Insights from Cox Media, Turner Sports & POSSIBLE Mobile: A Recap of our Atlanta Mobile Growth Workshop

Future Proofing Your App

“To future proof your app, two things are critical for you and your team: a clear understanding of your app’s business goals, and a roadmap. Taking the roadmap and dividing it into what your release schedule is going to be is another fantastic step towards future proofing. Knowing what your schedule is going to be means you can make plans further out in advance — and be able to more easily adapt as things change.” – Bradford Dillon, Senior Technical Architect, POSSIBLE Mobile

“Before we finalize our roadmap, we wait to see what Apple and Google are doing to announce. At least some of the time, it affects what we deliver.” – Patrick Evans, Senior Product Manager, NCAAA Digital for Turner Sports

“I’m always looking at what other companies are doing in terms of different features and customer experience. Like hey, that was a really great login experience, or that was great video programming or personalization effort. It’s looking outside of the median lines of my business to see what else is happening. Where are those cool innovators that are doing amazing things, and what can we learn?” – Leslie Wilkinson, Senior Product Manager, Cox Media Group

Leveraging Video & Live Streaming

“We have ten TV markets around the country, so when it comes to what stakeholders want, it can be a bit mixed. Video is a common denominator because users watching more newscasts and playing more videos drives the revenue. Live stream is also a big business. It's expensive, but in those moments when news happens, users expect you to be there with a live stream. Making sure people have a positive video experience on any device — and finding ways to make it easy for users to watch video content when, how and where they want it — is mission critical for us.” – Leslie Wilkinson, Senior Product Manager, Cox Media Group

Using Location Services

“We’ve done a lot of work with location — nearly every one of our projects has some form of location services in it. One of the keys to creating a great experience for users with location is getting the opt-in; that can be a big challenge. With location opt-in, it can be better to wait until they try to use the feature that requires location to ask. At that point, they obviously have showed that they’re interested in whatever the feature is.” – Bradford Dillon, Senior Technical Architect, POSSIBLE Mobile

“Location is definitely something our users want. For example, our users want to know the weather in their part of town. So we’re going to continually customize what the forecast looks like. Users also want to know about what’s happening in their particular part of town. We know that when users set up those preferences, they’re going to have more affinity to our brand and our app, and they’ll be more likely to use it regularly.” – Leslie Wilkinson, Senior Product Manager, Cox Media Group

Engaging & Re-Engaging Users

“Brands often do onboarding for the initial app open, but you want to make sure when you’re updating the app and introducing new features that you also share what’s new. You might have the best app, but if you don’t point out features that might catch someone’s eye, you tend to lose those folks that might become a power user or a champion. Maybe someone hasn’t been in your app in the last 30 days. Target them via segmented messaging and show them what they’re missing.” – Andy Pikul, Technical Account Manager, Urban Airship

“There’s nothing quite like a traffic disaster or major hurricanes or tornado. During these moments, people are going to show up and tune in. They’re going to consume everything we can give them. Once we have those users, we know they’re going to keep coming back and that they’re more likely to consume content in the future.” – Leslie Wilkinson, Senior Product Manager, Cox Media Group

Personalization & the Roles of Data, Preferences & Channels

“When users tell you they want to see things like weather alerts or sports scores, they want to see that information as soon as it’s available. Being able to take that data in and handle it quickly and get it to the user as fast as possible — based on their preferences, and including video in the push notification or links to video content — is really important.” – Bradford Dillon, Senior Technical Architect, POSSIBLE Mobile

“In terms of content, you can start from the baseline of giving everyone the same thing. But then there are not only personalizations for user preferences, but also what your content should look like in each individual channel — phone, tablet, watch, etc. The space keeps expanding, and the number of additional things you have to keep an eye on keeps growing. It doesn't seem to be slowing down, either. We want to make sure we’re putting the right experiences in the right environments — and that will look slightly different on each channel.” – Leslie Wilkinson, Senior Product Manager, Cox Media Group

“The folks that I see really doing well are the ones who collect good data — not necessarily more data. You don’t want a lot of white noise that obscures the information you really need. And what you need is to understand — down to a personal level — what your users want, so you can experiment and iterate to deliver it. For example, with push notifications, as you gather more analytics and have more user information about how receptive they may be in terms of content types and frequency, you can experiment and see what users respond to. That gives you valuable intel for your next experiments.” – Andy Pikul, Technical Account Manager, Urban Airship

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