Sports Mockery got over 30,000 Downloads, Boosted Revenue and Added New Fans

Sports Mockery is a news site that helps Chicago sports fans to stay up to date with their favorite teams.

We sat down with CEO and President of Sports Mockery, Chris Burhans, for a chat about why they decided to build an app, and their experiences with MobiLoud and their app so far.

Reach a Wider Audience on Mobile

Sports Mockery started out with a WordPress site and a strong social media presence that they’d grown.

They realized that an increasing number of people these days are turning mainly to mobile apps to get their news. Chris realized that his company was missing out on a big opportunity by not having a mobile app:

“A common conversation would be ‘What's your company?’, and I'd say ‘Sports Mockery’. They’d pull up the App Store and search, but nothing would show up”

People spend the majority of their mobile time in apps, rather than the browser.

Your readers expect your brand to have a presence on the App Stores.

"I'd say, ‘Oh, you have to go to our website’ - which would be answered with ‘Oh, you don't have an app yet?’. Not having one always seemed to put us in a position where we were losing out on viewers and fans”

Chris soon figured out that they were leaving revenue on the table and needed a presence in the App Stores as soon as possible.

Finding MobiLoud

Chris and his team checked out several options for building their app, but none were what they hoped for:

“I looked at several different other solutions. Some are skins that just take your site and turn it into a mobile version. That wasn't effective because it would’ve changed the formatting and look of the site - and still didn't make it available in the App Store. The other solutions seemed to be very cookie cutter, where we’d have to take our website and put it into a box”

Eventually, they came across MobiLoud. It was the first solution that allowed them to take what worked best from their site and leverage it through fully native mobile apps.

“MobiLoud was the first solution that I found that allowed me to keep enough flexibility and build a full-fledged iOS and Android application”

Chris was also happy that our service integrates with all the features needed to grow a publishing brand, and that he didn’t need to touch any code himself.

“MobiLoud has many, many features that a lot of the competitors were lacking. With MobiLoud it's all done for you. It's a very sleek and fast process”

Building the Apps to take Sports Mockery to the Next Level

We got to work building highly customized, state of the art apps that retained the site’s unique personality and key features. We do all the work building your app - all you have to do is tell us exactly what you want and it’ll be ready to launch in a few weeks.

When the apps launched, Chris realized that Sports Mockery had begun an exciting new journey:

“I'll never forget the day we went live and posted on social media telling everybody to download our new app. It was as if our entire company took a step forward by creating a presence on the Apple Store and Google Play - and we became a more legitimate company in the eyes of our fans and everyone who interacted with us”

Increased Reach, Higher Revenue, and a Stronger Brand

Since launching, Sports Mockery have been making the most of their app’s features like ad platform integration and push notifications. They’ve been able to reach a whole new audience and find powerful new opportunities to monetize their content:

“MobiLoud gave us a whole new revenue stream by allowing us to reach these fans for the first time.”

Native apps give you a new way to engage potential readers that might not be on social.

“A lot of our fans don't use Facebook or Twitter - so they never found our content. We were suddenly able to approach fans and ask them to download our app. We’ve sent push notifications out to hundreds of thousands of people.”

As well as reaching a broader audience, Chris and his team have found new ways to monetize through their app.

“Through MobiLoud, we’ve taken on a new ad model, which has created additional revenue for us through ads that weren’t previously compatible with our site. This has consistently increased our revenue month after month since we implemented it.”

A Great Relationship and an Exciting Future

After your app is built and launched we take care of ongoing updates, maintenance, and any customizations that you need.

Our technology is also improving and evolving all the time, as Chris noted in our conversation:

“Not only do MobiLoud have great support, but they've really come a long way with their technology. The ability to quickly configure your options and keep a lot of flexibility between WordPress and your mobile app is really a one of a kind experience”

As with all our clients, Sports Mockery were able to easily manage their apps through their existing WordPress dashboard - which simplified their workflow and cut away any learning curve for the team.

What would Chris say to other publishers looking to build a native presence?

“It's very easy, it's very practical. MobiLoud gives any company the ability to take the next step forward by offering their fans or customers a full-fledged mobile app inside of Apple Store and Google Play and reach everybody”

We look forward to continuing a great relationship with Sports Mockery and helping them to grow their brand and become even more successful on mobile.

Want to replicate the success of Sports Mockery in your own business?

We have solutions to turn any site or web app into iOS and Android apps - but if you're a WordPress-based digital publisher looking to grow through native apps, MobiLoud News is for you.

If your site has a reasonable amount of traffic and you're willing to share a little ad space with us - you can even get native iOS and Android apps at zero upfront cost! Check out our publisher program today.