Dropbox: The "cloud" of viral marketing

Want to share files on your computer with co-workers? or access your files from your office computer outside your office? Do you want to send it to your colleagues via email attachment, or even copy it to a USB drive and carry it with you, or use a network hard disk to store it? Drew Houston, who graduated from MIT, has developed a Dropbox program to address these needs more easily. In 2007, the beta version of the app was online, and its users reached more than 100,000.

Drew HOUSTON14 began programming, proficient in Python, C + +, algorithmic design, in addition to Web site development and design, network security and even graphic design and Photoshop barrier, the creation of Dropbox has established at least two companies, including one also lasted more than 4 years.

With a beautiful life history, Drew Houston's Dropbox initially won a seed fund for Y Combinator and Sequoia Capital ——— 15,000 dollars. In order to better promote dropbox,drew Houston need to be more "smart" way of promotion.

Dropbox founding Team

Data map

Drew Houston found that, like "online storage" (on-line storage) Such keywords prices are very high, and long tail keywords are relatively few; Most crucially, users who visit the site through these keywords may not choose more storage space and more versatile paid services. Therefore, a product price of hundreds of dollars, to allow users to find the product through the search engine and purchase, the process cost of the promotion can reach thousands of U.S. dollars.

But, "If you use the free value-added business model, your marketing costs are free users." "Drew Houston that they didn't know they needed the service until the user had not used the Dropbox." He realizes that user referrals are the biggest source of growth.

So, to get Dropbox's 20G of free storage, you need to have a wide range of friends to use, you can get a maximum of 8G; If you tell Dropbox that you are a student (by validating an Edu mailbox), you can get an extra 500MB space for each person you invite, Then you can get up to 16G extra space. In addition, in social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, a message explaining why you like Dropbox, you get 128MB of space, up to 768MB, and you get extra 1G space by participating in Dropbox 2011 puzzle activities, If you sign up for someone else's invitation link in the Dropbox, you and he can get extra 250MB space ...

The move, Houston said, has led to a 60% increase in registered users, representing 30% of all registered users who are recommended by others. The company now invests 30% of its engineering resources to attract active users. Today, the number of Dropbox users has exceeded 4 million. In the future, if the space is not enough, then the user will pay to buy space, 50G space 99 dollars a year, 100G Space 199 dollars a year.

"You're like a mosquito, just keep moving, don't look back." If it is destroyed, start from scratch. "Graham is not at all worried about the competition that is coming from a host of competing peers, even Apple's aggressive icloud," he said. "Your product doesn't satisfy the user, it will really bring you down, not because of the competition from Apple or Google." ”

Graham later publicly stated that it was a more valuable project than Airbnb and that the team was not bad. Drew Houston is a CEO who likes to solve problems and design products that people like to use. "We keep a simple, small, cohesive team, keep a close eye on our users, focus on things we do well rather than chasing every opportunity or adding every feature."

Open the shop to Facebook

Beetailer, an application software launched by Y-combinator's Beetailer company, has helped 900 online retailers display 434,000 of items on Facebook.

Beetailer's software connects existing E-commerce platforms (such as Magento and Shopify) to import and synchronize online catalogs (including prices, pictures, sizes, colors, and products or even goods). On the retailer's Facebook store, users can browse the product and add the product to the Facebook cart. When the user clicks on the checkout button to actually buy the product, Beetailer directs the user to the retailer's website so that the shopper can checkout the retailer's preferred payment process.

In addition to being able to target Facebook's vast user base, retailers can use Facebook's "Social Atlas" to lure consumers. Beetailer can help retailers launch limited Facebook promotions, such as giving rewards to fans who have praised or commented on products, or fans who bring other friends to the store.

In addition, Beetailer also provides the retailer with an analytical tool to measure the effectiveness of each promotional activity. Beetailer's data include traffic, population classification statistics, the most visited products, the most visited categories, the number of checkout and so on.

Help electric dealers to retain "repeat customers"

For those in the midst of intense competition, it is harder than ever to get new users to find out which users are about to lose and take the right incentives to keep them. Some big electric companies have already started to set up their own data analysis systems, and a large number of small electric dealers have become Custora target users.

Jon Pospischil, co-founder of the 2011 winter Class new Graduate project Custora, and Cory Piersen (Corey Pierson) found that "repeat customers" have a much higher order conversion rate than the first to patronize a new user's website Joen Pospichir , but there are a number of tools in the market that help dealers attract new users, but rarely focus on tools that already have users and prevent them from losing. This led them to decide to set up a software service company, Custora, which is dedicated to helping electrical and application developers find out which users are most valuable and offer the right advice to retain them.

As the company slogan "Google brings you the user, we help you keep him/her", for the user, the software service helps him analyze the order data and find out which users have not patronized the store for a while and is on the verge of losing. At this point, the merchant can send them the EDM through the Custora, encourage them to patronize again. At the same time, for those high value customers who frequently patronize, Custora will also provide merchants with suggestions to push the corresponding EDM.

In addition, other software services companies, such as Salesforce.com, Foodzie, and get satisfaction, are also Custora partners, who obtain user conversion data from Custora and data on the effects of a range of tools used in exchange for They also offer a range of free analytics services to Custora. Currently, the main focus of Custora is to develop more incentive tools to retain users in addition to the EDM push.

(Responsible editor: admin)