how to grow a hiking app.

I spoke to a founder with a hiking app today.

I don’t normally work with pure B2C founders but I just couldn’t help myself with our meet and greet.

“Sounds awesome - do you want some ways to get more users?”

“Well yeah”

The app in all its local glory

Here’s what I told him:

1. Do you know who loves nature walks? Older people with more time on their hands.
2. Nearly every suburban area in Melbourne (the area we’re in) has a community learning centre/neighbourhood learning centre.
3. I would pick one that’s near where you live and approach the general manager/receptionist and say: “I’m local, I’ve built a hiking app that I think your community would like. I’d love to share a bit about my story and how it’s helped - how would I do that?”
4. These centres LOVE local learning opportunities, they’re also full of older people (Semi-retired, retired) who like engaging with hobbies and learning things.
5. You present your story, explain how it helps the older cohort with navigation and changing courses (a key feature of his) and then just ask questions and listen.
6. The cohort will tell you what they like about hiking and apps (if they use them) in their own words.
7. This is important because you want to be using your customer’s words when you market to them (not theirs).
8. Make sure you capture it, and run a few more local workshops if you need to capture more.
9. You’ll get some organic sign-ups from the presentation (but not many).
10. But now you’ve got their language. Print some flyers promoting your local app with the words your talk participants used. Put a QR code on it and point it to a landing page for downloading the app. Distribute the flyer to every community centre in Melbourne.
11. You could measure how many people scan the QR code with a smart link and measure the uptake of downloads.
12. You know have a repeatable blueprint for promoting your app if it works.

The fun thing about how I coach is I’m just teasing out the same stuff but applying it to different sectors, industries, and use cases.

This is the Find, Offer, Notice strategy in action - which I talk about in my free book on marketing.

I’m yet to be stumped on applying this, feel free to reply and I’ll punch one back.

Best reply might be used as an example in a future newsletter though (you’ve been warned 😉 )

Until next time,

-Marshy

p.s. If you don’t want this stuff here’s the big red unsubscribe button (go on PUSH IT) - this used to be an AI newsletter after all

I don’t want this

p.p.s. Did I mention I’m working with founders to do this with a guarantee about finding their next large client? Probably not.

But just in-case you were looking…​​​