There are almost 1.3 million apps on Google’s Play Store and around 1.1 million on App Store. The number is constantly on an upward surge which is indicative of the fact that mobile apps are here to stay. Where does your mobile app stand in the burgeoning crowd of apps? Without a proper marketing strategy in place, your app may get lost in the quagmire of the already existing and popular apps.
Indigenous developers who transform their idea into an app do not have a fortune to spend on the marketing side. In fact, their budget might not allow spending even a penny on advertisements and marketing on different platforms.
The developers who have been building apps backed by game changing ideas must not be worried about the resources, they would need to spend on the marketing as there are ample ways to assist them in app promotion that costs nothing.
There are some tried and tested ways which can help you market your app without having to spend a lot of resources. All you need to do is to be smart in choosing your channels for marketing and make the most of them. Even without a budget to spend on marketing, you can ensure that your app gets good exposure and is able to target the intended audience.
Being active on social media platforms exposes you to a huge user base which you can leverage to project your app in the best way possible. There have been many instances where large companies have pushed extraordinary app downloads through Facebook, Twitter and other social media engines. Inbound marketing is what you need to perform at this point of time when users are looking for great apps and will come to you, if you are able to offer them what they desire.
Planning your mobile marketing strategy
There are several factors that need to be considered when devising the strategy for the mobile app marketing. If you are on a shoestring budget, achieving the target becomes challenging but still possible.
Talking of social media, there is no dearth of platforms where you can talk about your app even before its launch. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and many others enjoy a humongous user base and your app can get an unprecedented visibility. Connecting your app with these social engines also encourages word to mouth publicity.
If you thought inviting your friends to like your app page is all you need to do for social media marketing, you are terribly mistaken. The additional things that you can do to push your app are the incorporation of Facebook login, starting campaigns on Twitter and much more. Making the most of other social sites like Pinterest, Reddit and Instagram can also be instrumental in making the app a run away hit.
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Good ROI can be expected when you use the social media websites to their full potential and engage with the target users.
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Facebook login integration has helped many apps reach out to the users and reports suggest that apps without Facebook integration have fared badly as compared to those apps which allowed the users to login through Facebook.
Optimization of the app
As already mentioned, there are millions of apps available at the app stores and for your app to be visible to the users, optimization is a must. By app optimization, it means that the name of the app and the use of keywords must be optimized, so that the users are able to find it easily on the store. Keywords hold a lot of importance and must not be ignored.
If your app is a multilingual one, try to use a few keywords in those languages too. Moreover, the name of the company and the app must not be included in the keyword. Instead, use niche keywords which are not used by others. Perform research and make use of Google Keyword tools to create keywords that are the most searched by the users.
Other ways of app optimization are:-
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Choosing the icon which is easy to recognise and remember by A/B testing.
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Selecting the App category wisely as it can affect the ranks and consequently the number of downloads.
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Making sure that your app is published on multiple stores in order to tap the users on all the fronts.
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Encouraging the users to rate and review the app as it goes a long way in building the credibility of the app and boost the downloads.
Public relation for app marketing
By applying some PR tactics, you can market your app effectively. All you need to do is to retrieve the contact information of the top tech journalists, come up with a press release which announces that the disruptive app is finally being launched. Finding the emails of the journalists is tough but Google may help you in this regard. Hanging out in the conferences lets you get acquainted with the journalists and bloggers who can be of great help in reviewing your application and start word to mouth publicity.
After you are ready with your press kit, which can be anything from a YouTube video to a PDf file highlighting the salient features of the app, you need to have it published at the right places. Also, you can have your app reviewed by niche app reviewers which will further help in cementing your position in the market. Public relation campaign for the apps requires you to be very careful and not miss any opportunity. You need to understand which tech journalist is covering which apps because a journalist would not like to review more than 2 or 3 apps of the same category over a short period of time.
Microsite for traffic through web
Although your app is for mobile phones, the users must be targeted through different channels. Creating a microsite for the app which takes the user to the app store can lead to better user acquisition to boost the downloads. Your microsite does not need to be a full fledged website but a web page which showcases the app in the best light and presents the highlights and the distinctive features of the app. The web users can be made to land on the page first and then redirected to the app store. Make sure that the page is responsive in order to track those users who are using mobile browsers.
Keep the content fresh
Nobody likes content which appears stale and dated. The content that you use in your app must be fresh and unique and must hit the right spot. Furthermore, you can link a blog with the microsite that you have created to generate the web traffic. Most search engines index a website with blogs featuring fresh and unique content. As the webpage starts to rank higher, the traffic to your app will increase automatically. Sharing the blog posts on different social media websites like Facebook, Stumbleupon and Twitter will also help a great deal.
Build the hype
The marketing of an app begins the day, its development starts. If you wish to engage the users, you need to build the hype through several channels. For instance, you can start a campaign on social media platforms for the icon selection, etc. You must have observed many mobile app giants creating a build up before the actual launch. It makes the users curious and they begin to wait for the product. However, the users are not easily mesmerized and hence, you must come up with a teaser that highlights the salient features of the app in the most effective and attractive manner.
Conclusion
Mobile marketing is something your app cannot do without. You must target the intended users in order to showcase the distinctive features that your app is offering to them. It is of utmost importance for you to tell the story of app and the idea that drives it. You also need to enlist the features of the app in the shortest and the most crisp way so as to attract the consumer and convince them to try the app.
Images: Author’s Own
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