Have you ever been to Grader.com and gotten a marketing grade for a website? Amazingly, over one million people have done it. And, you know what, it’s an unbelievable lead generation channel for HubSpot. Much like content marketing – blogging, white papers, ebooks, SEO, etc – has been a mainstream marketing tactic for over a decade now, there’s a new kid on the block: micro apps.
A micro app is a custom web application that provides some type of useful value, like Grader.com’s automated evaluation of marketing best practices for a website, in exchange for contact information (e.g. we’ll give you some value at no charge in exchange for becoming a lead). Micro apps are more difficult to build and more expensive to maintain, but also provide more value and interactivity compared to traditional content marketing.
Here are some more micro app examples (Disclosure: I’m an investor in these companies):
- SalesLoft’s Prospector – Semi-automatically mine the web to build lists of leads (this micro app was so successful it was turned into a full product)
- Rigor’s OnlineCurl – Run the cURL commandline tool right inside a web browser
- Rigor and Kevy’s APIstat.us – Check the uptime of popular cloud-based applications
- Rivalry’s Crown Report for Sales – Find out how a sales rep stacks up against other sales reps
Due to the technical nature of micro apps it’s never going to be as popular or mainstream as content marketing, but for the sophisticated companies that can pull it off, micro apps will be an excellent source of lead generation.
What else? What are your thoughts on micro apps as next generation content marketing?
David Cummings on Startups 
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