Tapni Case Study – How We Helped a Start-Up Grow into a Regional Powerhouse

At its core, Tapni is a company that designs and creates digital business cards for the modern era. The main feature of Tapni’s digital business cards is the ability for business people to easily share their contact information via any NFC-enabled device (essentially any smart device, like phones, smart watches, tablets, etc.).

When a person downloads the Tapni app and enters the contact details they wish to share, a simple tap on the digital business card shares the information with another person’s browser. That person can then save the info without downloading the Tapni app. For older phones that don’t have NFC capabilities, the business cards even have a QR code on the back.

Based on this product, Tapni was founded as a start-up in Austria in 2021.

The Challenges Tapni Faced

Although the founders of Tapni strongly believed that their product provided significant value and that people would be interested in it, they realized they had two major challenges to overcome soon after the company was founded:

1. Tapni was purely self-financed.
2. Their product placement strategies were insufficient to achieve the desired results in the DACH (Deutschland [Germany], Austria, Confœderatio Helvetica [Switzerland]) market.

As a result, Tapni started searching for business consultation and marketing partners. Due to the recommendation of a member of the Association of Business Angels from Serbia, Tapni contacted Play Media to help them achieve their goals.

The Financing and Marketing Strategy

After some initial discussion, we quickly agreed and got to work. The approach was two-pronged: develop a strategy to enhance the marketing efforts and a strategy to acquire external financing. While the two strategies were nominally separate, they were intended to work in cohesion and support one another.

The marketing efforts started with different types of analyses – a website/SEO audit and a competitor and SWOT analysis. The next step was to create a clear brand voice and find Tapni’s perfect target audience while building the backbone for tracking progress – like setting up GA4 and establishing SMART goals, including how to track and report them.

The result was a six-month marketing strategy focusing on client acquisition through pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, which also necessitated a redesign of the landing page for the ads, Tapni for Business – this was promptly done.

Concurrently, we also worked on getting external financing. The Tapni founders received counseling and mentorship from Play Media’s senior staff on how to apply and increase their chances of receiving funds from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)

The Results of the Partnership

The PPC campaign was a success. Before partnering with Play Media, Tapni was already running PPC campaigns but with a very low return on ad spend (RoAS). The campaigns were revamped according to the analyses done at the beginning and run by Play Media’s PPC team. Within three months, we achieved the following results:

• 365% increase in conversion value

• 420% jump in return on ad spend

• 11% more conversions

• 20% lower cost per acquisition

Additionally, outside of the DACH market, significant growth was also observed in the UK and

France.

Also, this campaign led to the following SEO results:

• 25x increase in organic traffic

• 15x increase in organic keywords

The counseling and mentorship also worked. Tapni applied for EBRD’s Star Venture program, which is intended to financially help start-ups as part of Play Media’s start-up accelerator. They were one of the six applicants that were approved, in no small part due to the success of the PPC campaign. In short, Tapni received the funding they needed.

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PlayMedia is the digital marketing agency that will take you to the top, and help you grow your business through dedication, transparency, and a unique, highly individual approach.

Mladen Maksic CEO
Play Media

The Summary

The partnership between Tapni and Play Media was a success. Working together, we managed to:

1. Acquire the necessary funding.
2. Establish Tapni as a brand in the DACH market.
3. Increase Tapni’s reach and expand into new markets.
4. Acquire high-value clients.

And this was just the beginning. Tapni and Play Media are still working together on developing and implementing new growth strategies.

If you are interested in how Play Media can add value to your start-up, schedule a free consultation with our CEO, and let’s find a way to grow your business.

Mladen Maksic / As the founder of Play Media and a key player in all deals, Mladen has led the company from one victory to another for many years now. Both visionary and analytical, passionate and compassionate, with a background in marketing and vast experience in project management. His numerous clients range from startups to Fortune 500 companies, from Procter & Gamble to Royal Dutch Shell.

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