# Increasing Monetization with Targeted Upsells - Sub Club Podcast by Revenue Cat

Channel: Sub Club by RevenueCat
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaA-7OQz07c
Duration: 16 min
Language: English
Words: 3285
Transcript page: https://viewrankai.com/tools/youtube-transcript/kaA-7OQz07c

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[0:00] hello I'm your host David Bernard today's conversation is shorter than usual and will be featured in Revenue cat state of subscription apps report each episode in this series will explore one crucial metric and share actionable insights from Top subscription app operators with me today Brandon gdor product lead for growth at onx maps on the podcast I talk with Brandon about why product is the key to monetization the psychology of value perception and the often overlooked impact of Simply reminding users that they're on the free plan hey Brandon thanks for joining me on the podcast today awesome thanks Dave for having me so I'm really looking forward to chatting with you I think a

[0:44] lot of folks in the subscription app industry don't know about Onyx it's kind of this uh Sleeping Giant you know not as many folks in Silicon Valley or just in Tech Broadley are into hunting and fishing and outdoor hobbies and so they just don't realize what a great business on X is 400 employees millions of users it's a pretty amazing app and the thing I wanted to focus on today was increasing monetization through a combination of targeted upsells of Premium features and then I do want to dig into also subscription tiers let's get that first one out of the way like how do you think about targeting users

[1:23] with that right upsell with the right feature to improve conversion the most important thing and this is like true for any product is like the product really has to be solved in a problem first and so you can't like bring monetization in if there isn't like value that the user is finding that they're willing to pay for so I think like before you can even start to think about monetization and those elements like the product Market fit and is this solving a problem that users you know deeply care about that they're willing to pay for is the most important thing I think it's just important to start there

[1:53] when you're thinking about monetization is like the product Market fit and is this product really solving a problem and for folks who are struggling with monetization that really is genuinely like the first troubleshooting step is like understand with users is this a product solving a problem or at least something people are willing to pay for so if you build a gimmick like yeah maybe you're going to monetize a little bit but there's a lot of product problems that are Upstream of monetization problems so I think it's a fantastic place to start like the next layer to that is really thinking about like well what is the monetization

[2:26] strategy and having kind of a clear line of sight of that and so you know is it a trial type app where you're really trying to drive users into trials to experience the value of a product or is it more of a premium approach where you're just trying to gobble up a bunch of free users and then convert them over time and I think like having a a clear strategy there really informs a lot of kind of like the following motions and the metrics you start to optimize and so those two elements are like what I would you know make sure that are solid first before then you start diving into some

[2:55] of the monetization pieces on Premium versus free trials I know within Onyx Maps which is actually kind of unique in the industry youall have three or four different products and some of those products have different strategies around whether you are just gobbling up users with a premium strategy or doing the free trial strategy and so you're kind of in a unique position working at a business that itself operates in multiple models so I'd love your insights on why freemium or why Onyx chose it for the different products what's really unique about our growth team at Onyx is that we're a horizontal team and so we actually work across all

[3:34] these apps that are at different stages of their life and so the hunt app is the most mature it's been around the longest and then the backcountry app is actually the newer of the apps that we have and then even within that so you have this maturity stage of the business and like the brand awareness and so that definitely plays a factor into it but then you also have like well what is the competitive landscape in these different areas and in the Hunts space the competition is rad different than in the backcountry space where you have a much more you know I'd say a lot more premium

[4:05] type products you have more kind of casual use as far as if you think about all Trails or or straw for instance where there's more repeat usage over time where like hunting is very seasonal there's specific Seasons when you can go out and get out in the woods and so that really plays into the strategy around how we think about what we're optimizing for when it comes to monetization so then where does the rubber meet the road on converting those users and how do you think about about that next piece of monetization first and foremost you be educating users that what is part of the paid tier like you know a big I think

[4:37] learning that we've had is that users didn't even realize that they were in the free experience and so sometimes you just need to be make it like really obvious that like hey you're part of a free product here and here's kind of the value that you're missing behind the pay wall and so I think education is is a really it's like the first motion I'd say and that's education around the paid tiers but then even around the features themselves and so some you know a thing we've been experimenting a lot with is just like education within the features trying to communicate the value to the user what are the outcomes that we can

[5:08] drive for you as the user by you know upgrading into one of our paid tiers that's a a great place to start and so how are you playing with what features that users have access to over time and really trying to understand what is the particular feature or the user outcome that is most going to drive users to want to pull out their wallet and upgrade into one of the paid tiers and really experience the value of the product and so playing with the access that users have to some of these features and be willing to experiment with that cuz I think you can have an

[5:37] idea or a strategy up front around this is the basket of things in our pay tier but I think you'll probably learn a ton if you start experimenting with that getting that freemium mix right is what can really drive a product forward so I think it's a kind of an undere experimented with aspect of Premium subscription apps is actually moving features in and out of that premium experience to figure out what's retaining people and what's actually driving monetization so fantastic tip the previous podcast of yours that I love is the headspace podcast and they talk about their Journey down this path and I reference that podcast all the

[6:13] time because I think it's a really fascinating case study of how they played with access over time around their free user base then when it comes to monetization like I think the the third area I'd consider is you know you have these upsells you're trying to drive traffic to a particular pay wall now you're at pay wall you know optimization I think that's another really critical area for teams to think about as far as like the traffic that you're driving I know in your podcast you often talk a lot about the pay wall AB rate and really increasing that and that's like one of those levers to

[6:42] really think about is like take premium for instance like how often are your free users actually seeing the pay wall and what are the Motions you can do to increase the pay wall view rate as well as then like setting up capability so that you can run a lot of experiments you know pending volume but like run a lot of experiments on that actual pay wall and really you know optimizing that if you think about the things that we've been talking about like education feature access into the payall and like what is that end end Journey for the user and how are you connecting all those things there's some really

[7:12] interesting things to experiment and explore in those themes I actually read recently that dual linga is getting some backlash from free users because they are getting more and more aggressive about pushing people to the subscription so how do you think about balancing the tradeoff of like annoying free users and potentially causing churn but then hey it's a business and we do need to monetize it goes back to the monetization strategy and I think like if you are let's say you're you're pling a freemium strategy and you want to have this large pool of free users over time well you're going to think about different things if it's like really a

[7:48] trial-based product and we we just want people to take the trial another thing that kind of helps distinguish on that strategy is like the Tam like the overall opportunity if there's a really large Tam like you mentioned like dual lingo you can afford to probably have you know millions and millions of free users whereas for some of our products it's more Niche and so like you know specifically like in Hunt it's much more of a trial strategy because that t isn't like you know everyone out trying to learn a new language another thing that's helpful to get aligned as a team when you're working in this area is like

[8:19] what are the metrics that we're optimizing for and then how do we think about the guard rail metrics of if you want to be mindful of not pushing people away how are you thinking about repeat usage how are you thinking about uninstalls are you monitoring tickets into your your customer support team App Store reviews how do you get that holistic view of the user experience so that you are because at the end of day like I mentioned earlier we had to communicate a lot to our users that you actually were in a free product and sometimes like you have to get in front of them and it is going to be disrupting

[8:49] but I think in that case like it was important to educate our users that you're actually missing out on all his value one of the things that I think onx does really well is that you are are monetizing those free users well and then as a more mature product you do now have multiple tiers how do you effectively use that to kind of Target the less expensive tier in certain cases where maybe you know they're not going to get the full value but then those like super die hards you want to make sure that they can pay you as much as they're willing to pay my advice you

[9:21] know for the app Builders out there is like until you really have a clear user need around an additional tier when is the opportunity to bring it then because I think like by introducing it too early it introduces all sorts of complexity into the business and it ends up being I think more work than it's actually worth when you have a really clear hey this is our paid tier you have different durations of it and that becomes a really easy choice for the user to understand around like what are they paying for and so what really works well with the hunt tiering package is that like it's baked in a a user problem

[9:55] around the access that you get across the country so we have a premium product which is one state we also have a premium two-state package and then we have our our top tier which is Elite which is access to all 50 states plus Canada and Mexico I think from the users perspective it's really easy for them you know coming in onboarding seeing the pay wall they can grock like okay I I can understand the value or the difference between these different tiers whereas if it's just kind of a basket of features in the different tiers and you've kind of sliced them dice it by like an idea that you had I think it's

[10:26] really tough for the user to understand what's the difference between these two in the value within them in that Elite tier I know y'all have created some Partnerships and added a lot of value like discounts to other brands and and things like that that are actually really attractive and again something that onx can do as a much more mature product as a bigger company but this the kind of thing I think a lot of people can be thinking about when you think about how do we add value well adding value isn't just that next feature you build you can add value through Partnerships and through so many other

[10:58] ways so tell me how on does that this is a great Point around how we think about like the elite tier and there's like there's been a constant effort around how do we round out the feature set and the value that we could provide our users within our highest paying tier and so you know our Elite price is $100 which is a lot to ask for in in the app store which is funny because I kind of don't think it is in a way because I think you'll still have a ton of room to grow monetization because I know a lot of hunters here in the Texas area and I

[11:28] mean you'll spend thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars a year on this hobby so yes if for an app it's expensive broadly probably not exactly and I think it's in the context of the user and like what they're spending for their hobby so you're totally right but I think in the mindset of like paying you're in the App Store and you're paying like $100 is a lot at the time and so a part of that strategy is been like how do we broaden the feature set capabilities in our Elite package and one component of that is the Partnerships with Brands and so as an

[11:58] Elite member you get a a discount or some sort of like extra value with these partners that we have and to your point these hobbies are really expensive and sometimes the deals that you can get on these Partners can make up the value of the app in a single purchase so you're exactly right do those Partnerships also plan to growth at all like when you partner with an outdoor clothing line like camo and all that kind of stuff um do they help promote the app yeah exactly to give you like an example um in the hunt product we we partner with first light and so first light is an

[12:28] outdoor or apparel company and so there's a lot of kind of cross promotion that happens between those two brands that um you know first like being a Premiere outdoor apparel company when people see Onyx next to that um that Association happens there and so we do a lot of kind of cross collaboration with these Brands to help Drive growth what a great win-win where you're able to deliver value to your users and and create those extra incentives for the premium tier but then you're also driving some extra growth and brand awareness through these Partnerships any other specific examples around targeted upsells that you think the audience

[13:04] would be interested in one of the areas where we probably learned the most around these Target upsells and kind of to your previous question around like how do we find that balance of not being intrusive in the experiences well one is like how do you bake it natively into the experience and like anytime you can naturely have that upgrade flow or that CTA is part of like the natural user experience like that's where we've seen success and as far as the user experience because you're not it's not like a jarring Interruption but I'd say another like really critical part of this is like the strategy is like the

[13:36] who and when and so who are the cohorts that you're targeting and being really thoughtful around the specific cohorts and being able to Target on kind of different vectors but then the when and the context and like how you think about the context of the user did they recently interact with a particular feature how long have they've been with the product and I'd say it takes both of those you need The Who and and the context to really be working together to be most impactful here I think the last part of that is kind of how do you carry that through into the experience of the

[14:05] upgrade and the context of the value that you're communicating to the user when you've gotten them to kind of start that journey of the upgrade path and I think all Trails does a really nice job with this with some of their upsells where for instance like if you're a free user and you interact with the 3D part of their map now the pay wall actually has this great highlight video of 3D and it kind of it's giving you the value prop of 3D and so it kind of goes back to that end then user experience I was referencing earlier is like how are you having that continuity through the

[14:31] entire upgrade is where you'll see the most impact this has been so much fun Brandon I think there's so many tips folks can take away anything you wanted to share as we're wrapping up is the team hiring or anything else you wanted to share uh no I mean first off thank you David so much for having me on the podcast like I'm a huge fan of the work that you all are doing and I've learned a ton from the different guests that you've had so I really appreciate everything you do there I mean last thing I'd say is like you know onx these are purpose built products for folks

[14:58] that are trying to get out in the outdoors and so whether you're a Backcountry skier a hiker an off-roader or you're curious about hunting you know check out some of our apps they're pretty amazing products and and yeah awesome thanks so much for joining me today this is so much fun thanks Dam thanks so much for listening if you have a minute please leave a review in your favorite podcast player you can also stop by chat. sub club.com to join our private community

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