main task - we gave an impulse. In the first month, we got 3,500 users, and then the mechanism that only useful products possess: word of mouth turned on. Actually, it was not in vain that we loved our audience, and she loved us in return.
We really loved our users. We responded to every review on Google Play. Generally for everyone. Often it came to irony.
The reviews were also bad, but we still answered them well, so to speak, “hawali”. They loved other users very much - who did not use the application due to the fact that it did not have some routes, but still praised it - the product is great!
And such treatment bore fruit.
We never lost an audience for more than one week, and then by the summer. Over the past two months, we have not performed any real actions to advertise our product! All that came from the public. And we consider this really the main indicator that we have guessed the needs of the audience.
But in all this seemingly beautiful story (and we estimate the limit of users of the android application in Yekaterinburg at 50 thousand), there is an important nuance . This is our native Yekaterinburg, where we all know. Exit to Kazan, for example, did not work out right away.
Immediately they needed money. There was a need to go to Kazan to hand out media comments. Or you had to look for your man there so that he would do all this for us. Publics were reluctant to contact, and when they did, they offered to pay for the placement. The “ Universiade Village ” was an exception , but the publication did not give effect due to the specifics of the public.
At the moment, we are distracted from this problem and concentrated on another, but, to be honest, we just dropped our hands. We are waiting for either new forces, or help, or a round of investment.
Why is money still needed? To spend. And then ahead - Moscow, St. Petersburg and about 40 other cities of Russia.
Here are a few notes if you don’t have the funds to promote
We, in turn, went to raise funds with public funding.
And, so as not to violate the rules of Habr, I just leave it here.
I hope the post will inspire someone from this community and give new strength in his bright idea to change the world ^ _ ^
Instead of introducing
We are doing a simple and useful project. No one except every second citizen needs him. But the project has no money. Not at all. Zero.
Understanding the close prospects of monetizing the service, we nevertheless took up its implementation. Partly, this decision was justified by our social responsibility, partly - by dreams of a brighter future, and partly even by self-PR (which, by the way, was particularly successful). Everyone here knows: to make the technological component of an IT project is one thing; show the result to everyone and train the end user to use it - is another. Two completely different activities requiring completely different specialists and solutions.
No financial investments were required by the development task - the whole team was motivated non-financially. Creating a miracle, we moved on to its widespread planting. And then began what I want to talk about today.
As a ready-made solution, we received a service for monitoring public transport for smartphones. The perfect Android app and almost ready for a complete upgrade to the iOS App . First - in Yekaterinburg, a little later - throughout the country. So, let's move on to marketing.
What is “marketing” for us
Our task was to tell the whole city (and especially students) about the wonderful mobile application. We did not have money for these purposes. Without hesitation, we came up with a simple plan and gradually carried it out, constantly inventing something on the go.
- Social networks and the effect of audience expectations .
We perfectly understood that to have an application in your phone that would tell you exactly how long it takes to wait for a tram at the bus stop everyone whose phone allows it. We understood that we were preparing a popular product.
In order to popularize our service, first we wanted to form a hype around the project. Throwing the news that we are looking for “Pioneers!”, “Beta testers!” Into the most popular community of Yekaterinburg in VK , we received more than a hundred applications in an hour. In total - more than 400. We selected 100 of the best. Total: 100 people became our fans in person, another 300 - in absentia. Plus, 120,000 Yekaterinburg residents (public coverage at that time) heard something about us.By the way, in this way we also saved on testing the application: the already loyal audience considered it our duty to help the project and take part in the development. - Support for traditional media .
No way without her. It just so happened that we had a journalist in our team. But the task was only facilitated by the fact that he wrote the texts and knew his colleagues personally.
But a significant bonus to us was the acutely social focus of the project. It’s no secret that journalists learned to make non-promotional stories from purely commercial events - you can simply not show sponsor banners in the plot and not name them behind the scenes. We immediately positioned ourselves as a non-profit project, and the picture is actually quite idealistic: five students did a thing very useful for the townspeople. All!
Press release mailing day: 3 television stories, 4 radio stories, 5 informational notes. For Yekaterinburg, this is good. - Outdoor advertising .
Despite the lack of a budget per se (all previous actions cost us exclusively free of charge), we understood that “outdoor advertising” was expensive. Therefore, they continued to act as students. Our solution was guerrilla marketing. Having spent about 1000 rubles on various stickers and posters, we hung them at bus stops and universities. Hands did not reach more interesting solutions like stencils and dorhangers in dormitories.
This was not enough for us, the “outdoor activities” in the indicated amount are noticeably small, with our budgets, we should have compensated with the creative. An error has been noticed. - Social networks again .
This is our best promotion channel, and we continued to use it. We began to post interesting materials in the group , drew all sorts of nice little things, and were proud of our success. A video appeared there. But we did not work to increase the audience of the group, we worked to increase the loyalty of existing subscribers and their transmission of our image further.
We completed the main task - we gave an impulse. In the first month, we got 3,500 users, and then the mechanism that only useful products possess: word of mouth turned on. Actually, it was not in vain that we loved our audience, and she loved us in return.
Why users are the best marketing
We really loved our users. We responded to every review on Google Play. Generally for everyone. Often it came to irony.
The reviews were also bad, but we still answered them well, so to speak, “hawali”. They loved other users very much - who did not use the application due to the fact that it did not have some routes, but still praised it - the product is great!
And such treatment bore fruit.
We never lost an audience for more than one week, and then by the summer. Over the past two months, we have not performed any real actions to advertise our product! All that came from the public. And we consider this really the main indicator that we have guessed the needs of the audience.
Why is money still needed
But in all this seemingly beautiful story (and we estimate the limit of users of the android application in Yekaterinburg at 50 thousand), there is an important nuance . This is our native Yekaterinburg, where we all know. Exit to Kazan, for example, did not work out right away.
Immediately they needed money. There was a need to go to Kazan to hand out media comments. Or you had to look for your man there so that he would do all this for us. Publics were reluctant to contact, and when they did, they offered to pay for the placement. The “ Universiade Village ” was an exception , but the publication did not give effect due to the specifics of the public.
At the moment, we are distracted from this problem and concentrated on another, but, to be honest, we just dropped our hands. We are waiting for either new forces, or help, or a round of investment.
Why is money still needed? To spend. And then ahead - Moscow, St. Petersburg and about 40 other cities of Russia.
Instead of a conclusion
Here are a few notes if you don’t have the funds to promote
- We sympathize with you.
- Work in an environment unusual for developers - communications - will take a lot.
- There are two chances of quick success: if the distribution area is not large or you have media impact like Durov’s
- The sociality of your project now concerns each of the 7 billion (well, or at least those who have smartphones).
We, in turn, went to raise funds with public funding.
And, so as not to violate the rules of Habr, I just leave it here.
I hope the post will inspire someone from this community and give new strength in his bright idea to change the world ^ _ ^