Content Strategy for Mobile Apps | #ConfabCentral 2017
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UDPATE: Evernote had professional note-takers at this talk—read their notes here: https://www.evernote.com/pub/evernote_examples/confabcentral2017#st=p&n=67344f5e-434f-4f48-96d3-034f9ebfb881 We all love clever app interfaces—but what about the complex content ecosystem in which every mobile app lives? In this talk, you’ll learn about the multiple areas of an iOS or Android app that require a content strategist’s touch, from push notifications to app store listings. When you understand the content strategy connections between app touchpoints, you’ll have the power to help shape a stellar user experience that will make any app shine.
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Content Strategy for Mobile Apps | #ConfabCentral 2017
- 2. 2 The Golden Age of Apps?
- 3. The Golden Age of Apps?Introduction Total Time Spent in Digital Media (U.S.) Mobile devices (phone, tablet) Desktop Source: comScore 40% 60% 3
- 4. The Golden Age of Apps?Introduction Mobile devices (phone, tablet) Desktop 40% 60%52% apps Total Time Spent in Digital Media (U.S.) 4Source: comScore
- 5. 5 “Wow! Apps must be taking over.”
- 7. The Golden Age of Apps? 7 01 Source: comScore
- 8. The Golden Age of Apps? 8 01
- 9. The Golden Age of Apps?Introduction 9 #1 Source: comScore
- 10. The Golden Age of Apps? 10 01 Source: comScore
- 11. 11 Facebook, Google, Apple, Yahoo, Amazon and eBay develop 9 of the top 10 most-used apps. Source: comScore
- 13. 13 How can you: • Stand out? • Get users engaged? • Keep them coming back?
- 14. 14 Use content strategy to create an app people love.
- 15. 15
- 16. Retention Use push notifications & in-app messages to retain and engage users. 16 Discovery Get your app downloaded using App Store Optimization and App Indexing. Use Use product content whose substance and structure provide good UX. 01 02 03
- 17. 17 Push Notifications & In-App Messaging04 Re-engage users. App Store Optimization
- 18. 18 Discovery01 App Store Optimization Like SEO, but for the app stores. (search engine optimization)
- 19. 19 Discovery01 Why is it important?
- 20. 20 Discovery01 Why is it important? 47% Source: TechCrunch
- 21. 21 Discovery01 Why is it important? Source: TechCrunch 53%
- 22. 22 Discovery01 How do we do it?
- 23. 23 Discovery01 Lots to consider! • App Name • Category • Release Notes • Description • Screenshots • Preview Video • Localization • App Icon • Ratings & Reviews
- 24. 24 Push Notifications & In-App Messaging04 Re-engage users. Keyword research
- 27. 27 Discovery01
- 28. 28 Discovery01
- 30. 30 Discovery01 Make sure your keywords are relevant to your app.
- 31. 31 Discovery01 time,zone,converter,UTC, pilot,pikot,ilot,Zulu, timezone,GMT,clock App Store only: 100 characters
- 32. 32 Push Notifications & In-App Messaging04 Re-engage users. App name
- 33. 33 Discovery01 App Store: 50 characters max Google Play: 30 characters max
- 34. 34 Discovery01 Make sure the app name is unique, descriptive, and relevant.
- 36. 36 Push Notifications & In-App Messaging04 Re-engage users. Description
- 37. 37 Discovery01 App Store: 4,000 characters Google Play: 4,000 characters
- 40. 40 Discovery01 So really, to get their attention… • App Store: 255 characters • Google Play: 255 characters
- 41. Store Optimization 41 04 Bonus! Google Play short description: 80 characters.
- 42. 42 Discovery01 Be ruthless in your copy. No filler in the first 255 characters.
- 43. 43 Discovery01 Incorporate keywords. But no keyword stuffing.
- 44. 44 Discovery01 “The ideal description is a concise, attention- grabbing paragraph followed by a short list of main features.” — App Store Guidelines
- 45. 45 Discovery01
- 46. 46 Discovery01
- 47. 47 Discovery01
- 48. 48 Discovery01 Use your brand’s messaging architecture.
- 49. 49 Discovery01 “Communicate in the tone of your brand, and use terminology your target audience will appreciate and understand.” — App Store Guidelines
- 50. 50 Before
- 51. 51 Stop converting time in your head! See local, military, and UTC time (GMT and Zulu time zones) with a tap. Developed by pilots who can never remember the current UTC (GMT/Zulu) time conversion, Pilot Time instantly gives you the current time and date for your zone, plus UTC time. Pilot Time can: After
- 52. 52 Push Notifications & In-App Messaging04 Re-engage users. Release Notes
- 53. 53
- 54. 54
- 55. 55 Before Email from project manager:
- 56. 56 After
- 57. 57 04 Remember when I said there’s more? • Screenshots • Category • Preview Video • Localization • App Icon • Ratings & Reviews Check out the downloads!
- 58. 58 Push Notifications & In-App Messaging04 Re-engage users. App Indexing
- 59. App Indexing 59 04 “App Indexing lets Google index apps just like websites, so deep links to your app appear in search results. This allows users to find exactly the right content within your app.” What is App Indexing? Source: Google
- 60. 60 App Indexing04 Source: Search Engine Land App Indexing Usage 30% Source: Search Engine Land Android 30% 19% iOS
- 66. 66 Retention03 Next step? Talk to your developers.
- 67. Retention Use push notifications & in-app messages to retain and engage users. 67 Discovery Get your app downloaded using App Store Optimization and App Indexing. 01 03 Use Use product content whose substance and structure provide good UX. 02
- 68. Form field labels Error messages Product descriptions Articles Terms & Conditions And more…
- 69. 69 Push Notifications & In-App Messaging04 Re-engage users. Product Content: Substance
- 70. Source: Google Developers YouTube
- 77. Source: Google Developers YouTube
- 79. Thriving: Hopper
- 81. 81 Push Notifications & In-App Messaging04 Re-engage users. Product Content: Structure
- 87. 87 Use02 What does this tell us?
- 88. 88 Use02 Separate content management systems App Content Web Content App Front End Web Front End
- 89. 89 Use02 The ideal: a single content management system Shared Content App Front End Web Front End
- 90. 90 Use02 By Kevin Cornell Content Modelling
- 91. 91 Use02 Here’s how we might model the content (in part). “Basic: No overhead carry-ons allowed. Seats assigned at check-in. No changes or refunds.”
- 92. 92 Use02 Here’s how we might model the content (in part). “Lands next day.”
- 93. 93 Use02 Amazon: Content Everywhere (affiliate link) I recommend:
- 94. Use Use product content whose substance and structure provide good UX. 02 94 Discovery Get your app downloaded using App Store Optimization and App Indexing. Retention Use push notifications & in-app messages to retain and engage users. 01 03
- 95. 95 Push Notifications & In-App Messaging04 Re-engage users. Push Notifications
- 96. Retention 96 03 “If they don’t receive messages, only 5% will continue to use the app 90 days after first app open…” Why Send Push Notifications? Source: Urban Airship
- 97. Retention 97 03 Push notifications can boost retention as much as 10x. Why Send Push Notifications? Source: Urban Airship
- 98. 98 Retention03 Source: @EricBlattberg | Twitter
- 99. 99 Retention03 Source: @Babylonian | Twitter
- 100. 100 Retention03
- 103. 103 Retention03 Gives customers access to their savings accounts, including: What it does • High-Yield Savings • Money Market • Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) • Certificates of Deposit (CDs)
- 104. 104 Retention03 • See your balance • Deposit or transfer money to savings • Chat with a banker if you have questions As a customer, you can:
- 107. Retention 107 03 • Deposit posted • Available balance • CD maturing • Suspicious activity • Active chat • Inspiration and learning opportunities Key events
- 108. 108 Retention03
- 109. 109 Retention03 Personalize! • By user type • Customer • Prospect • Loyalty club member • By purchase • By location
- 111. 111 Push Notifications & In-App Messaging04 Re-engage users. In-App Messages
- 112. 112 Retention03 What are they? • Notifications that appear inside the app • Can be a banner or interstitial page
- 114. 114 In-App Messages03 Source: Urban Airship Your order has been shipped. Would you like us to send you shipping alerts via push notifications? Opt-in Decline Source: Urban Airship (image and text)
- 115. 115 03 Use in-app messages in conjunction with push notifications to provide users with a rich experience. Retention
- 116. 116 03 Like push notifications, in-app messages should be: • Thoughtful • Personalized • Written according to your brand voice and tone guidelines Retention
- 117. Retention Use push notifications & in-app messages to retain and engage users. 117 Discovery Get your app downloaded using App Store Optimization and App Indexing. Use Use product content whose substance and structure provide good UX. 01 02 03
- 118. 118 Use content strategy to create an app people love.
- 119. 119 Discovery01 Q&A
- 120. 120 Push Notifications & In-App Messaging04 Re-engage users. Kudos to: • Jonathon Colman • Kristina Halvorson • Chris Stauffer • Bekah Russell • Margo Bulka • Will Ellis • Scott Wolfson • Kate Bennis • Hillary Pitts • Sho Modica • Alicia Midland • Ben Bloodworth • Jeremy Stern • Jeff Seibert
- 121. 121 Push Notifications & In-App Messaging04 Re-engage users. More Resources App Store Optimization • Easy-SMTP, “App Store Optimization: How to Get Your App Discovered.” • Gummicube, “Google Play Short Description.” • Google Developer Console, “Run A/B Tests on Your Store Listing.” • Kissmetrics, “5 Myths About App Store Optimization.” • Optimizely, “Your Guide to App Store Optimization [Infographic].” • Smashing Boxes, “How We Growth Hacked Our ’20% Time’ Project, CRNT.” • Trademob, “Extensive Guide to App Store Optimization (ASO) in 2015 – Part 1: Apple App Store.” • ibid, “Part 2: Google Play Store.” App Indexing • Branch, “How to Set Up Google App Indexing with Links.” • Firebase, “Introducing Firebase App Indexing.” • ibid, “Firebase App Indexing” (developer documentation). Push Notifications • Localytics, “The 2014 Push Awards: Best and Worst Push Messages of the Past Year.” • Urban Airship, “Benchmarks Report: How Push Notifications Impact Mobile App Retention Rates.”
- 122. 122 Push Notifications & In-App Messaging04 Re-engage users. Downloads • 10-step App Store Optimization Checklist to help prepare your app for the App Store and Google Play. • Push Notification Strategy Template for planning push notifications.
Notas del editor
- If you look at a few statistics, it might look like we’re in the golden age of mobile apps. First, let’s talk about smartphone usage.
- Total activity on smartphones and tablets accounts for 60% of digital media time spent in the U.S. Now, how much of that time do you think we spend on apps?
- That’s amazing. People spend 52% of their total digital media time using apps, according to comScore, who remarked that “The fuel driving mobile’s relentless growth is primarily app usage, which alone makes up a majority of total digital media engagement at 52%.”
- Clearly, apps are winning. They’re taking over all our digital media time.
- But wait. There’s more to the story. It’s true, but you should know something.
- MarketingLand explains that “Because of smartphone memory constraints and the mediocre quality of most apps, users are only going to download and engage with a small fraction of the apps on the market.” Let’s take a closer look at the comScore numbers.
- A staggering 42 percent of all app time spent on smartphones occurs on the individual’s single most used app.” Incidentally, what do you think is our most-used app in the US?
- Facebook. It happens to be my favorite too. Even though I hid it from my home screen, I go find it and check it several times a day.
- Not only that, but “Nearly three out of every four minutes of app usage occurs on one of the individual’s top 4 apps.” Let’s think about that. Nearly three out of four minutes are in the user’s top 4 apps.
- Facebook, Google, Apple, Yahoo, Amazon and eBay develop 9 of the top 10 most-used apps. (So if you work for one of them, nice work!)
- For the rest of us, here we come, with our shiny new apps, to try to bust into that user’s top 4! We’re asking users to take precious minutes away from their favorite apps. That’s just a little daunting, isn’t it?
- So, how do you do it? How do you - stand out get users engaged, and keep them coming back to your app?
- The good news is that you can use content strategy to create an app that people love. But first, you have to understand the distinctive ecosystem that a mobile app inhabits.
- Because in some key ways, mobile is different from web. A mobile app is a type of a product, with its own content ecosystem and content considerations. You have to understand this content ecosystem if you’re going to incorporate the mobile app into your overall content strategy. We’re going to go through 3 stages of a user’s journey with your mobile app, to learn what types of content you as the content strategist need to be caring for in each phase.
- Those 3 phases are: Discovery, Use and Retention. In the Discovery phase, we’ll discuss how to help users find and download your app using App Store Optimization and App Indexing. In Use, we’ll touch on product content. And in Retention, we’ll talk about keeping users interested and engaged using push notifications and in-app messages. First, Discovery.
- First, let’s discuss App Store Optimization.
- You’ve heard about SEO, right? Search engine optimization for websites to get found by Google? Did you know that the app stores (Apple App Store and Google Play store for Android) have their own search algorithms? That means that each store has a completely separate search ecosystem from the normal web search engine optimization you’ve heard about. And you have to take search into account for your apps.
- But why is app store search important for apps?
- Techcrunch reported that 47% of iPhone users found their most recently downloaded app through store search.
- Techcrunch reported that 53% of Android users found their most recently downloaded app through searching Google Play.
- OK, so we know that app store optimization is important! So how do we do it?
- We could probably spend an entire day talking JUST about app store content! So I’m going to give you a brief how-to, letting you know the main content to work on, so that you can maximize your downloads. Let’s look at 5 steps to creating a discoverable app store listing.
- Much like with SEO, App Store Optimization starts with keyword research. Fortunately, there are several tools to help you see what keywords your competitors are ranking for before you launch. And, after launch, you’ll have access to that data for your app as well. Let’s see how people find one of our apps, Pilot Time.
- Pilot Time is an internal project created by our company founder, who also happens to be a pilot. To pilots, always knowing what time it is in UTC (a universal time standard that happens to coordinate with Greenwich Mean Time) is essential. But our founder had trouble making the conversion in his head. Pilot Time is a super-simple solution to that problem. All it does is show the time in your current time zone (here you see 12-hour and 24-hour formats), plus UTC, and whatever other time zones you select. That’s it.
- For keyword research, we use a tool called App Annie. It has a free view that will show you the top keywords that people actually used to find any app. Because Pilot Time has been in the app stores for a few years, App Annie’s free tool can give us some useful keyword ideas. So we can see if the keywords we’re currently targeting line up with what users are using to discover the app.
- Here’s a snapshot of the App Annie list of top search keywords for Pilot Time in the App Store. It looks like “zone converter” is the top keyword this month, good to know. And UTC is a much higher ranking search term than Zulu (which is another term for Greenwich Mean Time).
- GMT doesn’t even appear in the top keywords. (It comes in much further down the list.) Now, if Pilot Time were a brand new app, we’d do this same process with a similar app.
- So based on the list of search terms that folks are using for search, we can isolate a handful of relevant keywords.
- Do make sure that your keywords are relevant. Even if you rank high for a given keyword, that doesn’t mean you should optimize for it. Optimizing for “flight status” might help us boost downloads for Pilot Time, but it would result in a lot of uninstalls and unhappy users.
- Now, the Apple App Store is the only one that actually lets you input meta keywords, and you get 100 characters, including spaces. So the best way to format your keywords is like this. Because we had some extra room, I went ahead and included typos. We don’t know if that will really help but I don’t think it’ll hurt. I didn’t include terms like “flight status” or “radar” which likewise appeared lower in search results, because they don’t accurately describe what Pilot Time does.
- Now you can use those keywords to create your app’s name for the store.
- Sometimes the name is obvious, like with Facebook, or you can name the app after your business. An app like Pilot Time is different. In our case, Pilot Time works because it’s: unique descriptive relevant - doesn’t promise anything other than what it delivers!
- Both Apple and Google discourage you from stuffing keywords in the title and descripton.
- Now that you have your keywords and your name, you can write the app description.
- App Store and Google Play both give you 4,000 characters for your description.
- Though you may write 4,000 characters,
- The dreaded “more” link will hide most of it. That means
- You really have 255 characters to engage the user and get their interest.
- And just as an aside, for Android only, there’s an additional Short Description field, 80 characters long, in the Google Play store.
- How to write a great app store description? Have you ever heard the adage that with web copy, you should write your page, edit out half the words, then edit out half the words again? This is similar. Be ruthless. No filler in the first 255 characters.
- Incorporate your keywords — but no keyword stuffing. That could get you penalized.
- Be sure to consult your brand’s messaging architecture to make sure the description fits with voice and tone guidelines.
- If you don’t have brand guidelines, consult Margot Bloomstein’s Content Strategy at Work.
- Now let’s see how we would apply these ideas to Pilot Time. Here’s the copy we’ve used for a couple of year in the app store. It’s a good description, but it’s a little product-focused and doesn’t necessarily grab the user’s attention in that first critical 255 characters. Also, it talks about features as they’re organized in the app, which the user may not really care about.
- Here’s what we ended up with. Notice how the first line is benefit oriented - Stop converting time in your head!
- Now this is one that you won’t have a chance to attend to until after launch. But I do urge you to pay attention to your release notes! Don’t just write “bug fixes”. Tell your users what you fixed.
- One app that makes their Release Notes really … interesting… is Medium. Some are formatting like poems, some like novels. This is a dialogue that incorporates the president’s speech from the movie Independence Day. Why not?
- One app that makes their Release Notes really … interesting… is Medium. Some are formatting like poems, some like novels. This is a dialogue that incorporates the president’s speech from the movie Independence Day. Why not?
- Here’s an email from our project manager for our Regal Cinemas client, asking for help writing release notes.
- Here’s what we ended up using.
- Now this isn’t specific to words, but you do need to pick a category for listing your app in the store. The app store and google play each have different categories, so you’ll need to find the one that fits your app best. Look for a less competitive category.
- Let’s look at an example: CRNT is an app that lets surfers check wave conditions for their favorite beaches.
- My friend and former co-worker Hillary Pitts worked on CRNT, testing a hypothesis that moving it from the competitive Sports category to the less competitive Weather category would help it get discovered and downloaded.
- The results were better than anticipated. The app was also featured in the Weather category immediately. Being featured in the store really aids discoverability.
- There’s so much more to your app store listing that we just don’t have time to talk about today. Look in the download for pointers on taking care of each of these elements of a good app store listing. Each one can really affect your app’s discoverability and user acquisiton.
- Now let’s talk about App Indexing. What is it?
- From Google: “App indexing lets Google index apps just like websites, so deep links to your app appear in search results. This allows users to find exactly the right content within your app.” So it’s a feature that your developers implement in code to allow Google to list your app in search results. I’ll show some examples shortly.
- App indexing isn’t exactly brand new - it’s been around since October 2013. So why do I bring it up? Well, a tiny fraction of apps are using it - just 30% of Android apps
- Let’s look at an example of how app indexing affects search when the user has the app installed. Say I do a google search for the Netflix show called “A Series of Unfortunate Events.”
- But app indexing also lets your app show up in search results when the user DOESN’T have your app installed.
- Here’s an example. I search for “Kroger coupons” to find coupons at a popular grocery store where I live. Google lists the app in the search results, along with an “install” button. I click “install,” go to the Google Play store and install the app.
- One limitation of app indexing is that it only works if you have a website with content that matches your app. So for IMDB and Netflix and Kroger, it works great. If you don’t have a website with matching content, you can use Branch for indexing of native apps without a website. I’m including a link to Branch’s article about how to accomplish this on the last slide.
- App indexing is done in the code, so it’s not something that we as content creators and strategists can do on our own. But, as content strategists, we should know about it, so we can make sure our teams take it into account during development. So now you know!
- Now product content is a huge arena, and we can’t cover all of it today. I just want to address it briefly at the outset. We’ve already seen some really great talks about product content strategy. And they’ve covered product content in more depth than I can in this talk. This is probably the content that we think about first, because it’s a part of our product. And it’s definitely the BIGGEST quantity of app content. Mainly I want to talk about what happens when you have content that you want to bring into the app from a website or other content channel.
- Now, when I say product content, what exactly am I referring to? Here I’m talking about any content that appears in your app. It could be things like form field labels, error messages, product descriptions, articles, terms and conditions—anything. So if we have content that appears on web AND on our apps, how do we do that?
- First, let’s talk about the substance of your app’s content.
- Just a couple weeks ago, Google’s UX writing team gave a talk at their I/O 2017 event on the topic, “How words can make your product stand out.” They offer this framework for approaching writing helpful content for apps. Surviving - what you say - are you giving your users the information they need to complete the tasks they want to complete? Thriving - how you say it - tapping into your brand’s voice and tone to provide interest and even delight when appropriate. Let’s take a look at three travel apps with similar functionality and very different ways of addressing their users. I want to see how they use content to “survive” and “thrive”. First, surviving.
- First, let’s look at the United app. When I book a flight, I like to know if it arrives after midnight, or the next day. Sometimes it’s very difficult to tell. Notice that this flight leaves at 3 pm California time, and arrives at 9:50 am Virginia time. It’s an overnight flight. On the first screen, at first glance United doesn’t seem to highlight this information at all. There’s not even a little plus sign. When we look closer though, we see that there is a little green “Tue Oct 03” over the arrival.
- On the confirmation screen, I see a faint gray alert that says, “Please note this flight involves a date change.” Hmm, what does that mean? Now I’m confused and a little alarmed. Did the app change my travel dates? It just means that I’m landing the next day. But the way it’s phrased is confusing. I don’t know if I would book this flight, because I’m already a little jumpy when I book flights, afraid of picking the wrong dates. It’s very nerve-wracking! Even though I can see dates below in green, I might get a little suspicious that I’m doing something wrong, and abandon this process.
- So how does Hopper show this information? Notice that this flight arrives at 12:37 am Virginia time. On the first screen when I’m selecting the leg, I just see a little “+1d” next to the times. It’s pretty inconspicuous.
- Once I click the leg and see a summary, I get a more conspicuous note that “this flight arrives the next day.” The information doesn’t jump out at me (especially if I’m colorblind), but it’s pretty findable. Not bad.
- The Hipmunk app is known for delightful content. Does it do well with giving us useful information? On the first screen, I don’t see any indication that this flight arrives after midnight (or the next day). However, notice that Chipmunk has a useful calendar which shows both California and Virginia time. That’s neat! So even though there’s no alert, I have the chance to visually see what times the flight leaves and arrives.
- When I get to the confirmation screen though, I see a nice, big banner telling me the flight lands the next day. That’s really helpful! I also like the wording here. Like Hopper’s, it’s very clear and concise. So we’ve seen that different apps use content in different ways to survive. How do they thrive?
- Now let’s see whether any of these travel apps are able to thrive with content.
- These days some airlines have what’s known as “Basic Economy” class. Which is cheaper than economy, and has some pretty severe restrictions. Believe it or not, not only do travel apps survive by presenting this information clearly, but some actually thrive by presenting it in a way that’s very helpful. First, here’s how United Airlines presents this information. You can see that it’s very clear in this table format. I can easily see what I get with Economy and don’t get with Basic Economy. In fact, you can’t even select Basic Economy without selecting the slider that says “Basic Economy works for me.” They definitely want to make sure you’re informed before you sign up for these restrictions, which is helpful.
- Hopper takes a different approach. In their app, the “Fair Bear” calls attention to these restrictions. First they introduce it, then on subsequent loads, it simply appears with a notice to check out the restrictions. They could have just spelled them out like United - in fact, you can see that “nonrefundable” is in red below to draw attention to it. But they added this graphic element and friendly copy that’s sure to get your notice. So each app uses its own brand voice to thrive to varying degrees. I actually think that United’s copy is straightforward, so it meets the survival standard, I just don’t think it necessarily “thrives” the way Hopper does here.
- Sadly, I can’t compare the Chipmunk app here, because its app doesn’t show me any information that I can find about Basic Economy fares. Which is really odd, because its website is very clear about it. It looks like they’re displaying different data in the app than the site, which is not something I recommend, particularly when it’s critical information like this. (In fairness, when you try to book, Chipmunk pushes you out to United’s app, so they probably are letting United handle giving the consumer that content. But it would be very helpful information to have up front.) Which brings us to… structure.
- As a content strategist working on mobile apps, there’s a high likelihood that you’ll be managing content across platforms, minimally iOS and Android, and likely web as well. In that case, you’ll need to be well versed in omnichannel content strategy. Omnichannel content strategy is a huge topic that some very experienced speakers (Jeff Eaton and Devin Asaro) have covered in depth at this conference. So I’m not going to give an exhaustive explanation. I just want to touch on it and provide you with some resources because it’s key to developing content for apps.
- This is what we call ‘omnichannel’ content, because it needs to be able to appear in all channels. We want it to be reusable, so that we can manage it from one place, rather than duplicating it in a separate content management system for each channel. Our goal is that the same repository of content can feed into any number of front ends - from a website, to native mobile apps, to wearables, even smart TVs.
- At WillowTree, the type of content management system we prefer to use is called a “Headless” CMS. And our headless CMS of choice is Contentful, though there are others out there, like Prismic. And you can also use Drupal or WordPress this way with some custom development. A headless CMS stores our content in a kind of database, or as an API, and the front end reaches out to grab whatever content it needs. It also separates content from the presentation, as you see here. So each platform (apps, web, wearables) can have its own design, and the content can adapt to it.
- As an example, let’s look at the “Basic Economy” copy we saw earlier.
- Remember when we noticed that Hipmunk doesn’t show Basic Economy copy on its app, but it does on its website?
- And remember that really nice treatment for “lands next day”? Well, it turns out that the website treatment is very different. Here’s what the copy says on the web. We see a note that says just “next day.”
- What do we glean from observing that different content is displayed in the app and the website?
- We know that they’re not pulling the data from a single source. It looks like the app and the website are using separate content management systems.
- Now, they could architect both front ends (app and web) to pull content from a single content management system. In order to do that, they would have to model their content. And modeling content involves breaking it up into pieces that the CMS can recognize, and serve up to each front end.
- In order for content to be compatible across devices, it must be stored in the CMS in a particular way, in small, modular pieces (or chunks), rather than huge monolithic pages or blobs. We call the process of “chunking” our content “content modelling,” and Rachel Lovinger has written about it at length in A List Apart (this illustration comes from her article, linked here).
- Here’s an example of a partial content model (there are various different ways to do it, depending on the system and business). But this is one concept. So we have these separate content objects (squares), each with attributes (such as flight type and leg type). Each content object is stored separately in the CMS. And if we did that, we could store a single Basic Economy alert that could appear on both apps and web.
- Similarly, we could store a single Arrival Time alert that says “lands next day” and show that on both app and web. This is really helpful for changing strings, because when you update the copy - let’s say you want “lands next day” to say “this is an overnight flight” — now you only have to change it in one place!
- Several others have addressed omnichannel in much more detail than I could do today. If you want to learn more about omnichannel content, I highly recommend the book Content Everywhere by Sara Wachter-Boettcher.
- Now that we’ve touch on product content, let’s take a brief look at retention, or how to keep people coming back and engaging your app in the future.
- Most of us are familiar with push notifications on our phones.
- Why should we send push notifications at all? Well, lest we assume push is irrelevant, take a look at this research by Urban Airship (a push messaging platform) which found that apps that don’t use push at all, retention will drop to 5% in the first 90 days. That means 95% of users will not open the app again. Ouch!
- On the other hand, retention rates were much higher when apps did send push notifications. So it’s clear that, while we might be taking a risk by sending push notifications, we’d be taking a far greater risk not to send them.
- Some are less than useful, like this notification from the Wall Street Journal, telling us about new research suggesting many people “look like their names.” This type of notification is trivial and squanders the user’s time and attention— two resources that we have far too little of these days.
- Or this notification from activity tracking app Withings, which says, “What do you think of your body?” There’s no point or call to action to this notification. I don't learn anything and can’t see that I should do anything with it.
- But some push notifications are helpful. Here’s a push from Life 360, an app that tells you where your family members are (kind of like Find My Friends on iPhone). It tells me my husband made it home. I’m happy to get these kinds of notifications.
- Netflix is very good about personalizing its communications with customers, and its app’s push notifications are no exception. This push notification appeared for a user who watched House of Cards.
- So, how do we make sure our push notifications are done well? Not invasive and annoying, but helpful and engaging? I want to walk you through my process planning push notifications for a banking app which is currently unreleased, so it shall remain nameless.
- I want to walk you through my process planning the push notification strategy for this app.
- You know what sitemaps are, right? For a website, they tell you which pages exist and how they relate to each other. Well, the same thing exists for an app, but it’s called a product map. You have to have a product map in order to know which app screens your notification will drive traffic to. For the banking example, we could create a notification that tells a user their certificate of deposit is maturing, so they can renew it. But if they can’t renew the CD in the app, we will need to adjust the call to action—or probably more likely, contact them a different way, like through email.
- Work with designers to pinpoint key events that people will want to be notified of.
- When you take all those considerations into account, what you come up with is this: a Push Notification Strategy document. This spreadsheet lists each push notification you propose, Personas that will be targeted (remember personalization? This is one facet of that, although you can get much more fine-grained than that.) Whether it’s timed, or triggered by a user action If it’s triggered, what causes it Whether it’s on or off by default Which screen it drives to And you can include sample notification copy as well, for stakeholders to approve I also want to show you something below that list. I’ve color coded each notification by type, and then listed the categories below the list of notifications. This gives me a starting point to help design the preference center, which will appear in the app and allow the user to turn notifications on and off by group or type. This feature was so highly requested by Android users that Google has now included notification channels in its latest Android operating system (O), so this list is going to be very helpful to developers too, as they’re going to be required to classify each notification in a category that users can then turn off and on from the notifications pane in Android.
- We just learned that push notifications—when done well—are great for re-engaging users. But users can, and some users will, opt out of them. What if you have new features or useful information about your app that you’d like to send to all users? There’s a way to do to reach all your active users which is actually less intrusive than a push notification. It’s called an in-app message.
- Here’s an example of a banner-style in-app message. This is a promotional one, telling a user about a discounted airline fare. But in-app messages also work well for informing the user about a transaction.
- LinkedIn uses in-app messages to let you know that your action was completed, in this case sending a connection request. Notice that it includes a call to action, to view the person’s profile.
- This app also has a banner-style in-app message, which is difficult to read. It also includes calls to action. So here’s an example where the app took the opportunity to message the user about a transaction, and at the same time give them a chance to receive push notifications they might actually find useful.
- And here’s an interstitial-style in-app message. This is also a promotion. Note too, that just like push notifications, these messages don’t have to be just text. You can include images, video, and emojis in both message types.
- When your users receive the right amount of content at the right time, and it’s valuable to them, they’re more likely to continue to use your app.
- So that’s a look at our user’s journey with your app In Discovery, we used App Store Optimization and App Indexing to help the user find and download your app. In the Use phase, we created product content that helps your app survive and thrive. And we planned to structure your content so that it can be served to several platforms from one source. In Retention, we used push notifications and in-app messages in a smart, savvy, personalized way to reach and engage users.
- I hope this talk has helped you to understand, and inspired you to explore, the mobile app content ecosystem, and create an app people will download, use, and love.
- Questions?