It is worth remembering, now that over-the-top products are ubiquitous and so much a part of our everyday lives, that Facebook was only founded in 2004 and was able to acquire over 1 billion users within just 8 years of its launch. Other companies have also managed to build huge user bases in just a few years, relying only on small teams and on light-weight, scalable cloud-based architecture. These include Airbnb (500K hosts per night), LinkedIn (500 million active users), Netflix (150 million subscribers), and WeChat (1 billion active users).
In this new digital landscape, the challenge for mobile and cable operators lies not in simply building a digital channel in the form of a website or an app, but in creating an experience that efficiently emulates the ones provided by these new Internet players and that can successfully compete for customers’ attention. This is hard to accomplish: studies have shown that only 1% of all mobile apps have over 1 million downloads.
On closer look, it turns out there is an actual ‘science’ behind building websites and apps that people love and keep coming back to. This Growth discipline, pioneered at Facebook, goes much further than traditional marketing focused on awareness and acquisition. It combines product design, Growth campaigns and data science to build products that delight users, keep them engaged and willing to transact on digital channels.
We believe that telecom operators can successfully borrow from this Growth playbook to build digital experiences that command higher loyalty and drive substantially more value. The LotusFlare Growth Platform was designed precisely for this purpose and already supports over 300 million daily transactions for operators worldwide. It includes SDK-enabled Growth products as well as Growth services, built specifically for telecom operators and media companies.
We like to say that Growth starts with the product, or as Mark Zuckerberg once said: “the best levers for growing a product are within the product itself.”
This is why we begin by using data science to map customer journeys and then identify and remove friction points in key moments such as user onboarding or payments. We then provide a channel to keep customers engaged via personalized, context-specific offers to lift engagement and monetization. This Contextual Engagement Platform, within the Growth Platform, lets operators launch new campaigns in minutes in a few clicks. A customer about to run out of data on her subscription will receive an attractive offer to buy a data add-on, whereas someone finishing a free trial period on a streaming app will be targeted with an offer for a paid subscription.
Rewards and referrals are another driver of Growth that OTT companies have successfully leveraged: this feature is also available as a plug-and-play product within our platform. Customers can earn points for referring friends and family, or receive tiered benefits according to their usage.
Recently LotusFlare has helped several operators around the world, and successfully impacted their KPIs. We have increased the number of active users on a partner’s app from 250,000 to 5 million users, improved app store ratings from 2.7 stars to 4.3 stars. We have also helped reduce the number of calls coming into call centers and retail visits for care-related issues by 15%.
Click here to see our Growth Platform in action and to learn more about how LotusFlare can help you drive Growth in customer acquisition, retention, engagement and monetization on your digital channels.
Founded by former executives from Facebook, LotusFlare bridges mobile and cable operators with the Growth mindset and software stack of leading Internet players. Our clients include the world’s greatest brands: Verizon, Ooredoo, LinkedIn, Supercell and others.