We're a mobile app that helps restaurants advertise through word of mouth. Users share their dining experience with their friends for rewards from our restaurants.
We have a landing page up for email signups. How should we approach people for email signups and then get them to beta test with us?
Once we have beta testers how do we keep them engaged to actively give us feedback?
Thank you!
For a Closed Beta, consider these tips:
give special invite to specific (limited number of) early-adopter/clients
the user base is selected by requiring them to write a proposal in how they expect to use the app. Part of this candidate application technique is to get their upfront commitmet to give you feedback. To compensate them for their time, give them a discount or XX number of months free of the GA released version.
you release a highly anticipated app to 50-100 users with no extra invites for the first month
those users use the program on a regular basis and pick through most of the really common bugs that slipped through the pre-beta release QC.
those users feel privileged to use the app so they brag to everybody about how much they love it (tons of free PR) and are less inclined to trash it because it's still a 'closed beta for a reason'
most of the commonly occurring bugs are identified in the first month and a limited number of invites are given to the first set of beta testers to progress into step 2 of beta
or, there are still a nightmarish number of bugs in the app and further invites are postponed for review until the next release cycle.
One of the biggest benefits of a 'closed beta' is, you have the ability to control your work load based on how many users you allow and what types of users you allow.
You should try to engage people using social networks, it is easier to spread than email. The conversion rate on emails are low but is still a valid tool for that. Send and email with a simple and objective message that will make people want to try.
The best way to have feedback from users is to watch them use the app. You should put them on the hands of everybody that you can and without any instrucions and just watch, don´t even say that the app is yours. Try to do it a lot.
If you want feedback from others, you can include the feedback form inside the app and suggest users to answer occasionally.
I would also strongly recommend to use a tool as Flurry Analytics. Is the best way to get data from how is the use of the application.
Pay attention to those data and be open to change your app a lot, you may need more features or cut some off to make it easier to use.
If you need more help please contact me.
You need early adopters of your app - your friends or followers via social media. Otherwise I'd try to contact some testing company to provide some beta testing.
You're going about this wrong and a lot of the advice here is also wrong, by worrying about the consumer experience first. Stop what you're doing and get out and talk to restaurants.
Make sure that restaurants are willing to offer rewards, and get signed commitments from at least 10 restaurants that they will do so, based on the metrics that they define matters.
Next, use the restaurants' existing social media outlets to get their own fans signed-up into private beta as an "exclusive privilege" to their fans.
If you can't get restaurants to do those two things at this point, you have a high likelihood of failure should you pursue development of an app without this important piece of customer development complete.
Happy to talk to you in a quick call to provide more details about what I'm describing above.
When the waiter asks if they want dessert, he should also drop a card with URL/qr code to the app.
Depending on your flow, it will point to your landing page or directly to testflight (where they register to download the beta, you get their email also from here).
They key is to have real early adopters.
With this system, you:
- make it easy to discover the app
- give them a chatting/funny topic (will remember experience)
- have "true" adopters since they are at that restaurant
...might also suggest to snap a picture with a restaurant mascot for the picture they share related to their dining experience.
Signup 5-10 restaurants as your test group, give them freebies to come on board. Thereafter end users. Period!
