3 ways to create a viral loop within your mobile game

3 Ways To Create A Viral Loop Within Your Mobile Game

August 2014

A viral loop is where the consumers of a

product become the primary marketers.

Growth is fast, cheap, and self sustainable as

users are driven to generate more users.

Not Viral…

This is the best app at doing ‘X’. I’m going to invite my friends to this app.

Viral, but not yet a loop…

This is the best app at doing ‘X’. I’m going to invite my friends to this app.

A viral loop has formed.

Image Credit: Josh Jeffryes

If you were to visualise a viral loop…

Why are viral loops so important for indie developers?

A: Because indie developers can’t afford to pay $2.27 per install.

How does a viral loop work?

1 user -> invite 1 new user = 2 users 2 users -> invite 2 new users = 4 users 4 users -> invite 4 new users = 8 users

8 users -> invite 8 new users = 16 users 16 users -> invite 16 new users = 32 users 32 users -> invite 32 new users = 64 users

64 users -> invite 64 new users = 128 users 128 users -> invite 128 new users = 256 users

How does a viral loop work?

VC = N x P1 x P2

This stands for “Viral Coefficient” !The average number of customers who are invited by each active user who invites people. !The proportion of invited users who tend to actually sign up and become active users. !The proportion of active users who tend to invite other people.

VC !N !!P1 !!P2

!• If VC is greater than 1, you can expect to see the growth

of your viral loop increase exponentially into every area possible.

!• If VC is less than 1, you’ll need to constantly monitor

and remarket your content to keep it going. !

• If VC is 0, you will see no growth whatsoever.

Thanks to our friends at GrowthDevil.com data on previous 2 slides.

Are you growing?

Effects of viral loops on chart position…

Implementing a viral loop on iOS

• Plan viral loops early on in your product’s development. Social integration is essential. !

• Viral loops are an iterative process. !

• Limited to App Store policy. Can’t setup incentivised referral loop like Dropbox.

Here are 3 examples of viral loops with mobile apps

1. Social Competition

• User downloads a game. !• User sets a score and sends it to a friend as a challenge. !• The user’s friend receives a push notification, prompting

them to download the app and beat their peer.

An example…

2. Request Help From Your Friends

• User is stuck on an action with an app/game. !• User requests help from friends in order to progress

through the app. !• Initial user receives help from a friend, then progresses.

Other user joins the app as a referral.

An example…

3. The Queue Jumper

• Create a queue at a point within an app (on sign up or before reaching a higher level).

!• Allow users to skip the queue by inviting friends to

the application (Mailbox).

Mailbox used the above strategy to build a waiting list of over 1 million users.

An example…

Viral loops are iterated on…

Image Credit: Intercom

In Summary…

• Developers that execute a viral loop perfectly often have major growth in a short space of time. !

• For every user you acquire, if they feel compelled enough to invite one more friend, from the outset - the need to spend on expensive CPI channels halves. !

• Viral loops are cheap to implement.

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