BEING A PARTNER TO MARKETING
Company: Fullscreen
Product: SVOD - Web
Project: Chromecast Casting
Ensuring new feature adoption and awareness is often handled by a marketing department where in-app promotion may be overlooked as a viable channel. Product managers can fill this vacuum by going where their users are; taking a place at the marketing table to collaborate with department heads to make sure they are creating a comprehensive campaign that educate their most engaged users. Leveraging these partnership opportunities will drive product success and elevate a PM’s leadership presence.
OPPORTUNITY
Chromecast was a platform where users spent a lot of time watching videos (22% more Minutes Viewed/Unique User and 96% higher Video Completion Rate) compared to the iOS and Android apps. Yet there were very few people using it; a scenario which is reminiscent of the following chart that Intercom created to visualize how to prioritize a roadmap. (Which, I would argue, over-simplifies an otherwise good prioritization approach. In this case, and in most cases, a KPI along the Y-axis is a better measurement than just “frequency.”)
Beyond these promising metrics that are highlighted by the upper-left warning of this graph, we also had an opportunity to partner with Google on a marketing campaign, leveraging their audience.
From Inside Intercom Blog
SOLUTION
I heard of the opportunity and met with the VP of Partnerships and VP of Consumer Marketing to tie in the desktop and mobile web experience with the social and email campaign. A designer and I created a banner highlighting the Chromecast functionality in the video player and in the Chrome browser on desktop and mobile web.
Chromecast banner on web
RESULT
The Fullscreen desktop and mobile web banner produced as many impressions as the posts sent out over Googlecast’s Twitter network (different goals: user acquisition/engagement). Fullscreen’s own social media and email efforts produced negligible impact. In summary, the campaign created:
29% increase in Plays on the Chromecast platform the following week, a 132% higher growth of Plays compared to all platforms.
23% increase in Unique Visitors on the Chromecast platform the following week, a 49% higher growth of Unique Visitors compared to all other platforms.
TAKEAWAYS
Product managers should educate marketing as to the value they can bring to partnership engagement campaigns, and insert themselves when needed
Going where your users are interacting with your product (engaged) will increase adoption more than a branding or awareness campaign, although the two should be married
Product marketing is a great way to move those high performing, yet infrequently used features to improve your KPIs.
