So you’ve done what it takes to make a killer mobile app. You love your design, it’s flawless, easy to understand and you believe it has a real place in the market. You might have finished your first hurdle. But, success won’t come easy. Developing a mobile app is the first sight, but generating the awareness and maintaining the steady download figures through mobile app promotion is the other.
As of June 2017, there were over 3 million apps in the Google Play Store and over 2.7 million apps in the Apple App Store. So, you’re not alone. Right now there are millions of apps in the App Store, vying for users’ attention in nearly every niche. In fact, there are thousands of apps available each day, means the competition for downloads, search space and competition is fierce. So, how you can do mobile app promotion in a way that it gets discovered and create a steady flow of downloads?
Here the single digital marketing trick won’t work, you need to exploit a 360-degree marketing approach to get the message across. Let us first know the importance of 360-degree strategy to increase your customer base:
1. You get to know which channel is performing best in terms of user retention.
2. You gain a nuanced view of your users so that you can effectively pursue the tactics that work the best for a specific user base.
3. Cost effective and targeted to get a maximum user acquisition, engagement and retention.
4. You can achieve better branding, improves your app ranking and make it more user-friendly.
5. Help you manage each phase of your app performance: past, present and future.
All About Mobile App Promotion
Now, begins the most tedious or difficult part of promoting your app. It’s all about thinking outside the box to get your mobile app noticed. Below are the 6 most unbeatable digital marketing tricks for mobile app promotion:
Build a Top Performing Landing Page
Having a visually stunning landing page is like always having a great business card. Just in case you ever need it, it’s best to have it with you. It’s the page, where almost all of your web traffic goes. Even a lot of your paid campaigns will end up going there. So, if your app landing page looks visually appealing and has all the key features, it becomes much easier to transform that traffic to download. Also, clear call-to-actions are necessary when creating a landing page dedicated to your app. This will help in directing users to download your app.
Increase Your Social Media Outreach
Social Media is one of the most powerful digital marketing strategies for mobile app promotion. As there is no surefire way to have your app appeared in the featured list of the App Store, you can depend on social media to boost your app downloads. You can use social media in two ways; one is organic and the other is paid. While the organic approach demands constant sharing of exclusive sneak peeks, promo videos and teasers of the app across all channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, etc. The paid marketing is something that also drives interest in people and in fact, it can result in click-through rates of up to 32%.
This means at least third of the people will click through the offer and eventually download the app. You can integrate Facebook and Twitter directly into your app. It is an ideal way to acquire social media because the collective promotional strength of these channels can boost any big mobile app advertising campaign.
Optimizing Your App Store
As the SEO is for search engines, App Store Optimization is for in-store promotion. It is required to rank higher in an app store’s search results. So, the higher your app ranks, the more it will drive traffic to your apps page in the app store. And hence, the visitors will browse through information and if they like the context of your app, they’ll probably download it. If you want to make the most of it, make sure your app involves these basic parameters:
- App Name & Ratings: Make sure your app name is unique with positive app ratings.
- Keyword: Include only relevant and SEO friendly keywords. It can improve your app search ranking by an average of 10.3%.
- Description: Besides being searchable, your app description should be original, professionally written, compelling and provides only the information that seems valuable in the eyes of your audience.
- Downloads: The more downloads the App has, the higher the chances of appearing at the top for those keywords.
- Screenshots: Nice screenshots always play a significant role in showcasing the key features of your mobile app. But a complementary video highlighting the apps USP will serve as a user guide and this could perhaps increase your download numbers which in turn could rank your app higher in the store.
Content Marketing
Create and curate the content that is relevant to your app and niche in on exactly what unique value you can give to your audience. Publishing and amplifying the content reach on social media channels can work wonders in targeting a new customer base. Give a reason to people to come, find you and stay at your page little while. So as long as your content holds its relevancy, your content will be visible and it will keep inspiring or educate your customers.
Mobile App Advertising
If you’re thinking about PPC advertising, make sure to put your ads on mobile devices. There is Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, etc. that helps in targeting users when they search on their mobile devices. Advertising through social media channels allows you to target people based on their demographics and interests. You can get more specific with Facebook Ads.
If you want to quickly bolster the visibility, traffic and download numbers, you’ve to run simultaneous ad campaigns on multiple platforms. Also, improve ad copies and use re-targeting to increase conversions. You can choose negative keywords to minimize the unwanted clicks and lower your advertising costs. In app advertising options like AdMob from Google can also help boost your mobile app downloads. Apart from Google Play & App Store, consider other alternative app stores like Amazon Appstore, GetJar, Slideme, AppBrain and many others to name a few.
Synchronize Your Efforts & Continually Promote Retention
The launch of your mobile app should be designed to achieve maximum exposure. Synchronizing your efforts on several outlets can have a multiplier effect and get people to click on the download button. Creating and marketing a mobile app is only half the battle. But continuously promoting the app to your potential users is the other half. Hence, don’t ever stop or slow down. If your users have uninstalled or deleted your app forever, you should use mobile app re-targeting campaigns to get them back.
Final Words:
There is no one-size fits all digital marketing trick in the world of mobile app promotion. So, you should first determine which strategy works the best for you. In order to taste success, spend time putting together a strong app user acquisition strategy. Stay unique and proactive – as in digital times, mobile apps are a lifestyle choice, you too have the chance to make your app user base skyrocket. This can help you create a lot of buzz around your app, improve its visibility on app stores and ultimately increase user downloads.