Practitioner pattern · Matthew Panzarino (TechCrunch)
Use tech press to reach early adopters and paid ads to reach everyone else
A TechCrunch post often brings thousands of users, rarely hundreds of thousands
Workedpr-launchpaid-social
What they did
Treat press as pinpoint acquisition: a TechCrunch story brings a few thousand users of a specific type (early adopters, power users, builders, engineers, investors, people who send feedback and bug reports) over the several weeks it circulates. For broad, long-term user acquisition use TikTok and Facebook install ads or Google. Evergreen articles can keep sending signups.
What happened
Articles often bring thousands of new users, sometimes tens of thousands, rarely hundreds of thousands, over several weeks.
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · How to Pitch Your App to the Press – Matthew Panzarino, Formerly TechCrunch“you may get a few thousand users of a very specific type, like early adopters, power users, people that are very likely to give you feedback”
“I really think that user acquisition, that target for that is much better suited to things like TikTok install ads, or Facebook install ads, or attribution on Google, or whatever the case may be.”
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