Launching new mobile apps from conception to award-winning success in a matter of months and growing a highly engaged audience of app users who each spend more than 30 minutes per day.
Martin returned to Metro newspaper for a board-level role to launch and deliver a new digital strategy based on mobile apps.
During his tenure, the flagship Metro digital edition app was completely reimagined and relaunched to be a multi-device proposition which increased efficiency and made the advertising process much simpler and more effective.
The main objective of the app strategy was to grow and retain genuinely engaged users who would interact with the app on a habitual basis. More on the thinking behind this can be read about in this interview with Martin.
As part of this app-centric approach, two vertical-specific apps were conceived and launched – with a similar emphasis on habit-forming and engagement. The first was a football app named 11versus11 which was for football fans and the second, Guilty Pleasures, was for lovers of celebrity news.
Both apps brought together personalisation and aggregration to create a sticky destination app, with a sophisticated push notification strategy to cement that. 11versus11 went on to win Best Sport App at the European Digital Media Awards, as well as picking up three other nominations or commendations.