So, you’ve developed the next world-changing app? Congratulations!
Now it’s time to get the word out and start driving downloads.
But with over 3.4 million apps on Google Play Store and 2.22 million on App Store, how do you get your app to stand out from the crowd and get noticed?
The key to success lies with effective marketing.
Using the right mix of App Store Optimisation (ASO) and App Store Marketing (ASM) tactics, you can improve your app’s visibility, attract more downloads, and boost conversion rates.
What’s Mobile Marketing?
Mobile marketing is the process of promoting your app to reach a wider audience and encourage them to download it.
It involves using a variety of channels, including paid, organic, and social media, to reach potential users on their mobile devices.
Why’s Mobile Marketing Important?
There are more than 5.32 billion unique mobile users in the world. (Source Datareportal, 2022). This presents a massive opportunity for businesses to reach out to their target audience and promote their products or services.
With the modern consumer using their mobile devices for almost everything, from entertainment to online shopping, it’s never been more important for businesses to have a mobile presence.
Mobile marketing allows you to reach your target audience where they spend most of their time and connect with them on a personal level.
When done right, mobile marketing can be an extremely effective way to boost app downloads, increase brand awareness, and generate leads.
Why Invest in Mobile Marketing?
- Statistics show that 91% of mobile users say they keep their devices within arm’s reach 24/7, and 61% of people check their phone within five minutes of waking up.
- With mobile users spending an average of five to six hours on their devices each day, there are a lot of opportunities for businesses to reach their target audiences.
- Users use their mobile phones more frequently than desktop computers. To put a number on it, 75.1% of internet users say they access the internet on their mobile phones.
- Another reason to invest in mobile marketing is because of how easy it is to convert users. You don’t have to reach a user at a specific point, but anywhere they are, in real-time. You can reach them when they aren’t at home, on the road, or while at work.
- What’s more, users are more likely to take action on their mobile devices. In fact, according to Google, 88% of users who make local searches from their smartphones end up taking action within a week. Source: ThinkWithGoogle. On the contrary, 39% of users ultimately take action after searching on their desktop computers.
- Most Consumers Search for Gift Ideas and Holiday Events on Their Smartphones. The holiday season is a great opportunity for businesses to promote their products or services. And with mobile searches souring during holidays, this presents itself as the perfect opportunity for businesses to invest in mobile marketing.
Market Research
Before we dive into how to optimise your app marketing campaign, we’d like to first look at how to conduct market research.
According to International Business Times, the Apple App Store receives upwards of 1000 app submissions per day.
Competition is fierce, and to stand out, you need to understand your target audience and their needs fully.
You must be prepared to answer a series of questions, including:
- Who is your target audience?
- What are their needs?
- What are they looking for in an app?
- How will your app meet their needs?
- What are your app’s unique selling points?
- And how are your competitors targeting the same audience?
To answer these questions, you need to utilise various market research methods, including surveys, interviews, focus groups, and secondary research.
It also helps to create user personas. User personas are fictitious characters that represent your target audience.
Each persona should be based on real data and include information such as the persona’s name, gender, age, occupation, location, interests, needs, and pain points.
You create user personas by segmenting demographics, interests, preferences, and behaviours.
Market Research Tools
Market research tools are as diverse as the market research methods themselves. There are plenty of great market research tools available, both paid and free.
A few of our favourites include:
- Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool that provides insights into how users find and use your website or app.
- UserTesting: UserTesting is a paid service that allows businesses to test their websites or apps with real people.
- SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey is a paid survey tool you can use to collect data from your target audiences.
- Mention: Mention is a paid tool that allows businesses to track online conversations and mentions of their brand.
- Attest: Attest is a paid tool that allows businesses to create surveys and collect data from their target audiences.
Photo Source: Vilmate
How to Market an App: 10 Essential App Marketing Strategies and Tips
Now that you know how to conduct market research for your app marketing campaign, it’s time to look at how to optimise your app marketing strategy.
#1. Start with Your App’s Landing Page and Blog
A landing page is to an app what a storefront is to a brick-and-mortar business.
It’s the first thing users see when they visit your app’s website, and it needs to make a good impression.
So, what’s the role of a mobile app landing page?
A mobile app landing page should:
- Convince users to download your app
- Inform users about your app’s features and benefits
- Include strong calls-to-action
- Be optimised for SEO
To achieve this, your landing page should:
- Be well-designed and user-friendly
- Include high-quality images and videos
- Load quickly
- Be optimised for conversion
- The text on your landing page should be well-written, persuasive, and to the point.
- Have a link to your app on Google Play and App Store
When setting up a landing page for your app, you should try to visualise what your users expect to see after they install the app. How’s the app going to make their lives better?
You can use this question to guide the content on your landing page.
Your app’s blog is also an important tool for marketing your app. You can use your blog to:
- Generate traffic to your landing page
- Inform users about new features and updates
- Provide customer support
- Build relationships with your users
To optimise your blog for app marketing, you should:
- Publish high-quality, informative content
- Update your blog regularly
- Promote your blog posts on social media
- Include strong calls-to-action
- Most importantly, make sure the blog is optimised for SEO.
#2. Optimising Your App Store Page
You’ve probably heard of the term ASO or App Store Optimization. ASO is the process of optimising your app store page to improve your visibility in the app stores (Google Play Store and App Store).
ASO is an integral part of app marketing because it directs users to your app’s page in the app store, affecting its ranking in app store search results.
It attracts organic traffic at no cost.
Like SEO, ASO is a long-term strategy, and it takes time to see results.
To optimise your app store page, you should:
- Choose the right app name
- Use the right keywords
- Write a persuasive description
- Include high-quality images and videos
- Encourage user reviews and ratings
- Update your app regularly
- Make good use of secondary app categories
- Localise your app store page
Here’s a complete guide to ASO if you want to learn more.
#3. Social Media Marketing
Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are powerful tools for marketing your app.
You can use social media to generate awareness, build relationships, and drive traffic to your landing page.
When using social media for app marketing, you should:
- Create a social media profile for your app
- Publish high-quality, engaging content
- Post regularly
- Build relationships with other users
- Promote your app’s features and benefits
- Include strong calls-to-action
- Use paid social media advertising
If you want to learn more about social media marketing, here’s a complete guide.
An average social media user spends about 2 hours 27 minutes on social media platforms every day. So, if you’re not using social media to market your app, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.
Social media is also an excellent way to build a community around your app and get valuable feedback from users.
Your social media content can include user-generated content, blog entries, discussion threads, polls, etc.
To encourage user engagement, you should:
- Responds to comments and questions promptly
- Encourage users to share their feedback
- Host contests and giveaways
- Use social media analytics to track your performance
- Make sure your social media profiles are linked to your app’s landing page
#4. Email Marketing
Email marketing is a powerful tool for driving traffic to your landing page and increasing conversions.
When done right, email marketing can be highly effective. In fact, email marketing has an astounding ROI of 4,200%.
Creating an email list is an excellent way to connect with your users and build relationships.
You can use email to:
- Inform users about new features and updates
- Generate interest in your app
- Encourage user engagement
- Promote special offers
To build an email list, you can:
- Add a sign-up form on your app’s landing page
- Include a call-to-action in your emails
- Offer an incentive for signing up
- Segment your list and send targeted emails
If you want to learn more about email marketing, here’s a complete guide.
Email Marketing: Your Ultimate Guide
Email marketing will help you increase app retention rates and generate more downloads and revenue.
According to Emarsys, a cloud marketing software provider, email marketing is the number one driver of customer retention.
To put a number to it, 81% of small to medium-sized businesses rely on this marketing strategy for user acquisition and retention.
Your email must include a CTA, preferably a link to your app’s landing page, to encourage users to download or re-engage with your app.
In a study conducted by hardware Toast, including a single CTA can increase the click-through rate of your email marketing campaign by 371%. So, don’t forget to include a CTA in your email marketing campaigns.
You also want to personalise your emails as much as possible to increase open rates.
According to HubSpot, personalising your CTAs can improve conversion rates by as much as 202%.
To further increase open rates, you can segment your email list and send targeted emails.
User segmentation is the process of dividing your users into groups based on shared characteristics.
You can segment your email list by:
- App usage
- Location
- Device
- Operating system
- Age
- Gender
Once you’ve segmented your email list, you can send targeted emails to each group. That will help you improve open rates and conversion rates.
#5. Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing that involves working with influencers to promote your app.
An influencer is someone who has a large following on social media and is considered an expert in their field.
Working with an influencer can help you reach a larger audience and generate more downloads for your app.
When choosing an influencer to work with, you should:
- Look for someone who has a large and engaged following
- Choose an influencer who is relevant to your app
- Make sure the influencer is a good fit for your brand
- Check that the influencer has disclosed any paid promotions
To find relevant influencers, you can use a tool like Buzzsumo. Just enter a keyword related to your app, and the tool will show you a list of influencers in that niche.
You can also use Google to find influencers. Just enter a keyword followed by “influencer” or “blogger.”
For example, if you have a fitness app, you could search for “fitness influencers” or “fitness bloggers.”
90% of shoppers say authenticity is a key factor when deciding which brands to support.
In other words, the influencer you choose to work with has the potential to make or break your campaign.
So, how do you know if an influencer is a good fit for your brand?
The best way to find out is to look at the content they’ve created in the past. Do their values align with your brand?
There are many ways you can use influencers to achieve your marketing goals.
The first one is by giving them a freebie that they can share with their audience. This can be in the form of a discount code or a free trial.
Another way is by working with them to create content, such as a blog post or video, that promotes your app.
You can also run a contest or giveaway on their social media channels. This is a great way to increase engagement and generate more downloads for your app.
You can even ask them to review your app on their blog or YouTube channel. Options abound, so get creative.
#6. Referral Marketing
Referral marketing is a type of word-of-mouth marketing that encourages users to tell their friends and family about your app.
One of the best ways to do this is by offering incentives, such as discounts or freebies.
You can also use social media to encourage referrals. For example, you could run a contest where the prize is a free year’s subscription to your app.
To encourage more downloads, you can also offer a discount to users who refer your app to their friends.
For example, you could give them a discount code that they can share with their friends. When their friends use the code, they’ll get a discount on your app.
Suffice it to say referral marketing is an excellent strategy to increase downloads and drive engagement.
#7. Prepare a Media Strategy for Your App
You can contact the press and try to get them to write about your app.
This is an excellent strategy to generate some buzz around your app and get more people to download it.
When you’re reaching out to the press, it’s important to:
- Have a story to tell
- Know who to contact
- Send a well-written email
It’s also a good idea to have a press kit prepared. This should include:
- A press release
- High-resolution images of your app
- A link to your app’s website
- Your contact details
You can also try to get featured on an app store. This is a great way to increase visibility and generate more downloads.
To do this, you need to:
- Optimise your app store listing
- Submit your app to review sites
- Reach out to app bloggers
Dig co-founders Casey Isaacson and Leigh Isaacson held a Mobile Spree talk where they detailed ways to harness the media’s interest for your app.
Some of their tips include:
- Do your research
- Build relationships
- Make it easy for them
#8. Retention Campaigns
Once you’ve generated some downloads, it’s important to focus on retention.
After all, what’s the point of getting people to download your app if they never use it again?
There are a few things you can do to increase retention rates.
First, you need to ensure your app is high quality and user-friendly. If it’s not, people will quickly get frustrated and delete it.
Your retention rate is the percentage of users still using your app after a certain period: one day, one month, or one year.
For example, if 100 people download your app and only 50 are still using it after one month, your retention rate would be 50%.
By working on improving your retention rate, you’ll also be enhancing your lifetime value (LTV) per user.
That is the average amount of money a user spends on your app over their lifetime.
The idea is to identify where your users churn (the point where they stop using your app) and then work on retaining them.
There are several ways to do this, such as:
- Sending push notifications
- Using in-app messaging
- Running retargeting campaigns
What’s a Good App Retention Rate?
Adjust conducted a study on app retention rates. They tracked a series of apps and averaged their performance across all their verticals from January 2021 to come up with the figures below.
The Average Retention Rate
| Day (out of 30) | Android | iOS |
| 1 | 25% | 27% |
| 7 | 14% | 16% |
| 21 | 9% | 11% |
| 30 | 8% | 10% |
| (Source: Adjust) |
As you can see, there’s an 11% drop in retention after the first week of the app (from 25% to 14%). Two weeks later, the retention rates dropped by 5% (from 14% to 9%).
By 30 days, the app will have found its core audience, and the retention rate will somewhat stabilise.
That’s the average retention rate of most apps.
If you can keep more than a quarter of your app users on the first day of installing the app, your is a high-performing app (in terms of user retention).
Specifically, apps in the games category have one of the highest retention rates. On average, game apps have 30% of their users return after the first day. And close to half of those that return stick around after the first week.
So, if your app can afford to retain 35% to 60% of its users after the first day, then take it to mean you have a high performing app.
Note the slight disparity rates between iOS and Android users.
#9. Set KPIs and Track Your Progress
To ensure your app marketing campaign is successful, you need to set KPIs (key performance indicators) and track your progress.
Some of the KPIs you might want to track include:
- Number of downloads
- Number of active users
- Retention rate
- Lifetime value (LTV)
- Cost per acquisition (CPA)
- Cost per install (CPI)
- Cost per Mille (CPM)
- Active users (daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly)
- Monthly recurring revenue (MRR)
- Churn rate
- Click-through rate (CTR)
You can track your KPIs using many different tools, such as Google Analytics, Mixpanel, and Flurry.
When you’re tracking your progress, it’s important to keep an eye on your ROI (return on investment).
This is the amount of money you make from your app marketing campaign, divided by the amount of money you spend on it.
For example, if you spend $100 on your campaign and make $500 in return, your ROI would be 5.
To calculate your ROI, you need to track two things:
- Your app marketing costs
- Your app revenue
You can track your app revenue using a tool like RevenueCat.
And you can track your app marketing costs using a tool like AdSpyglass.
Once you have all this data, you can then calculate your ROI.
If your ROI is positive, that means your app marketing campaign is successful.
If it’s negative, that means you’re losing money, and you should rethink your strategy.
#10. Practice Google App Store Optimization
Just like with SEO, you need to optimise your app store listing if you want to generate more downloads.
This process is called ASO (app store optimisation).
ASO (app store optimisation)
There are a few things you need to do to optimise your listing, such as:
-
Choose the Right Keywords to Reach Your Target Audiences
Like SEO, your keywords need to be relevant to your app and your target audience.
You can use a tool like Sensor Tower to help you find the right keywords.
You also want to check what keywords your leading competitors are targeting.
Easy, all you need to do is search for your competitor’s app on the App Store and then scroll down to the “Keywords” section.
Use these keywords in your app title, subtitle, and keyword field.
While at it, you want to avoid overdoing it.
If you stuff your listing with too many keywords, it will be flagged as spam, and you could be banned from the App Store.
-
Create an Eye-Catching App Icon
Your app icon is one of the first things people will see when they come across your listing, so it’s important to make a good impression.
Your icon should be unique, relevant, and eye-catching.
It should also be simple enough that people can understand what your app is all about at a glance.
If you’re not sure how to design an icon, you can hire a designer on Fiverr or Upwork.
Or you can use a tool like App Icon Maker.
-
Optimise Your App Title and Description
Your app title is one of the first things people will see when they come across your listing, so it needs to be catchy and to the point.
Your title should:
-
- Be less than 25 characters
- Include your target keyword
- Be relevant to your app
- Make sense
Your app description is where you tell potential users what your app is all about.
This is your chance to sell your app, so make sure your description is clear, concise, and persuasive.
Your description should:
-
- Be well written
- Include your target keyword
- Be relevant to your app
- Be persuasive
- Tell people what your app does
- Tell people what they can expect from your app
- Use bullets and short sentences
- Use persuasive language
- Include a call to action
-
Optimise Visuals
Your app store visuals are just as important as your text.
Your app icon is what will first catch people’s attention, so make sure it’s creative and relevant to your app.
Your screenshots and videos are also important.
Your screenshots should give potential users a good idea of your app and how it works.
And your videos should be short, to the point, and, most importantly, show your app in action.
-
Get Reviews and Ratings
Reviews and ratings can have a big impact on your conversion rate.
People are more likely to download an app with high reviews and ratings.
So be sure to collect reviews and ratings from your users.
One way to do this is to ask people to review your app after using it for a while.
You can also offer incentives, such as discounts or special features, in exchange for the said reviews and ratings.
-
Include Videos in Your App Marketing Campaigns
Videos are a great way to show people what your app is about.
A well-made video can effectively promote your app and generate downloads.
When making a video for your app, you want to keep it short, to the point, and focused on your app.
Don’t try to cram too much information into your video.
And make sure your video is relevant to your target audience.
You can use a tool like Apptamin to help you create videos for your app.
-
Leverage Link Building to Promote Your App
Link building is the process of getting other websites to link to your app.
This is a great way to generate more traffic and downloads for your app.
There are several ways to build links, such as:
-
- Asking family and friends to link to your app
- Asking websites and blogs in your niche to link to your app
- Submitting your app to directories
- Writing guest posts on other websites
- Doing press releases
- Reaching out to influencers
-
Advertise Your App Store Page
App store optimisation is important, but it’s not the only thing you need to do to promote your app.
You also need to market your app and drive traffic to your listing.
One way to do this is to run ads that link directly to your listing.
You can use a tool like data ai (formerly App Annie) to track your app’s progress and see how your marketing efforts are paying off.
Be sure to run social media ads, Google Ads, and other ads that target your target audience.
-
Track Your Progress
Finally, it helps to track your progress to see how your marketing efforts are paying off.
There are several ways to do this, such as:
-
- Checking your app store ranking
- Checking your download numbers
- Checking your conversion rate
- Checking your review score
- Checking your ratings
You can use a tool like data ai to track all of this data in one place.
This will help you see what’s working and what’s not so you can adjust your strategy accordingly.
