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What Are The Best App Marketing Strategies?
The mobile application industry is becoming more competitive over the years. Presently, almost 3 million applications are available in the app store. Entrepreneurs are aware that a meticulous marketing strategy is the only way to stand out in today’s app market. Leveraging a holistic mobile app marketing strategy is indispensable for success. Such an approach can only guarantee success. And keep you ahead in this competitive landscape.
Learn All About Building A Successful Mobile App
They’re many significant things to consider when planning a mobile app marketing. Here are some of the ideas for marketing that we have used for our apps.
Here are the ten steps for creating a pre-launch marketing strategy for your app:
- Research your users & competitors
- Conduct a competitive analysis
- Create an informative website for your application
- Start to publish blogs/articles regarding your product/service
- Connect your customers by email marketing
- Promote your app in social media
- Prepare a press kit
- Call for beta testers
- Connect the influencers
- Optimize your app store listing
There is no silver bullet that can manage your mobile app marketing woes, but considering the following steps sets you up with the right start.
– Step 1 –
The Pre Launch Stage
Marketing does not start on the day of launch but way before it.Here are some of the things to take care off before your launch day.
Research Your Users & Competitors
At the beginning of your app marketing strategy, you need to understand the mindset of your users and competitors. Gathering demographic info on users can help you visualize who you are trying to reach. All different kinds of users have different needs and expectations from a particular application; this is your responsibility to identify the demand and address the needs precisely to meet what users are looking for.
Importantly, keep your eyes on your competitors to understand their marketing strategy as well. Take inspiration not only from your direct competitors but also from your indirect, less related competitors. See what is working for others and customize that idea and apply it on your own.
Tools like SEMRush can give you intelligent info on how particular websites are getting traffic as well as what keywords they are ranking on. You can use that info to create your own website as well.
Conduct A Competitive Analysis
Your mobile app will have competition. Make a list of your competitors, their activity, monetization model, application store ranking, pros and cons of user experience, and notable reviews. It’s a great source of information to build your own strategy. To stay ahead in this market, make sure your application does not repeat any poor features that users have reviewed negatively. Think about what can make your mobile app stand out in this ever-changing market. These are significant considerations that can make a positive impact on your app marketing approach.
Create A Website
The website is the place where you can mention your product and company activity to spread awareness among your target audience. Introducing a pre-launch landing page or a teaser video can be an advantageous step. To create hype around the application, having a website is a considerable way to attract an audience through SEO strategies. When you create a website, collect emails to keep your followers updated regarding the app launch as well as subsequent features launch. The site could also be used to engage new audiences through competitions, feature wikis, and so on.
Outreach Initiatives
If you want to promote your launch website, connect with publications, bloggers, and influencers to get backlinks and reviews that can help drag the attention of your audience. Reach out to those people who are relevant to your niche or interested in writing about your app and promote it on their website. You can outreach many people to inform about your app, and simultaneously create interest also.
Promotion On Social Media
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and other digital platforms allow you to expand your web presence and let you directly communicate with all your target audiences. If your application targets a specific age group, identify the social sites that are popular among all the people in this demographic and use them effectively. Here are a few of the frequently used channels by app marketers. Decide the right channel based on your target audience.
- Product hunt
Two of the most popular crowdsourcing platforms are Product Hunt and Beta list. You can make use of these two to promote your mobile application. Product Hunt is visited by a large number of users every day, and the platform can help you increase the number of downloads of your website. - Making use of Facebook Group
Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms, and it has millions of users. You can make use of Facebook groups and advertise in relevant groups about your app. This way, you can get a large number of audiences for your app quite quickly.
Making use of Facebook’s Messenger chatbots for promotion is another great idea. You can make use of chatbots to create and run promotions for your newly released app. - Slack Groups
Slack is one of the fastest-growing business platforms, which is used by more than 4 million users on an everyday basis. On Slack, you can either create your community or can join other popular groups to advertise your apps. You may have to search and get access to the right groups though. - Medium
Medium is usually associated to be used for creating beautifully formatted contents, but you can use this platform for creating community as well as get higher reach with your content. Medium has 97 million monthly visitors. By making a medium publication, you can create your own content as well as invite others to write as well. - Instagram
With over 80 million worldwide users, use Instagram to get your app seen by a wide variety of audience. On Instagram, you can either create your group of followers before promoting your app or can use the Instagram ads for instant promotions. - Quora
Quora is a knowledge-sharing platform that you can use smartly to promote your app as well subtly. On Quora, you can keep an eye on topics related to your app and also gain insight into what people want. Overall, Quora can be used by companies to promote their apps organically. - Twitter
Twitter has a great feature. On adding your App store or Google play account to twitter, it automatically creates a card of your app. If you are running a tweet campaign, have enabled deep links, this will allow your users to see a call to action button from within Twitter. This button can either take the users to the download page, or it instantly opens the app if it is already installed. - LinkedIn
If you own a business-focused app, LinkedIn is something that you cannot ignore. The platform has more than 450 million users. On LinkedIn, there are two routes to advertise your app. You can either use it organically or can make use of paid advertisements.
LinkedIn is a great way to create your influencer brand as a founder by always sharing interesting feeds and articles related to your subject area. It will make your connections, your early adopters. - Reddit
Reddit does not allow direct promotion of your app, but you can still use it to bring up your application in related conversations subtly. Some subreddits can be used for direct advertising or advertisement of your app as well.
Create A Content Marketing Strategy
Start writing blogs/articles well in advance of your app launch date. This way, when it’s time to introduce your app, you will already have enough followers. Here are several advantages of content marketing for your mobile app:
- Content can drive traffic, create brand awareness, and conversion
- It can build trust among the users
- Can set positive history for your brand when users search about you online
- Blog content also can be used for re-engaging contacts or email marketing in social media
- Great way to connect with influencers, journalists and allow them to understand what you are building, well in advance
Your posts should not only talk about your app but also the industry as a whole, the need for your app, and other related topics.
Call For Beta Testers
You can select a specific group of people as beta testers, and they explore your application for a stipulated period. Mainly, they give you the right review and development direction, which you may have missed by looking at it every day. Apart from the detection of bugs and quality, this can be an excellent source for building product awareness as well.
Optimize Your Application Store Listing
Well, surveys have shown that most of the users discover applications directly searching by them or using relevant keywords in the mobile app store. Data indicates that application discovery through keyword search accounts for 58% of Android and 63% for IOS, which gives the apparent fact that search is one of the essential methods for app discovery.
That being said, companies and marketers who have their apps in either the App Store or Google Play must pay attention to the specific words that are more likely to be searched by users, and optimize their app accordingly. Additionally, one should optimize the app screenshots, descriptions, and reviews.
Roadmap For App Store Optimization
– Step 2 –
The Acquisition Stage
This is the plan for action during the launch and the first 3 months
Here, we will highlight the preferable acquisition channels that can help you drag the attention of your target audience. It is significant to make use of different methods; it can refine your strategy frequently and let you be creative.
Here are the top ten acquisition channels that you need to know:
- App Store Optimization
- Organic Mobile User Acquisition
- Paid Advertising
- Influencer Marketing
- PR & Press Coverage
- Digital Video
- Email Marketing
- Referrals & Invites
- Traditional Marketing
- Demos & Free Trials
App Store Optimization
App stores are the one-stop place for app discovery. ASO is one of the best practices of attracting targeted users to download an application based on the keywords, title, ratings, and additional ranking factors. App store optimization can help you get high-quality traffic to your application.
And the leading advantages of App store optimization includes:
- Focus on main page elements
- Localize application store pages
- App optimization for both search discoverability & conversions
Organic Mobile App User Acquisition
Well, organic channels can manage mobile application user acquisition by effective and cost-efficient ways. Developing a website, managing different social sites, funneling traffic to your application store page are the best processes that can drive organic growth.
- Use smart banners
- Target the right traffic
- Do content marketing
Paid Advertising
The concept of paid advertisement can put your mobile application in front of a huge number of audience. How can you promote your businesses? Use social sites to reach people, pay-per-click campaigns through Google Adwords, cross-promotions, and native and interstitial ads are the ways that can help you to achieve maximum audience in a single click. You can give your product advertisement on Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, and other social sites to get the best response.
Influencer Marketing
It is tough to gain the trust of your targeted audience, especially when you are new in the market. In the meantime, it can be the best way to promote your company name and product through the influencers, who already have a good bonding with your target audience. Furthermore, it increases your brand credibility and awareness hugely.
- Pick the right platform
- Choose influencers carefully
- Focus on storytelling
PR & Press Coverage
Bloggers, Journalists, and Product Hunt like websites can increase your product awareness, generate buzz, and drag the attention of users before app launch.
- Target early adopters
- Tailor your PR pitches
- Build a media kit
Digital Video
With up to 71% of mobile marketers express they prefer to use video options for user acquisition. As we all know, Youtube is more famous among people of all ages than any other network. Digital videos can attract the audience quickly, and people love to share an informative or useful video with their group of friends that can increase your presence.
- Include video on your website
- Consider rewarded videos
- Feature user-generated content
Email Marketing
Nearly 70% of people open their email on their mobile phones; it is an excellent chance to drive customers and notify them about your product and service. Through email marketing, promote brand content, share product/service updates, upcoming hype events, and offer discounts.
Also, email is a great way to maintain good relations with your target audience in a personal way, whether it is a birthday email, offers/discounts, or a personalized content recommendation.
- Optimize for mobile
- Use email to request feedback
- Use deep links within emails
Referrals & Invites
A referral program adds a viral component to the user acquisition model and it also reduces the customer acquisition costs. It offers benefits to the users to share or refer your application to their channel. Indirectly, your app gets a chance to reach maximum people at a minimum cost.
- Make referral codes easy to share
- Go beyond cashback and rewards
- Encourage bragging
Demos and Free Trials
App demo is a great way to engage your customers. If you have a subscription service or paid app, allow the first users to use it or experience it free of cost. Through this trial period, you can highlight your app features and inform users after the trial period, which features they will miss. Show subscription or purchase messages frequently to remind them how many days left to end the free trials.
Top Tips To Hit 100,000 Downloads
– Step 3 –
Steps For Continued Success
Once the initial concentrated marketing effort is over, you need to change your marketing focus from user acquisition to user retention and product-market fit. In this third phase, you need to focus on three key areas.
Ask Your Users For Feedback
Ask your users for feedback: Do you have enough app users? If yes, then it’s excellent news. It is a sign that people start loving your app. Share with them a popup invitation to get a review. It helps you understand your application position in this market.
Consider A Burst Campaign
Well burst campaign is the most popular technique used by mobile application marketers who want to get a considerable app store rank. This campaign aims to boost app ranking and increase the quality of organic installs in this competitive landscape.
Offer A Referral Bonus
You should offer your users a bonus when they promote your mobile app online is a surefire way. For example, Uber started back in 2009 and has since spread to around 45 countries and cities. It can be said that it is one of the top-ranking ridesharing services of all time. Back in the day, Uber used a small ($10) double-sided incentive to get new riders attracted. Now they have upped their ante and now offer a $20 dual-sided reward. The cool thing is, that usually means a ‘free ride’, which is how the referral program is typically advertised for existing riders.
Use Analytics
User data is your best friend now. See from which channels your most important users are coming and invest more on those channels.
A Final Word
The mobile application industry is continually growing, and entrepreneurs should stay vigilant if they want to set up their identity in this marketplace. There are no secret tools or KPIs that guarantee your mobile application success.
And you should be able to discover new opportunities and challenges and have the flexibility to keep testing and applying newer ways. Always keep your users and their feelings about your mobile app. When you are dealing with mobile app marketing, every element is essential.
Importantly, keep in mind that each method for mobile app promotion should be mixed with others. For instance, you can associate App Store optimization with Facebook advertisements. None of these app marketing strategies will give your users a satisfactory result on their own. No matter which method you choose, it’s essential to understand what you can expect as a result and what benchmarks you should aim for.
Now you know the best ways to create awareness regarding your app, and you can confidently take action to promote your mobile app.
