7. App Marketing Guide

App Marketing Guide

About 63% of apps are discovered through organic search?
Google App Play and Apple’s App Store have over 1.5 million mobile apps; about 1,000 new apps are launched every day.

So now you know how to build your own mobile app, its right time your start developing a marketing strategy for its promotion.

With all the steps involved in developing and testing a mobile app, marketing phase gets phased out for many businesses.

It should not be like that, however.

Did you know: Google App Play and Apple’s App Store has over 1.5 million mobile apps and about 1,000 new apps are launched every day?

The competition is getting tough as each day passes by, no matter which niche market you’re in.

In order to prevent all your hard works go down the drain, you’ll have to think of creative ways to make your app stand out from the crowd.

How?

The answer: You need is a “killer marketing strategy.”

Ideally speaking, this marketing strategy has to follow every step of the mobile development –from brainstorming functionalities and features to post-launch user engagement.

If you’re a small business owner who wants to dive deep into the app development world, this guide will help you align your marketing efforts with your goals and get your app all the attention it deserves.

Here are 8 Steps to Building a Killer App Marketing Strategy:

1. First, Know Your Goals and Your Audience

Do you know who your customers are?

Knowing your buyer personas is important, as it will shape your app design and functionality.

A mobile app designed specifically for women between the ages of 18 and 30 will look and feel totally different than an app designed for men over age 40.

Then, know what you want your app to achieve.

You may not know everything at the beginning, but some of the successful branded apps have features that complement their main products and services.

Take The North Face, the outdoor gear company, for example.

Their branded app includes several features, such as real-time progress tracking, the bike trail and hiking finder, and social integration users to share their accomplishments with their friends, which help boost brand awareness and engagement.

Thermos is another example.

Their brand app points users to the nearest public fountains to fill their water bottles. The app provides user-generated ratings for convenience, cleanliness, and coldness of the water.

So, if you’re running a business, you can include features that allow your users to do certain tasks related to your business.

For example, if you’re running an online store or a restaurant, you may want to allow users to place an order online, view products and menus.

To come up with value-added features, you need to brainstorm for creative ideas.

Can you think about any value-added features, like the North Face and Thermos did above for their app?

If yes, incorporate those ideas into your app to make it stand out from all other similar apps that plague the industry, which will also help achieve your marketing goals.

2. Perform Keyword Research

Did you know: 63% of apps are discovered through organic search?

If you know what your target audience is typing to search your product, your apps have a better chance of being found on the Internet and downloaded than those who don’t.

Therefore, finding the ‘right’ keywords is very important part of SEO and app store optimization (ASO) to make your app easily discoverable.

To optimize your app for SEO, you’ll need to set aside time for it.

That means, carefully placing keywords into the title and description fields in the mobile app stores (Google Play and Apple’s App Store), as well as on the app landing pages on your website.

Google stores app content that is found in its search results.

Picking up right keywords and content can boost rankings of your apps in the organic searches as well as in app store searches.

3. Building Your App’s Online Presence

Begin by designing an icon, app theme, marketing materials such as articles, banner ads, and announcements.

Then, create a landing page.

If you’re on a budget, Unbounce offers pocket-friendly and highly customizable templates. These freemiums will help you create an awesome-looking landing page where you can announce your app launch, collect email addresses from visitors, and provide links to the download page once it is released.

You can also include content on your landing page for SEO purposes.

At this stage, you can also begin your work on social media. Just choose one or two popular social media platforms (Facebook and Twitter for example) where your target audience hangs out the most.

This’ll help you reach out to people who are more likely to engage with your content and download your app.

To ensure you’re targeting the right people, you may also want to think about paid social ad to test your landing page.

If you’re converting 3 to 4 percent, then know you are on the right platform and targeting right people.

Have a blog or an email subscriber’s list? Use these tools to promote your mobile app launch too.

Do you know a journalist or someone working in the local paper? Reach out to them a week before and see if he or she will write an article or blog post about it.

4. Launching Your App

First, send your subscriber’s list an e-mail on the app launch day.

Second, make use of social media sites to promote your app.

For example, if your target audiences are using Facebook, use Facebook’s app-install ad to get people to download your app and build momentum.

If they’re using Instagram, reach out to industry influencers in your niche and ask them if they’re willing to promote your app through a sponsored post.

Thirdly, upload your app on marketplaces, with online pages and links to all app stores.

Fourthly, if you’re running a brick-and-mortar business, place a signage outside announcing the launch of your app. Later, when your customers arrive, ask them to text you so you can send them a message with a link to your app.

Lastly, keep everything simple.

5. Your App Marketing Strategies

There are two ways to promote your app: paid or organic.

The promotion type you’ll choose will depend entirely on your budget, the niche you’re in, and your marketing goals.

Here’s an overview of each app promotion option:

a. App-Install Campaigns

App-install campaigns offer a wonderful opportunity to get your app in front of a large target audience on social sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

There’s also an advantage of tracking your ROI using this method, as you can easily see which ad leads to an app install.

b. Paid Social Media

Paid social media is also a cost-effective way to get exposure for your app.

Here are a few great options you can try:

Promote pins on Pinterest
Promote images on Instagram
Place ads on StumbleUpon and Reddit
Post sponsored ads on LinkedIn

c. Pay per Click

App stores don’t offer paid search at this stage. That’s when the search engine marketing option comes to rescue your day.

If you know how to use Google AdWords and Analytics, you can easily get good results.

However, note that the new iOS 9 update released in September 2015 lets users block ads, including Google Ads, in their mobile device.

Fortunately, in-app ads won’t be blocked. So, consider this option in your overall app marketing strategy.

d. Email and SMS Text Campaigns (Organic)

Depending on the demographics of your target audience, text campaigns offer a higher ROI over other e-blast techniques discussed above.

If you choose this method, make sure to optimize your landing page for mobile.

Email blasts to your subscribers help boost downloads, but avoid purchasing lists, as they yield poor performance metrics and cost you a lot.

6. Organic Mobile App Promotion (Organic)

For many businesses (small and medium), organic mobile app promotion, via SEO, ASO, social media, and other marketing tactics is the most budget-friendly for boosting downloads and building momentum.

Make sure your brand website is up and running, all the time.
People may land on any pages on your website; make sure your app is featured with download links throughout your website.
Set up a company blog and craft useful, relevant, and engaging copy to boost downloads
Reach out to another website where your target audience visits and ask them if you can submit a guest post. (Many websites will allow placing a link back to your article or post, as long as you provide value to their readers.)

Do not forget about social media.

It’s an excellent tool to build brand engagement and awareness.

The trick is to give your followers a hook – a reason to share your app.

Consider Nike’s app, for example.

They allow their users share information about their runs – routes, distance, and time taken.

Just like Nike, think about all the features you could add to your app too to motivate social sharing.

Here are few social media tips:

Ask your followers to rate your app to help your ASO efforts
Give your audience an incentive such as free coupons or loyalty points to promote or “like” your app
Create a promotional video of your app; the video is the most popular type of content on social media.
Check your social media account regularly; respond to comment and feedback.

7. Few Things to Know About App Store Optimization (ASO)

ASO is the best option for organic discoverability.

This is because about 60% of all apps are found through organic searches in the app store.

Here are few tips that’ll help you get most out of your ASO efforts:

Find ‘right’ keywords and place them carefully into your app descriptions – insert them into titles and the first sentence of your description.
Create an icon that fits your brand image; use it consistently everywhere you promote your app
Include screenshots that highlights your app’s best features – this is the number one deciding factors for many users for downloading your app or not.
In ASO, factors such as ratings, reviews, and a number of downloads play a huge role, although they’re out of your control. To minimize negative reviews and ratings, offer an in-app channel for feedback so that you can tackle any issues with your app.

8. Keeping Your Users Engaged

According to a recent research, many people uninstall apps because of these reasons:

The app didn’t provide value or wasn’t useful
It was difficult to use
It got too many alerts and ads
There were many technical errors

As you can see, a number of downloads, positive reviews and ratings aren’t enough. You need to engage and re-engage your target audience.

Push-notifications is the best way to re-engage your users.

However, you need to use it wisely.

A generic message that says, “You haven’t opened your app recently” isn’t going to be effective.

The notification has to be contextual.

You have to understand where your customer is and what they’re doing and let them know how your app is going to help them.

For this, consider sending out the location-based message. For example, let your user know they can grab a special discount at a nearby store.

Conclusion

App marketing is an on-going process that begins with effective online presence, and then, it builds from there.

Remember to use analytic tools to keep track of your progress and build efforts that generate the best results for you. To build the momentum, keep on sending out well-timed re-engagement campaigns and push notifications.