1. business and industrial

How A Startup Increased
Its App Submissions By
400% In 4 Months
- A User Success Story
As the new kids on the block in the world of app discovery portals, Nick
Hopper and Chris Baird from Crozdesk faced the unavoidable challenge
of reaching out to different target groups and getting developers to list
apps on their site. Traditional channels proved to be too slow for this
dynamic startup.
They then integrated Crowdfire's growth features into their social media
strategy.
Read on to find out how this not only helped them propel their Twitter
presence to new heights but also generated an exponential rise in app
listings.
Born At LSE
Tired of wasting time scouring the web for the best applications for his
research project on SaaS applications, Nick Hopper, an IT and Innovation
postgrad student at the London School of Economics, founded Crozdesk
with one aim in mind - to give the world an online search and comparison
platform for the best web applications.
The startup, started in June 2014, is designed to make finding web apps
or tools that fit your requirement perfectly, an easy task. Additionally,
Crozdesk helps developers showcase their apps to their target user base.
It is no wonder then that the year old startup has been deemed as the Yelp
of web apps and startup tools.
The Big Social Pain Point
As a web app library, social media was an important aspect of
Crozdesk's outreach strategy. Social media is not just for sharing
content. It is also incredibly powerful for finding and connecting with the
right user base.
This was a fact that Nick, and Chris Baird, the business development incharge at Crozdesk, recognised early on.
“Securing a strong user base is crucial to our ultimate success. We needed to
find a way to find these user groups in an efficient manner possible. Like all
start-ups we were limited by the resources we have.”.
-
Chris Baird, Business Development
However, it wasn't an easy task gaining mileage on Twitter.
How to ensure their Twitter account does not get lost in the chaos?
How to identify potential users out of the millions of Twitter users?
Finally, how to effectively and efficiently reach out to these user
groups who would not only be interested in Crozdesk but would
also engage with their marketplace?
These were the challenges that they faced when they tried to expand
their Twitter presence. Creating a strong user base was essential.
Combined with the fact that, like all start-ups they had limited resources,
this was a social media pain point that the young company struggled
with.
Enter Crowdfire
The Crozdesk team set out to address this pain point by using subreddits and word-of-mouth. However, as useful as these channels
were, they were sluggish and ineffective at reaching out to different
user groups.
As luck would have it, they attended a growth hacking meet-up in
London later in 2014 where an attendee recommended Crowdfire to
them. They wasted no time and began using it right away. At the time
Crozdesk had about 100 followers on Twitter. By the time they left the
meet-up, they had already doubled that number.
Their chief challenge lay in efficiently finding target user groups.
Crowdfire's Copy Followers features proved to be a powerful ally here.
By combining his knowledge of the SaaS marketplace industry with
the targeted power of Copy Followers, Chris found and followed
Twitter users who were following their competitors. Knowing that
these users would be interested in their service, it made sense for him
to subtly make these potential users aware of Crozdesk.
This strategy was powerful, for Copy Followers not only guided Crozdesk to this
treasure trove of potential user groups but also gave it a way to interact with this
massive audience.
To take their user engagement strategy up a notch, Nick and Chris
then employed the Automated Direct Message feature of Crowdfire.
Stacking up Twitter followers is futile if the resource of followers is not
utilised in the right manner.
“Crowdfire’s tools and statistics have been instrumental in connecting
us with new users for our business that we might not otherwise have
found. The feature I love the most is the auto DMs. We use this feature
to directly support and enhance our marketing campaigns - getting
new app listings, promoting a blog post, or just spreading the word
about our platform!”
-
Nick Hopper, Founder
Impact
From 100 followers in January to over 12000 followers in May,
Crozdesk has seen a phenomenal rise in growth.
The powerful combination of their inherent knowledge of the SaaS
marketplace and Crowdfire's tools like Copy Followers and
Automated DM has helped Crozdesk cement its place in the world of
app libraries.
Chris followed a two-pronged approach with Crowdfire. He used the
Crozdesk account to generate more followers and he used Hopper's
account to target relevant users like web designers, web developers,
entrepreneurs and founders.
This approach powered Crozdesk's Twitter presence and they now
generate as many as 400 new, relevant followers every day.
“The goal of using Crozdesk on CrowdFire was to get the number of
web application submissions on our site to 25 per week.And we hit that
target. Everything is now a growth rate of 5 times”
Chris Baird, Business Development
The start-up’s success doesn't stop at that. By capitalizing on the
personalization offered by the Automated Direct Messages and
combining it with other factors, Crozdesk exponentially increased the
number of app submissions they got. From their humble beginnings
of 5 submissions a week to more than 25 to 30 a week in May, the
rising startup saw a whopping 400% increase in app submissions.
The Road Ahead
For a startup that's barely a year old, has a team strength that runs in
single digits and that has not done any major marketing, Crozdesk has
come a long way.
Chris has just begun experimenting with the Keyword Follow feature
of Crowdfire by using keywords such as 'growth hacking'. He'll be
using it to further narrow his search for Crozdesk's target audience.
“The thing is we're really early stage and our competitors have been
around for a while.
We’re trying to achieve scale and we are trying to continue to build the
content on our site so that people can get a great choice of web apps.
CrowdFire has been a major resource in helping us realize that goal of
25 submissions. We'll be deciding what our next goal is and I know that
CrowdFire will definitely feature in our next strategy, whatever it is.”
Contact:
Email:
growth@crowdfireapp.com
Twitter: @crowdfire