The other day, I was talking to someone who is well respected in the apps world. An interesting question cropped up: What is mobile app merchandizing?
At first my answer was relatively simple, "merchandizing is getting the maximum value from the available real-estate".
I'm passionate about mobile content and their merchandizing is what I do for a living. (yes, I'm among the very few whose work and passion align). So for obvious reasons, the question kept haunting me. My definition probably emphasized more on the Operations side of the job. The next day at work, I tried working with this definition in mind. No, I couldn't justify the effort I and my team was putting in app merchandising. I started expanding the definition.
I realized, merchandising is also about Marketing. This justified our effort in identifying what product (content) to market, how to market it (which channels to market it in), when to market it (seasonal apps) and for how long to market it. Here, Consumer is of utmost importance.
Then we were also counting the money we were bringing in. Dollars per product (a.k.a. Per download or per purchase via paid and freemium apps). We were thinking of how to increase the Sales.
We were putting effort in reading the numbers, ratios and conversion rates. We were allocating capital (a.k.a. Inventory a.k.a. Merchandising slots) to continue selling a product and de-allocate capital from a product that has run its life cycle. Sounds similar to the Finance function.
I thought I had cracked it. App merchandising consisted of Marketing, Sales, business intelligence and Finance.
Next morning I woke up with a call from a Partner in London. They are a well known publishing house with some highly popular apps. I'd had my earlier discussions with them that we concluded with the understanding that freemium model of monetization can generate more revenue than pay-per-download. They had switched one of their pay-per-download apps to the freemium model. So he had called to inform and request for promotion. That sounds like Account Management. A couple days ago, another signature Partner had expressed concerns on their app not generating enough downloads and requested for their app's Conversion Funnel analysis again (Which, by the way, I conduct frequently for each of my partners). Our investigations revealed that their app had large size images that were preventing the initiated download from completing. The correction helped them double the downloads within a week. Another activity related to relationship management that we frequently do is to work with developers in securing discounts on their apps for our consumers.
Undoubtedly , my "Customers" are both consumers and Developers. And I focus on making developers successful by promising a great user experience to my consumers. While making the developers successful, I need to also ensure that I'm building a culture of meritocracy with no bias for or against any developer. Essentially managing the App Economy. Talking about user experience, brings me to another important aspect of the job I.e. Ensuring that the channels or shelves, that we promote our products on, are built the right way. That they are based upon the user journey. The user should easily be able to find the section of interest and quickly identify the product (mobile app or other content) that they would be interested in. At the same time, we need to be able to develop the Want in the user for a particular product. We should be able to automate the selection of products as much as possible based upon our understanding of the user. This was talking about Product Development and Product Management.
I'm sure I had the perfect definition at hand now. That is, merchandising is Marketing, Sales, business intelligence, Finance, account management, culture building, managing App Economy and product management (it was already looking too complicated).
This definition seems like a complicated jumble of words. There was a disconnect. Something was missing that would connect all this together. I knew that if I wasn't doing "it", then I would not have been successful in my job. But I couldn't pin-point "it". What was it?
The next day, I met with an old friend who is an HR. We caught up on old times and had lengthy discussions on several topics. I thought he has seen tons of resumes so may be he can help me complete this job profile. I asked him "how can one successfully handle Marketing, Sales, business intelligence, Finance, account management, culture building, managing App Economy and product management?" Pat came his reply " with a good strategy". Absolutely!!! The days I spend at the start of every financial year is only to strategize and set targets. We continuously monitor our performance against our targets.
Now I could answer the question:
"what is mobile app merchandising?" in somewhat simpler terms. Mobile App merchandising is Strategizing to manage the app economy with the help of available information and by building new tools.
I'm sure, there's still room for improvement.
Inviting your inputs...
At first my answer was relatively simple, "merchandizing is getting the maximum value from the available real-estate".
I'm passionate about mobile content and their merchandizing is what I do for a living. (yes, I'm among the very few whose work and passion align). So for obvious reasons, the question kept haunting me. My definition probably emphasized more on the Operations side of the job. The next day at work, I tried working with this definition in mind. No, I couldn't justify the effort I and my team was putting in app merchandising. I started expanding the definition.
I realized, merchandising is also about Marketing. This justified our effort in identifying what product (content) to market, how to market it (which channels to market it in), when to market it (seasonal apps) and for how long to market it. Here, Consumer is of utmost importance.
Then we were also counting the money we were bringing in. Dollars per product (a.k.a. Per download or per purchase via paid and freemium apps). We were thinking of how to increase the Sales.
We were putting effort in reading the numbers, ratios and conversion rates. We were allocating capital (a.k.a. Inventory a.k.a. Merchandising slots) to continue selling a product and de-allocate capital from a product that has run its life cycle. Sounds similar to the Finance function.
I thought I had cracked it. App merchandising consisted of Marketing, Sales, business intelligence and Finance.
Next morning I woke up with a call from a Partner in London. They are a well known publishing house with some highly popular apps. I'd had my earlier discussions with them that we concluded with the understanding that freemium model of monetization can generate more revenue than pay-per-download. They had switched one of their pay-per-download apps to the freemium model. So he had called to inform and request for promotion. That sounds like Account Management. A couple days ago, another signature Partner had expressed concerns on their app not generating enough downloads and requested for their app's Conversion Funnel analysis again (Which, by the way, I conduct frequently for each of my partners). Our investigations revealed that their app had large size images that were preventing the initiated download from completing. The correction helped them double the downloads within a week. Another activity related to relationship management that we frequently do is to work with developers in securing discounts on their apps for our consumers.
Undoubtedly , my "Customers" are both consumers and Developers. And I focus on making developers successful by promising a great user experience to my consumers. While making the developers successful, I need to also ensure that I'm building a culture of meritocracy with no bias for or against any developer. Essentially managing the App Economy. Talking about user experience, brings me to another important aspect of the job I.e. Ensuring that the channels or shelves, that we promote our products on, are built the right way. That they are based upon the user journey. The user should easily be able to find the section of interest and quickly identify the product (mobile app or other content) that they would be interested in. At the same time, we need to be able to develop the Want in the user for a particular product. We should be able to automate the selection of products as much as possible based upon our understanding of the user. This was talking about Product Development and Product Management.
I'm sure I had the perfect definition at hand now. That is, merchandising is Marketing, Sales, business intelligence, Finance, account management, culture building, managing App Economy and product management (it was already looking too complicated).
This definition seems like a complicated jumble of words. There was a disconnect. Something was missing that would connect all this together. I knew that if I wasn't doing "it", then I would not have been successful in my job. But I couldn't pin-point "it". What was it?
The next day, I met with an old friend who is an HR. We caught up on old times and had lengthy discussions on several topics. I thought he has seen tons of resumes so may be he can help me complete this job profile. I asked him "how can one successfully handle Marketing, Sales, business intelligence, Finance, account management, culture building, managing App Economy and product management?" Pat came his reply " with a good strategy". Absolutely!!! The days I spend at the start of every financial year is only to strategize and set targets. We continuously monitor our performance against our targets.
Now I could answer the question:
"what is mobile app merchandising?" in somewhat simpler terms. Mobile App merchandising is Strategizing to manage the app economy with the help of available information and by building new tools.
I'm sure, there's still room for improvement.
Inviting your inputs...
