This is only half of the battle – to make your application. The second half – to find the right path to the minds, hearts, and wallets of customers. We want to offer you proven recipes of how to market an app, how to promote an app and how to advertise an app.
First of all, this article will be useful for iOS and android developers (for a startup). But who knows, perhaps mobile app promotion companies will find something interesting either.
The mobile app industry has already developed the best ways to app promotion and monetization. We just analyzed and structured this tips that will suit both: industry beginners and large companies. So you’ve designed an application and place it in a specialized online store (such as App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone Store – because we are now talking not only about android app marketing). What’s next?
Read also: Best Ways to Monetize an App
But before we proceed – let’s take an eye on a few facts and analytics.
Business and dating
Business applications are in great demand. Despite the fact that the audience is 10 times smaller than a gamer audience, it’s easier to get $20- $30 for an application or an annual subscription for $100. The Dating monetization is one of the strongest niches. It means that funds for user involvement can be equal to how much revenue he will bring. To work around this hole, you can use the “viral marketing” – when you try to cover all the user’s friends, address book, Facebook, or the web audience, which you can get for less money, beat to mobile and try to monetize.
Some analytics
• A good free version is crucial to push users to pay;
• When the conditional price for an app is $1.5, 70-90% of users tries the free version first, in case when the price is $0.75 – 40-60% of users will buy full version;
• The market is very sensitive to the price changes, if you lower application costs by half, the sales may increase three times;
• Advertising through other applications is much more efficient. The ratio of clicks to impressions is 6-10 times more than the placement of advertising banners on the resource;
• The desired application size should not exceed 10Mb – this figure is important, as it gives access to a greater number of consumers through the use of the mobile network even through 3G / LTE, not just Wi-Fi. Practice shows doubling the number of downloads by reducing size, for example, 20 MB to 10 MB and less.
Mobile app promotion strategies
So, how actually start your mobile app promotion if you have a small budget or maybe want to promote your app for free? Target with Facebook or even to go to the net advertising? We have some answers!
1. Social networks & Blogs:
Shai Rosenzweig, founder and COO of the social network for neighbors Meetey, made his own list of recommendations for the promotion of mobile applications. In the first place of this list there is the need to use all available channels to talk about your products. Primarily through the Internet.
Read also: Social Media App Development
According to the expert, developers should report about their program to friends on Facebook and Twitter, write a post about it on several blogging platforms and provide links to these posts on the project’s official page.
The ideal post for social networks should look like this:
• A brief description of the functionality of the application; • A screenshot;
• The link with the “download” slogan;
If the post is short, informative and contains a clear call to download, the audience will respond.
It’s not enough to preview the application once. Previews need to be regular. The best way to keep interest in your product is to start a blog on a regular basis, telling your target audience something they are interested in.
2. Media
Rosenzweig, like many other analysts, says that the success of the application depends on the number of references to it in the media. Of course, authoritative socio-political publications will not write about some mediocre application. But the specialized media is usually interesting in. Journalists also need something to write, right?
Media promotion is best to start with the popular specialized online media: iPhone Application List, MacWorld, AppAdvice, and AppSpy.
3. SEO
Most people are not usually looking for a particular application. Most people are gaining on Google fairly vague inquiries “puzzle game”, “clothing store”, “Lyrics”, “heart rate”, “download” or something like that.
For this reason, it’s very important to indicate in the description of the product exact keywords and phrases. These keywords can be used in contextual ads. Despite the growing skepticism about the effectiveness of online advertising, contextual ads are still working well.
Do not think that SEO is only “search engine optimization”. Optimization should focus on your target audience. Remember that all of your content is ultimately designed for users, not for the Google robot. Write for people.
4. TV Channels
Television advertising for many people seems awfully expensive and inefficient. But if the application developer can afford to advertise their products on television (at least at a cheap regional, cable, and Internet channels), it’s wonderful. In fact, television commercials are effective! Therefore, experts of analytics company Localytics advised to use it without hesitation, of course, if the budget allows.
According to Nielsen analysts, up to 40% of mobile users keep their hands on their devices when watching TV. And if they see an intriguing video, they are likely to download the application immediately.
If you are not satisfied with paid advertising, make and upload your promo video to the Internet, to all known free sites. It’s useful, you’ll see.
5. Share function
Often, mobile application developers underestimate the value of the built-in «Share» button. In fact, with this wonderful button is quite simple to get users to advertise the application to friends via Facebook, Twitter or Instagram for free. Imagine that you are a developer of a pedometer application, you direct route to the groups dedicated to a healthy lifestyle. Make it so that the user, who walked (or ran) today a very long distance, could report about this to his friends in one-click. Soon they learn not only about his good physical shape but also about your application.
Some game developers have gone even further. They offer players to share the link with their friends on social networks. For every click player gets bonus points and for the virtual currency user can buy a lot of valuable goods inside the game. Think about adding it to your app.
See also: How to Make a Photo Sharing App Like Instagram?
Many experts say that you need to enter the market rapidly. The best option would be to start the application only after the bug correction and QA control, to make it perfect. While the program is not established, do not advertise it! Moreover, try not to draw attention before the program is not ready and does not work.
It is also necessary to conduct a “media attack” on the launch day. Big and massive enough for your product not to go unnoticed. It is desirable to place all advertising posts in social media and specialized media within one day after the launch of the product. And at the same time, you need to post all promotional banners. It will be more effective than long, but sluggish advertising campaign.
Read also: Mobile App Analytics Tools
These tips are useful if you want to build your custom application for windows, ios and for android market. We hope that this article was interesting and will help you enter the market and gain success!
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