The power of a word. How a simple explanation saved user relationships.
Media content pays off in two models - direct payment for it by users and advertising. Users, of course, do not feel any particular love. It is not by chance that the picture with reviews of Russian users of Google Play on the Google music application has become a meme:
Something similar experienced and we are on Sports.ru. At first, our applications existed without advertising (as was the site at the very beginning of its existence, while the audience was too small). But today, more than a third of all site content viewing is done using our main or thematic applications ( here are all apps for iOS , here are all apps for Android , here is the only one for WP8 ), and this share is growing every month. Further development of the mobile direction (we only updated the main applications this year 14 times) and the site as a whole without advertising at some point became not particularly possible.
')
The appearance of advertising in applications that have always been “excellent students” in both sides has become a disaster for their ratings (despite the possibility of disabling this advertisement for a “subscription fee” of 33 rubles - and, perhaps, this option even became an additional annoying factor). Our rating was destroyed in the very first days by hundreds of "units", and the developers could not look at the abuse in the stores without spiritual trepidation. A few quotes:
“Dogs are developed. Why spoil the great application of poor advertising ??? "
“Goats! Spoiled the program with advertising! Well, why is she here? Delete
“Ugh! Fraer's greed was killed. Receive in return a deserved stake. ”
“It was a great app. Read non-stop. And now intolerable advertising. The application has become crap, and now I consider developers backward. Well this should be so fucked up! Ugh! A shame!"
If you can still have some kind of conversation with users on Google Play, responding to complaints and questions, explaining “why is there advertising ???”, then the AppStore does not provide such an opportunity. But the solution was found - we turned to the users with a message in the application itself with simple text inside:
Why is the development and support of independent sports media impossible without ads or subscriptions?
Friends! For many years Sports.ru has been trying to please you with the most comprehensive information about sports, materials from the best journalists and photographers, the best opportunities for communication, as well as the most convenient website and a wide range of constantly improved applications. Due to this, our site and applications have become the most popular in the Russian-language Internet and are used by more than 7 million people - more than the Italian La Gazzetta dello Sport, the French L'Equipe and other leading European sports publications.
Support, content and further development of the site and applications requires huge resources, and the same L'Equipe or La Gazzetta dello Sport fill them in many ways with readers, giving full access to their content at a price of 19.99 euros per month (free of charge there only part of publications is available). Sports.ru provides you with all its content for free, trying to make up for expenses through advertising - including in applications. At the same time, for those who would like to turn off the advertising banner, this application is designed to turn it off for less than 1 euro per month. You can select this option in the settings - see “Advertising display”.
The solution was too seemingly too simple to give any result - however it did. Understanding with users failed to recover. Estimates returned to their previous high level (almost all that are not “five”, however, are still justified by advertising - but “units” again became a rarity), and most importantly - the tone of reviews changed dramatically. “Developed” no longer feel like “dogs” and monthly add new missing functions to the best sports applications in Russian, and companies have something to pay both for them and for editing content. Soon, by the way, another great update.
Something similar experienced and we are on Sports.ru. At first, our applications existed without advertising (as was the site at the very beginning of its existence, while the audience was too small). But today, more than a third of all site content viewing is done using our main or thematic applications ( here are all apps for iOS , here are all apps for Android , here is the only one for WP8 ), and this share is growing every month. Further development of the mobile direction (we only updated the main applications this year 14 times) and the site as a whole without advertising at some point became not particularly possible.
')
The appearance of advertising in applications that have always been “excellent students” in both sides has become a disaster for their ratings (despite the possibility of disabling this advertisement for a “subscription fee” of 33 rubles - and, perhaps, this option even became an additional annoying factor). Our rating was destroyed in the very first days by hundreds of "units", and the developers could not look at the abuse in the stores without spiritual trepidation. A few quotes:
“Dogs are developed. Why spoil the great application of poor advertising ??? "
“Goats! Spoiled the program with advertising! Well, why is she here? Delete
“Ugh! Fraer's greed was killed. Receive in return a deserved stake. ”
“It was a great app. Read non-stop. And now intolerable advertising. The application has become crap, and now I consider developers backward. Well this should be so fucked up! Ugh! A shame!"
If you can still have some kind of conversation with users on Google Play, responding to complaints and questions, explaining “why is there advertising ???”, then the AppStore does not provide such an opportunity. But the solution was found - we turned to the users with a message in the application itself with simple text inside:
Why is the development and support of independent sports media impossible without ads or subscriptions?
Friends! For many years Sports.ru has been trying to please you with the most comprehensive information about sports, materials from the best journalists and photographers, the best opportunities for communication, as well as the most convenient website and a wide range of constantly improved applications. Due to this, our site and applications have become the most popular in the Russian-language Internet and are used by more than 7 million people - more than the Italian La Gazzetta dello Sport, the French L'Equipe and other leading European sports publications.
Support, content and further development of the site and applications requires huge resources, and the same L'Equipe or La Gazzetta dello Sport fill them in many ways with readers, giving full access to their content at a price of 19.99 euros per month (free of charge there only part of publications is available). Sports.ru provides you with all its content for free, trying to make up for expenses through advertising - including in applications. At the same time, for those who would like to turn off the advertising banner, this application is designed to turn it off for less than 1 euro per month. You can select this option in the settings - see “Advertising display”.
The solution was too seemingly too simple to give any result - however it did. Understanding with users failed to recover. Estimates returned to their previous high level (almost all that are not “five”, however, are still justified by advertising - but “units” again became a rarity), and most importantly - the tone of reviews changed dramatically. “Developed” no longer feel like “dogs” and monthly add new missing functions to the best sports applications in Russian, and companies have something to pay both for them and for editing content. Soon, by the way, another great update.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/206144/
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