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You create an app, post it on social media, launch it in the appropriate stores, and then find that downloads are in the single digits. This experience is deflating, it’s humiliating, and it’s a hard blow to take after spending many hours developing the app. Unfortunately, this is a sad truth that many businesses experience due to the sheer number of apps available these days.
Across the various stores, consumers can now choose between millions of different apps. While some help people with exercise, others help with cooking, playing tennis, cutting the grass, or just passing time. If you’re to launch a mobile app in today’s market, you must consider some of the below strategies. Without them, you’ll find it difficult to earn a return on the investment.
If you’re going to stand out, you need to adopt an extensive mobile app marketing strategy. In this guide, you’ll learn some of the most valuable components of this strategy!
Just because you want an app available for consumers, this doesn’t mean that you can create one and upload it to an app store within days. Instead, you’ll need to plan this strategy over several weeks and months. Additionally, some stages of the process are out of your control (including Apple’s review process), so you’ll need to account for this.
By planning in advance, you’ll determine estimated timelines (while also planning for contingencies!).
Too often, businesses spend so much time making the app that it ends up convoluted, irrelevant, and something that the customer just doesn’t want or need. Therefore, we recommend defining the purpose of your app at the very beginning. From here, stick to this purpose and use it as a guiding light when making decisions. Make sure everybody in the development team understands this purpose and creates an app that delivers.
You could create an incredibly advanced app, but it’s useless if it doesn’t offer value to your target market. You can only justify the cost of developing an app if it’s useful to consumers in the end. Rather than creating an app for yourself, create an app for your customers. A simpler design and interface is better than an advanced one if it adds value to the right audience.
Where do you plan to sell your app? Even if you aren’t charging for it, this is still a selling exercise, which is something that marketers and businesses often forget. When an app is free, the business thinks that people will flock to it. However, as we saw in the introduction, this isn’t the case because the largest stores have millions of different apps.
As well as planning your app store appearance, think about how you will sell and distribute the app on social media. To choose the right platforms, you’ll need to consider your audience and where they’re likely to be present. For example, a younger client base is found on Facebook while LinkedIn holds a more professional audience.
Getting your app onto a well-known store is only the first step - you’ll then need to grab people’s attention in a saturated, competitive market. At the moment, very few people peruse the app store with no intention. Instead, they use the search function, which is where you need to begin. Make sure that your app performs strongly for pertinent phrases and keywords.
On both the app store and search engines, people should come across your service when typing relevant keywords. In the app store, you have opportunities to optimize with the title, tags, description, and various other details - this is called ASO (app store optimization).
In addition to optimizing search engines and app stores, promote the app wherever possible and get people talking. One strategy is to contribute to forums and discussion boards. Additionally, share on social media and generate backlinks by giving the app away.
We keep referring to the competition on the many app stores, so this is a strategy that you need to remember with mobile app marketing. Look at the top five competitors around the business and research whether or not they have an app. If so, what price do they charge and what revenue model do they use? After this, consider the reviews, user experience, and app store ranking.
Remember, these apps will be your direct competition after launching. If you can’t compete, it’s not worth investing any time. When developing an app, you first need to be better than those around you, and competitor analysis allows you to understand what those around you are actually doing.
It’s no longer an outlandish goal to earn money from a mobile app - every year, people all over the world are spending more on apps. We aren’t saying that you’ll earn millions and have chances to retire, but it could still add a decent chunk of revenue to the business. After putting lots of hours and resources into making an app, there’s nothing wrong with knowing your worth. As long as it adds value, some consumers will pay.
Ultimately, the revenue model you choose depends on the type of service you offer. While some businesses charge people for the initial app download, others offer the app for free but extend the experience with in-app purchases. Those with a strong enough app can actually charge an upfront fee as well as in-app purchases (be careful with this because you don’t want to alienate the user!).
Another option is offering two different versions of the app - a free version and a paid premium version. You might decide that the best route is a completely free app, but you’ll use it as a platform to cross-promote other services. There’s a revenue model for everybody, you just need to consider your audience, the app type, the competition, and other factors.
The world may have evolved since the early days of guest blogging, but this doesn’t mean that the tactic doesn’t still work. By using a guest blogger, you access an audience that otherwise wouldn’t have seen your shiny new app. A guest blogger can boost exposure and visibility while also improving the credibility and authority of your app/service.
Of course, you’ll need compelling content and the right guest blogger if you’re to succeed with this mobile app marketing strategy. The instant you choose the wrong guest blogger, the strategy goes awry because the wrong people are learning about your app.
What do you think is the leading source of app installs? Well, it’s actually mobile websites. Therefore, we recommend creating a special mobile landing page for your app. There’s no reason why you can’t start generating excitement in the pre-launch phase - get people to leave their email address so that they stay up to date with the app development process.
Eventually, this landing page will contain links to the app as well as authentic reviews and other information to encourage people to click the download button.
Paid search is useful for most areas in business these days, and mobile app marketing doesn’t escape its attention. Again, make sure you’re advertising on the platforms that apply to your strategy. In other words, there’s no point advertising on LinkedIn when your audience isn’t present on the platform. You should already know the social media platforms pertinent to advertising, so use this to your advantage with mobile app marketing.
With attention spans seemingly shortening with every year that passes, keep your ads brief and to the point. Make sure you capture the attention of users within seconds.
Once people download your app, don’t think that your work is done. You’ll need to retain the interest of the consumer, and one of the best ways to do this is through push notifications. According to one study, engagement in those who opted to receive push notifications is 88% higher than in those who didn’t. Make sure that there’s a reward for engaging with your app whether this comes through exclusive content, special offers, coupons, or another form of reward.
What else can you do to boost the chances of success for your mobile app?
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