How Did They Do It: Crack It Like Trivia Crack

Trivia Crack Rocks… that’s what I gathered from people around.

Nope, I haven’t played this game even once. Woe unto me! I know.

But then, my friends are playing it.  And, for that matter, my friends’ friends are playing it as well.

But then, honestly, it’s not just about me, or my friend or my friends’ friends; for this gaming app, has swept no fewer than 21 nations off its feet (it means the whole of Latin America), in addition to 65 million people in the U.S.

Mind-numbing numbers…no?  

Yes, about 150 million users, across the whole wide world, have succumbed to the charms of this gaming app, which has received considerable leg-up because of its knowledge-enriching content.  

Right Then, Brace Yourself For More     

• Trivia Crack is the most downloaded free app in the history of Apple’s U.S. App Store for 66 consecutive days, way ahead of other most sought-after apps like YouTube,  Snapchat and  Facebook Messenger
• Even the free version of the original Angry Birds never cracked the No.1 spot in the App Stores
• The app has held a top-notch spot in the Google Play and Amazon app stores for months together
• In the U.S., alone more than 65 million people play this colourful app. That comes to 1 out of 5
• The Asian markets like China are next on Trivia Crack’s radar

Not shockingly, the above numbers are a powerful evidence that Trivia Crack, aka ‘Preguntados’ in Spanish, is growing from strength to strength and is, in fact, marching ahead to newer territories with all guns blazing.

A growing fan base, notwithstanding, if you are just like me, as in if you are oblivious to the game plan of this app, here you go.

The gaming fundamentals of Trivia Crack are very similar to old board games. Spin a colorful wheel, and then answer a trivia question related to any one of the six categories: geography, science, history, sports, art and entertainment. However, to win the game, the user has to win a crown in all the six categories before the opponent does, by correctly answering three questions in a row, or landing on the purple crown icon.

The competition the gameplay generates is quite similar to Quiz Up. As in, you can challenge your Facebook friends as well to play with you. But then, what gives it one- upmanship over Quiz Up is its addictive content and social interactivity. Users can challenge friends across the globe to determine who’s the most well-read person amongst  them all.

Wish to be in the shoes of Trivia Crack’s some day?  But it’s a long road, I tell you. But then, as they say, no pain, no gain. Here go some 8 mobile app marketing strategies that Trivia Crack team cracked that led to its Big, Bang, Boom across the app store spaces.

1] Conjure Up Dynamic Content

Well, let’s be honest about it. Just tell me, how many gaming apps offer good, knowledgeable pieces of information? None, by the way. Feeble, flimsy, frivolous content defines the majority of the quiz apps, that remotely helps fortify user’s knowledge base. Isn’t it?

But thankfully, Trivia Crack is cut from a different cloth. The content of this app is such that it resonates with the audience and keeps them hooked for long.  In fact, it lords over other apps on an assortment of topics such as sports, geography, history and entertainment. Sounds cool… right?

The other best bit about the app is that it’s available on cross-platforms as well. So, you can download it from any of the app stores be it Google Play, Facebook, Amazon, or Windows Phone store.

What’s more, users are free to play with friends or with any random opponent, in the language of their choice, that helps any gamer familiarize with foreign language skills as well. A departure from tradition… isn’t it?

2] Focus On Visual Identity

Of course, looks matter; unless, of course, you’ve got Albert Einstein’s brains or the nerve of Martin Luther King, or for that matter, has managed to build a broad repository of work like Leonardo Da Vinci.

Oh! OK! OK! Haven’t gotten closer to any of these, then please do roll up your sleeves and start focusing on building a visual identity for your app, for looks do matter.  Am I droning away… anyway?

But, I hope, I have put my point across quite reasonably well. Trivia Crack, though had one successful game app in its kitty, in the form of Aworded, (‘Apalabrados’ in Spanish), it gave visual Identity loads and loads of importance, which all but came handy when it came to merchandising and branding of the app.

For instance, Etermax created attractive characters from children’s toys. The strategy worked wonders. Today, Trivia Crack is more than an app. It’s a brand, both offline and online  and has a board game and a TV game (more on this in a minute) under its banner.

Trivia Crack Characters

3] Foster Steep Learning Curve

For the uninitiated, Trivia Crack wasn’t Etermax’s first game. In fact, the company had developed a reasonable number of games before generating this smashing hit of a game. In fact, its predecessors ‘Aworded’ a Scrabble-like game, was inordinately popular in Spain.

About the steep learning curve stuff, this is what Trivia Crack’s 29-year-old CEO Maximo Cavazzani  told in the Wall Street Journal, “It took years to perfect the game’s design, social-connectivity, and user input combination. No one can do a great game if you started yesterday. It’s a long path of learning,”  

For your record, the app was developed by a small team of developers who kept shuffling their roles between back-end and front-end management, time and again, during the entire gaming app development process.

4] Lap Up Crowdsourced Content

Trivia Crack’s popularity is mainly because of its fresh, regionalized content, generated directly from its users on an everyday basis. In fact, Trivia Cracks’ “Question factory” in the recent months had nearly received one million new questions a day. Cool…eh?

But then, allowing users to submit questions do result in a lot of duds. Nevertheless, Trivia Crack found a way out of this hurdle by allowing  users to give feedback on the same.  So, if any case, the user finds any of the questions offensive, boring or wrong, s/he can report it instantly. So eventually such questions receive the boot. Of the million question submissions received, merely 1,500 go to production, say Etermax team members. So, you can imagine how quality conscious Trivia Cracks’ content team is?

Given that fresh content is its best bet, the company currently has in place, an entourage of engineers simply devoted to developing this part of the game.

5] Nail Down Your Home Town/Country

Trivia Crack is a Buenos-Aires based company. So, naturally the founders first off targeted the Argentinean and Latin America markets. Armed with tailor-made questions the game become an instant hit with the Spanish, Portuguese and French speaking audience in Latin America.

In the meantime luck intervened? As in, the people of Latin America, specifically of Mexican origin, started playing games with their friends and relatives in the U.S.  Much to Entermax’s surprise, the game started gaining virility in the North American regions as well, a region which was untouched by the company so far.

Soon it transpired among the Entermax’s folks that the game was compelling enough to penetrate to new regions, but with some sort of cultural adaptation in the content.

6] Localize Language: Its Lethal

a] Bring on board regional experts

While penetrating new markets, Etermax was determined do its homework well.  No perfunctory approach here. The company, in fact, hired regional experts and local content generators from every country, just to ensure that the content generated is localized enough for the audience of those respective nations. The company, today, generates customized local content in 18 different languages including Brazilian, French, Chinese, Russian, Italian and English audience.  The bottom line: Localization is lethal while targeting new regions.

By far, Trivia success was viral and organic. But now, the company is gearing up to embark into European markets. Given that they are not that easy to penetrate, the company has already set its mind on unveiling small marketing campaigns and all.

b] Customize ad experience

When Entermax eyed the U.S. markets, the company not just customized its questions and answers, but the users’ Ad experience as well. As in, in Latin American markets, given that less than 20% of the customers have access to the bank account; the company fully focused its resources on in-app ads rather than on in-app purchases.  In contrast, most of the users in America have bank accounts that could be easily accessed by them while playing the game. Little wonder, about 50% of Trivia’s revenues come from in-app purchases.

In fact, it’s by customizing the ad experience for the U.S. audience that Trivia Crack managed to stay in the Apple App Store for 66 consecutive days.

7] Embark Into New Marketplaces

If a game has to keep growing, finding new markets should be a top priority. Yes, it’s that Plain and Simple. So, the Etermax team is already rolling up its sleeves to tap into the growing Chinese market empowered by localized content. And not just China, in fact, the company has the entire Asian market on its radar. Honestly, it’s worth the time and effort given that Asian gaming market is booming and is estimated to be worth $11.5 billion this year. Going by its Asia aspirations, the company is too busy these days generating a new gameplay strategy for the users of the Asian Market.

8] Branch Out Beyond Gaming Apps

Yes, developing an app was just one thing. With new gaming apps clouding the app stores on an everyday basis, a reinforcement strategy had to be in place. That’s how the brainwave of TV Quiz struck to Trivia Crack founders. Certainly, the licensed TV show was a huge success in Argentina. Emboldened, the company is now keenly looking forward to launching similar TV shows in Mexico, North America and perhaps in European markets as well.  For your information, the TV show in Argentina ran for about six months. And though, it didn’t attract any new users, given that every Jane and John in Argentina had already downloaded the app, it did manage to keep the app in the limelight for a reasonable period of time.

OpenXcell’s 2 Cents:

Just for the app developer’s eyes.

Did Trivia Crack’s awesome performance at the app stores inspire you? If yes, they why wait? Get going, and get in touch with us right away. Our extraordinarily resourceful app marketing experts would go out of their way to ensure that your app makes the right noises on all the right platforms.

The post is in line with the “How Did They Do It Series,” that appears on Appn2o blogs.