Mobile Marketing Best Practices That Can Skyrocket Your App

Mobile Marketing Best Practices That Can Skyrocket Your App

You’ve conducted market research, performed SWOT analysis, sized up your market, assessed your competition, and now it’s time to reel in the customers. You’ve got a great app that’s ready to be published and you’re confident you can sit back and start reaping in the rewards and revenues.

Reality check.

No matter how great your app is, marketing it is as important as developing and publishing it. No one will use your app if they can’t find it, right? So, the first step in app marketing is putting the word out, getting consumers to know that your app exists. But just how do you go about doing that?

Pre-launch

Don’t wait for your app release to start promoting it to your target audience. An effective release is one that is preceded by a quality build up. Little teasers of what your app is capable of in relevant social spaces, a launch date and time announcement so that interested parties know exactly how long they will have to wait, and the slow release of information pertaining to your app the closer you get to the launch date is the way to go. What this approach does is it builds the anticipation among your target market. People will hear or read about the app, drum up anticipation, tell their friends about this latest app to hit the market, and generally build a healthy air of eagerness and expectancy.

An Effective SEO Strategy

Where do people search to find more information these days? The Internet. As this Think with Google paper explains – “While the app store and word of mouth are major sources of app awareness, search can also help consumers discover apps during moments of intent. In fact, one in four app users discover apps through a search engine.” Having your app search engine optimized will lead to greater visibility and higher download numbers. But how do you go about making your app SEO-friendly? Here’s what you need to do –

SEO optimized description – the biggest and most effective means of making your app SEO relevant is to sort out the description. Use of simple language, key words, and succinct writing can all help leverage your app.Accompanying website – An equally effective means of ensuring your app ranks highest on a search engine is to have a website dedicated to your app. This will allow for a more inclusive set of keywords, a more detailed introduction to your app and its capabilities, and if executed correctly, higher rankings on search results.Everything should be optimized – The smallest elements of your app can go a long way towards ensuring SEO success. So make sure that everything from your App’s name to its icons, screenshots, videos, and any other element or media have been given the SEO treatment.

How do you know that your SEO is effective though? You need to keep an eye on essential metrics such as domain authority, organic and direct traffic, keyword rankings, and bounce rates to ascertain SEO effectiveness.

Test Your App

According to the same aforementioned Think with Google paper, the number one source of app awareness is word of mouth. The paper says that 52% of respondents heard of the apps they downloaded from friends, family and colleagues. To provide some perspective, the second highest ranked source was the app store itself at 40%, followed by search engines in third with 27%. So drumming up the human interest and getting the word out is essential.

The best way to go about this is to invite influencers to become beta testers. Beta testing not only allows you to fine tune your app for mass consumption, it is also the first real opportunity for a small sample of those potential consumers to try it out. If they like what they see, chances are they will begin to tell people about your app, creating more of the pre-launch buzz we addressed at the beginning of this article.

Media Mania

As we mentioned earlier, word of mouth is the most effective tool of advertising your app. So why not turn your App users into your app’s strongest advocates? Here’s how you can leverage the popularity of your app for wider reach –

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Social media platforms: The most obvious means for app marketing is social media. The term ‘viral’ usually goes with social media, so gaining notoriety (of the good kind) on these social platforms is a great way to popularize your app.Community engagement: Regardless of whether your app is focused on a certain demographic or the masses in general, it is critical that you reach out to them. Community engagement can take many forms including Q&A sessions, ‘live’ sessions, interviews and more.Press Releases: Press outlets and news blogs are always looking for news to report on, so why not make their job easier?

A crisp e-mail that contains all the important information regarding your app and links to hi-res images that these news outlets can use (the latter is extremely important) can help increase your app’s awareness by a great degree.Email Marketing: Sending out emails to your consumer database is another great way to reach out to potential app users. When they don’t have to work to receive the information, and if it’s presented in a fun manner, users are much more likely to give your app a shot. Influencer reviews: Once your app is complete, organising a soft launch only for media personnel, bloggers and influencers can also be beneficial.

Not only can they provide valuable insights on where the app can improve, but will also write about them as an unbiased third party that the masses will trust. A positive review from tech media can go a long way towards boosting an apps popularity, and underlining your apps capabilities and credentials.Audience retention

So you’ve built a great app, executed an effective marketing campaign, and got a decent number of downloads for your app. Is that the end of your work then? Well, not quite. You see, it’s all about retaining your audience. You don’t want your users to uninstall your app after just a few weeks. You want your app to have longevity so that you can earn sustained revenues for years. Here’s how you go about retaining your app users –

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Fix your issues: Your app store comments section is a great way to find out what users don’t like about your app. Take feedback, take cognisance of this feedback, and work swiftly to improve it.

Plugging holes will lead to greater customer satisfaction, and lower likeness of uninstalls.Make your first impression your best one: UX or user experience is an important aspect of the app, and having an absorbing user experience will help you a great deal. Including an element that requires daily check-ins to stand to gain a discount or any such rewards-based component will help deliver greater retention. Incentivizing your customers to return is a great way to ensure that they do.Send a notification or e-mail to inactive users:

The best way to get a user back is to remind them that your app exists and why they should use it. Using elements of hum-or laced with a strong app message can help bring people back.Provide useful updates: Constant updates that don’t add value can prove to be detrimental, but useful ones can help retain consumers. Always look for value addition propositions for app to make sure that your users have a reason to keep coming back for more.

If you follow all the directions given above, and have a winning app to go with them, there’s no reason why your app shouldn’t hit the big time. Good luck!