Duolingo learning app’s marketing strategy focuses on building a solid product and increasing its user base.

They also measure their success by the percentage of users who return the next day.

These factors combine to make Duolingo an appealing and successful learning app.

In the mid-2010s, Tyler Murphy was working as an intern at Duolingo and noticed the innovation in the gaming industry.

Progress bars and in-app currencies made video games more fun and entertaining.

 

What is the history of Duolingo? How did it get started?

This was the first time Murphy saw the potential of connecting entertainment with language learning. After that, he created a marketing strategy around streaks.

Using this strategy, Duolingo improved its daily active users by 8.2%.

Because of Duolingo’s massive user base, the company decided to partner with MMP to maximize its marketing impact.

MMP helps businesses make better decisions based on data.

The Duolingo team conducted extensive research and peer reviews before selecting Adjust.

The marketing strategy for the company’s email campaign is a perfect example of how to maximize your marketing impact and drive user growth. So, what is the Duolingo Marketing Strategy?

Gina Gotthilf is the Vice President of Growth at Duolingo, the largest language learning app in the world.

The app personalizes the learning experience for each individual user.

In fact, it has been downloaded over one hundred million times.

Before joining Duolingo, Gina worked in international development at Tumblr, and she founded Global Ginga, a marketing agency focusing on helping major U.S. brands enter the Latin American market.

Gotthilf is a keynote speaker at conferences worldwide and has written many books and articles.

Her work has garnered the attention of President Obama.

What makes Duolingo unique is its business model. Its target audience is people who want to learn a second language but do not have the money to pay for regular courses.

Duolingo focuses on this audience and makes a huge investment in its course content and interface. Even after a week, 30% of its users continue using the app. That’s impressive.

Duolingo’s success is a testament to its marketing strategy.

Duolingo’s early days were fueled by the free education wave of the 2010s. Entrepreneurs saw mobile devices and the web as a way to disrupt entrenched institutions.

As a result, Duolingo grew from its humble beginnings and exploded into a global phenomenon. Despite its humble beginnings, the Duolingo founders had an ambitious vision of providing language lessons to people worldwide for free.

They wanted to give everyone an equal opportunity to learn the languages they wanted to learn.

Key Focus Areas of Duolingo Marketing Strategy

The marketing strategy for Duolingo focuses on integrating social media into the overall brand and maintaining a unified visual experience.

Duolingo has adopted an artist to create all illustrations for social media channels, deliberately carrying the cartoony aesthetics from its website to its social media channels.

While the overall brand experience is focused on providing a positive learning experience, the platform also has two key constituencies that it serves

– native English speakers who are interested in learning a foreign language and

– non-native English speakers who are interested in learning English.

The first step towards this goal was to change the user experience. Duolingo changed the interface and introduced soft walls.

This was complemented with a big red “Discard my progress” button that enticed users to click it.

The company also made the “Later” button more subtle so that it was less noticeable.

This new design improved performance and increased the daily active user count by 8.2%.

Finally, Duolingo implemented badges to reward those who completed a course.

Another key component of Duolingo’s marketing strategy is the addition of voice.

The company has made extensive use of its PR team, which is a small team with just three employees worldwide.

The PR team has earned free media coverage as a result of their efforts. Through word-of-mouth marketing, Duolingo has grown to become the world’s most popular language-learning app.

But before integrating social media into their overall marketing strategy, they must first understand what the social media landscape in their country looks like.

Among the most important components of social media marketing, TikTok videos are a great way to engage users.

TikTok videos have become the company’s equivalent to product-driven word-of-mouth marketing.

As such, it’s important to keep the reins light for social media teams and ensure that they can quickly shift the conversation away from TikTok to other topics.

Fortunately, Duolingo can clearly see the financial impact of these videos on its business.

Duolingo has successfully integrated viral memes into its marketing strategy. The duo continues to reference the Evil Duo Owl meme on social networks, such as TikTok.

The goal is to remind users to complete their lessons on Duo. By using viral memes, Duo has been able to increase the popularity of its product.

The company’s marketing strategy has paid off in the end. It has become one of the most successful campaigns for an online language learning service.

The marketing strategy for Duolingo is all about utilizing the 1.2 billion people in the world to make their product more accessible.

Their targeted audience is people who want to learn a second language but don’t have the resources to pay for regular language learning courses.

Their learning experience is enhanced by a personalized approach.

Duolingo is based in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, where they have found success with their app.

 

Duolingo Marketing Strategy – TikTok Channel and Quirky Brand Voice

We’ll also look at Duolingo’s product-led growth and TikTok marketing strategy.

Here are some examples of Duolingo’s success.

Read on to learn how Duolingo is using the power of social to reach new customers and grow their business.

 

Duolingo Quirky Brand Voice

Keeping a playful brand voice is a crucial part of a company’s marketing strategy, and Duolingo is no exception.

The most popular video on Duo’s social media pages asks for singer Dua Lipa’s hand in marriage, a clear reference to its rival.

The company’s strategy also involves experimenting with content, allowing its audience to help determine what is “good” or “bad.”

As a renowned language learning tool, Duo helps people of all ages learn new languages. It makes the process fun and easy, so why not have a quirky brand voice to match?

This quirky voice extends to Duo’s unique characters. The company has added nine to the universe of Duo, including an emo teen, an eight-year-old, and a thirtysomething single dad.

One way to keep the quirky brand voice is by integrating viral videos. Duolingo, for example, continues to reference the “Evil Duo Owl” meme on TikTok.

The company capitalizes on the “passive-aggressive” energy of these videos to get users to do their lessons.

A similar strategy was used by Facebook in 2017 with its “Stick-Tok” video, which featured the famous owl.

The brand’s quirky brand voice is another strategy Duolingo uses as part of its marketing strategy.

Its use of cartoon characters and animations has fueled its growth from 300 million users to more than 500 million, which is due primarily to children who have easy access to smartphones and laptops.

In addition, parents do not mind their kids using their smartphones or laptops to study for free. In addition, the app is free and syncs across multiple devices.

In addition to its marketing strategies, Duolingo also uses social media for learning and relationship building.

Their TikTok account is one of the best examples of this strategy. Not only does the account provide great learning material, but it also serves as a platform for engaging customers.

It also makes for an excellent marketing strategy. So what’s the secret sauce to keeping the brand voice and personality going?

 

Duolingo TikTok Marketing Strategy

As a company with a mission to teach the world to speak a new language, Duolingo was keen to use TikTok as a marketing tool.

Its social media coordinator says the brand has a natural connection to the video-focused social network, and the resulting viral content has helped the brand reach millions of people.

But, in order to truly benefit from this strategy, the brand must have a strategy that appeals to both of these audiences.

The first step in developing a successful TikTok marketing strategy is to understand your audience.

The Duolingo TikTok marketing strategy includes the creation of varied content based on the platform’s target audience.

For example, the platform encourages marketers to use three types of content: reactive, proactive, and interactive.

Reactive content creates content in response to trends and the consumer’s reaction to it. Lastly, proactive content involves large-scale campaigns that engage the audience.

In addition to focusing on existing trends, Duolingo has built its content strategy by monitoring its audience’s preferences and social listening.

It posts new content three to five times a week, but only when it has an original idea.

If an idea doesn’t seem to be good, Duolingo won’t post it. In the past, Duolingo’s TikToks have gained 1.9 million followers, and it’s growing quickly.

As for the video content, Duo the owl is a popular brand mascot. The famous Duo appears in social media videos and often wears a green owl suit.

Duo’s responses to these videos became viral, and many Duolingo social media marketers say filming the content for TikTok takes 15 minutes to two hours.

The owl suit isn’t easy to maneuver inside.

While early Duolingo TikToks were based on Duo’s brand image, videos released in February 2021 have performed much better than Duo-free content.

Each video gets anywhere from two to five million views to 22 million.

Even though the video content is free, it has been able to reach millions of users with zero dollars in advertising.

The results are impressive. Duolingo’s TikTok content has become the next generation of word-of-mouth marketing.

Duolingo Product-led Growth

In order to maintain the free-to-use model, Duolingo opted to focus on consumer-facing growth and eliminate its B2B service.

By reducing the number of B2B subscribers, the company was able to focus on its core mission of language learning and found new ways to monetize its platform.

It also created an optional paid subscription plan, while still offering a free option.

Hacker and his team spent two years developing the idea for Duolingo before launching its beta version.

As a result, the company raised $3.3 million in Series A funding before the beta version of the app was even launched.

Ashton Kutcher and Union Square Ventures were among the investors, but their pitch was more focused on creating a sustainable way to produce human translations for the web.

One of the biggest problems in the language-learning industry is how to attract and retain users.

With a product-led approach, Duolingo created four distinct product-led growth teams to address specific pain points.

These teams are based on a company’s product strategy and vision. Typically, the product-led growth team will focus on areas that are aligned with that vision.

A small adjustment in the signup page can increase DAUs by 20%.

Product-led growth can dramatically widen the top of the funnel and create goodwill among users.

In order to maintain that growth, the company must convert free users to paid subscribers.

Consumer-focused freemium products like Dropbox, Evernote, and Typeform typically have a paid conversion rate of two to four percent.

Despite this relatively low conversion rate, it’s not impossible for such a company to achieve rapid growth.

Among the best examples of product-led growth, Duolingo has consistently prioritized experimentation and innovation.

They have A/B tested the animated skill icons and optimal gamification levers, all while improving the product experience and engagement metrics.

Ultimately, the product-led growth strategy has helped Duolingo grow from zero to two hundred million users in just seven years. These numbers speak for themselves.

How it Build a Successful Marketing Strategy

 

To boost conversions and engagement with customers, Duolingo introduced several features such as weekend amulets, streak repair, and streak freeze.

These features helped the company improve its conversions over notifications.

The team experimented with different timings to find the optimal time to remind users to do their next session.

Lastly, the team added badges to reward users who complete a session. The team continues to experiment with these tools to increase user satisfaction.

 

Product-led PR Strategy

The Duolingo product-led PR strategy is one that focuses on the consumer experience.

The language learning company began by building a B2B service for businesses that would allow it to monetize its service at a lower price and deliver more nuanced translations.

While the B2B service was a successful experiment, it also diverted Duolingo’s attention from the product and its use case.

The Duolingo product-led PR strategy emphasized the consumer experience as a primary objective.

The company focused on the user experience and tested every aspect of the product, from UX to the app design.

The team also created a gamified experience for its users. By incorporating this strategy, the company was able to make data-driven decisions about the way it would improve the product.

Now, the Duolingo product-led PR strategy is delivering results.

With its record-low attrition rate, Duolingo has no trouble keeping up with its previous growth.

With revenue growing from $1M in 2018 to $15 million in 2020, Duolingo is demonstrating that it can grow at a faster pace.

In addition, Duolingo is in the content business.

Its courses are original and created by experts in second language acquisition and learning science.

They also utilize text-based content rather than video content because the former is cheaper to create in volume.

Moreover, audio content can be produced in bulk and is easier to license than video content.

Despite its small size, the company is still running experiments to determine which elements of its product would be effective.

One of their innovations, the amulet, is a gamified icon that reminds users to complete a learning session on a certain day.

As a result, it has increased the number of daily active users by 8.2%.

To continue improving the user experience, the company is constantly introducing new features and improving its product.

 

Gamification

Implementing gamification as part of the Duolingo marketing campaign can boost retention and brand equity.

It boosts daily active users by adding small features such as a character to push notifications.

Users noticed a 5% boost in their daily active users after the change.

Introducing badges to users is another effective way to boost referrals, as badges fulfill a basic human need for self-worth.

Users can show their badges to friends, which can further increase their referral numbers.

A common example of gamification in online games is the use of badges. Users can earn badges for completing certain lessons or skills, or by accruing XP.

Badges can be obtained multiple times, so users can keep a streak going by acquiring them more often.

In this way, they can motivate themselves to study even harder and earn more XP.

This idea can also be used for other games and marketing strategies.

Gamification is an excellent method of encouraging players to spend time learning new languages.

A key benefit of gamification is that it engenders curiosity, which motivates them to continue.

The concept also fosters competition. By creating a scoreboard that lists the achievements of other users, gamers will be encouraged to compete with each other.

Gamification creates a sense of control for players and helps them achieve goals that they otherwise wouldn’t have set.

A common example of gamification in marketing involves a mission and reward system.

The Octalysis Framework is used to analyze the experiences of users. It is a systematic approach to unlocking potential and creating balanced designs.

One such example is the Asana game, which rewards users for completing tasks. The game’s missions can include flying creatures or other fun things.

This approach to gamification is particularly effective in promoting online education.

Single Source of Truth

Duolingo incorporated a single source of truth in your marketing strategy.

There are many reasons why a single source of truth is important for your marketing strategy.

First of all, it creates a more accurate and complete picture of your customer base.

Second, a single source of truth will make it easier for you to track trends across multiple channels, such as email, social media, and websites.

Third, a single source of truth helps you better understand how to best engage your customers.

The lack of a single source of truth in Duolingo’s marketing strategy had several consequences.

First, they focused on consumers and lost their B2B customers.

Second, they tried to monetize their services in new ways, including building an optional paid plan and keeping a free option.

Third, they were able to measure the performance of these marketing strategies.

And fourth, they were able to use that data to develop and implement their marketing strategy.

The single source of truth makes it easier for marketing teams to understand and interpret data.

It also makes data more accessible to various teams. Marketing teams can collaborate with other departments to develop better strategies and campaigns.

The Single Source of Truth also provides insight into the data about potential employees, customers, and competitors.

As a result, they can better target potential employees.

Ultimately, marketing teams can use this single source of truth to make better decisions.

Another benefit of implementing a single source of truth is that it enables companies to leverage the data from multiple sources to understand what is working and what isn’t.

With a single source of truth, all departments can view and analyze data without having to guess or make assumptions about what is working and what’s not.

In addition to that, it helps marketers create personalized responses based on the data they have.

Humanizing the Brand

When it comes to humanizing a brand, there are many different ways to achieve this.

For example, Duolingo’s TikTok account started out with videos of people from all over the world learning foreign language phrases.

However, initially, they were scripted and professional.

They failed to engage their followers. After experimenting with a more authentic style of content, their TikTok account took off.

Humanizing the brand is a proven way to create a deeper connection between the company and the people who use the product or service.

Consumers react better to brands that appear human, and the best brands are able to understand the human response to their products.

Here are some examples of brands that are humanizing themselves:

One way to make the brand more appealing to the masses is by creating ambassadors.

As a result, Duolingo has built an army of community members to do different things.

These ambassadors include educators, course contributors, forum moderators, and others.

These volunteers do more than simply share a passion for learning.

They also get access to exclusive merchandise, and community resources, and even invite their followers to Duolingo events.

The TikTok account has earned millions of likes, and Duolingo is taking this strategy to the next level.

 

Their strategy has been highly successful, garnering attention from NBC News, Insider, and Rolling Stone magazine.

 

But Duolingo is doing more than creating viral content – it is using social media to create a human-like brand identity.

 

The company’s goal is to create a brand that people want to be a part of.