Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, you know how important accurate data is for prospecting effectively. When it comes to expanding coverage for your mobile SDK, the right targeting can make or break your outreach campaigns.
A standard approach to SDK-based lead generation would begin with filtering by performance metrics such as average star ratings, rating counts, and download estimates. From there you could narrow down the search based on what SDKs are currently installed - either competitive or complementary - and that's a great start.
However, with a few extra clicks you can level-up your targeting, keep your pulse on the market, track competitor movements, and streamline your lead-gen tasks into an efficient, low-touch process.
In this guide, we'll use Explorer to go beyond the basics and show you how you to leverage data and insights to refine your workflows and turn more leads into customers.
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." - Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Setting appropriate targets is not an easy task. Without a comprehensive, real-time read on the market, or a way to gauge your own market share, setting any type of strategic goal becomes nearly impossible. Without realistic targets it’s hard to measure performance and in the long run, this can really hurt team morale.
A market intelligence platform like Explorer provides you with the data to accurately size up your addressable market, as well as its sub-segments. Giving your team access to deeper insights into your markets and potential partners (e.g., performance metrics, technologies, company size, etc.) helps them better understand the market’s needs. It also allows you to set realistic quarterly goals which will keep your team better motivated.
The more you know about your potential customers, the more opportunities you have to detect nuances and adjust accordingly. For example, in performing cohort analysis on prospects as they enter your pipeline, you might discover that apps with certain growth trends or publishers from a specific country convert better, so you can concentrate your resources there as you expand. If the data is available and you're not using it to its fullest potential, a competitor may have just found their edge!
Relevant Explorer Filters: Installed SDK, Estimated downloads, Average rating, Audience demographics, Revenue channels, Ad spend score, Publisher location
Improved visibility into the market is great. Now what? After determining the size of your potential market and market shares of your competitors, you can set up saved searches to track how quickly new qualified entrants are entering your pool of potential partners, as well as how quickly your competition is moving.
Knowing the size of your addressable market, how fast it’s expanding and how fast your competitors are moving, you'll be able to balance this against the size of your team and how aggressively you want to pursue partners. Continuous monitoring of these metrics will ensure that your team is on track to dominate (or remain dominant) in your market.
"Most of the world will make decisions by either guessing or using their gut. They will be either lucky or wrong." - Suhail Doshi, CEO, Mixpanel
When it comes to your pipeline you want two things: 1. more leads, 2. who are better qualified. When flying blind, or worse, when using inaccurate data, the prospecting process can be slow and the leads “just good enough”. With accurate app and SDK intelligence however, you can find more qualified leads faster.
Using an SDK Intelligence tool you can easily find apps that leverage out-of-store monetization strategies such as ads, as well as less traditional methods like sharing usage/location data. Armed with deeper knowledge of their business model, you can identify prospects that are more receptive to exploring new ways to monetize their apps. This saves you the trouble of having to educate on the benefits and gets you one step closer to the prospects who are ready to take action.
Relevant Explorer Filters: Revenue channels, Has Ads, Installed SDKs
Bloated apps are a real thing. This used to be more serious when our data plans were capped at 2 GB. Even now, as devices continue to improve storage capacity, nobody wants 20 similar SDKs weighing them down.
Examining the number of installed SDKs can help you narrow down prospects who are more likely to install another SDK. For example, in evaluating thousands of apps that support ads, we’ve found that relatively few have more than 12 advertising SDKs, with an average of 7, in which case, it's a fair assumption that those with 6 or fewer still have an appetite to test new services.
Relevant Explorer Filters: Installed SDKs
Recent uninstalls and installs of competitor SDKs tend to indicate dissatisfaction with existing technologies and a willingness to explore new options. Define your target customer groups and let Explorer automatically screen leads based on your parameters. Set up automatic alerts for SDK changes and feed qualified leads directly into your CRM.
Relevant Explorer Filters: Uninstalled SDKs, Uninstall date
"The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency." - Bill Gates
After refining and testing your processes, start automating labor intensive portions of the workflow and reinvest your time into solidifying partner relationships. A simple first step to automate the discovery and identification of qualified leads is to build actionable searches, save the searches with clear names, and enable email alerts. As you’re focusing on existing leads, new, qualified prospects will flow into you pipeline.
Taking a couple more steps to connect your tools will automatically push qualified leads directly into your CRM, Google Sheets, Trello, etc. You’re not only going to save hours of work per week, but also provide visibility to the entire team.
Relevant Explorer Features: Alerts, CRM integration, Multi-user support
Apart from drilling in at the market level, business development and growth teams rely on Explorer as a reference tool to qualify new leads, prepare for meetings, and for on-the-go company information lookups during customer calls. Having accurate data at your fingertips means less time wasted guessing and results in meaningful conversations that lead to wins.
Relevant Explorer filters: Download estimates, Revenue estimates, SDK intelligence, Advertising intelligence, App performance
Explorer’s built-in profiles give you a complete overview of an app publisher - with downloads and revenue estimates, the tech they use, and how they monetize, to whether they spend on ads and where.
Relevant Explorer Features: App profiles, Publisher profiles
Lastly, contacting. You know the drill — check out a leads website, then LinkedIn, then try to figure out their email. Explorer does all of that completely automatically saving you a ton of time. We collect employee lists for a wide range of app publishers, and for each employee give you their name and title as well as a verified email address.
Relevant Explorer Insights: Publisher employee lists, Direct email lookup
Take you sales prospecting to the next level with Explorer’s accurate data and smart features today. Request a demo →
Ariel answers questions from the live audience about App Store Optimization and app marketing.
Learn the basics of App Store Optimization - how a few simple changes to your app's name can increase your visibility and gain more downloads.