Marketing an Award-Winning Language Learning App through Offline Channels — Steven Meyers, Babbel

On the podcast: Implementing effective offline marketing campaigns for acquiring, engaging, and retaining paid subscribers in the app space. 

Key Takeaways:

📢 Look beyond digital channels for app growth. Consider offline advertising channels such as radio, linear TV, and podcasts to reach untapped demographics. These channels can help you target non-digital audiences, particularly older, higher-income users who can be more lucrative for subscription-based apps.

🔄 Use diverse methods to measure offline marketing. Utilize a variety of attribution methods, including how-did-you-hear-about-us surveys, incrementality tests, and media mix modeling (MMM) to assess the effectiveness of offline channels. Accept the inherent ambiguity in measurement and use multiple data points to guide your strategy.

🎯 Embrace customer-centered metrics for better retention. Focus on creating proprietary metrics that align with your users’ goals rather than relying on standard industry metrics like daily active users. Babbel’s "learner success" metric prioritizes user progress and satisfaction, leading to higher retention rates.

🔍 Rethink freemium models to boost engagement and conversions. Freemium isn't always the best choice. Consider a hard paywall to increase user commitment and filter out less-engaged users. It’s about quality over quantity — attracting users who truly value your app.

🌐 Optimize both web and app experiences for user journeys. Users often start on the web before downloading your app. Ensure seamless transitions between platforms to improve user experience and conversion rates. Informative web experiences can ease app adoption.

About Guest

👨‍💻 SVP of Growth at Babbel.

📢 Steven and his team have taken a non-traditional approach to marketing Babbel: leveraging offline advertising channels like radio and TV, measuring the success of marketing efforts through a proprietary model, and tracking metrics like learner success instead of monthly active users.

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Episode Highlights

[0:44] There’s (more than) an app for that: Potential users aren’t just on the app stores, so shouldn’t your marketing campaigns be everywhere too?

[3:54] Radio star: How and why Babbel buys radio spots to advertise their subscription app.

[7:43] Attribution remix: Measuring the success of offline ads can be a challenge and requires a blend of data analysis methods (like user surveys, incrementality tests, and media mix modeling).

[13:57] Freemium isn’t free: Why Babbel rejects the freemium model in favor of a hard paywall.

[18:15] The measure of success: Is Monthly Active Users (MAU) really a good metric to optimize for? (For some mission-driven companies like Babbel, no.)

[18:46] You get what you pay for: Paid subscriptions — especially premium tiers — often see higher levels of user engagement and retention.

[21:43] Web slinger: An optimized web experience can boost app downloads and paid conversions.