These App Marketing Strategies Will sky rocket Your App Growth

An app or “mobile application” is a computer software program or application that runs on a mobile device such as a phone, watch or tablet. Mobile apps are distinct from desktop applications (which run only on computers) and web applications (which run on mobile web browsers).

Image source: https://inventionland.com/blog/the-history-of-mobile-apps/

Apps were created as tools for productivity such as calendars, emails, and contact databases, but have grown over the years into gaming, workplace automation, ticketing, and location-based services, among others.

Apps fall into three categories:

1. Native apps: these are for mobile operating systems such as iOS or Android
2. Web apps: written in a code such as HTML5 which can only run on a web browser
3. Hybrid apps: created using web technologies such as CSS or JavaScript and function like web apps

The first smartphone, the Simon model from IBM, had several pre-loaded applications (called “features” at that time) such as a calculator, address book, calendar, and email. Many people consider the arcade game “Snake”, built into the Nokia 6110 launched in 1997, to be the first mobile app.

Why do you need an app marketing strategy?

Mobile apps are typically downloaded from an “app store” such as Google Play, Apple App Store, or Microsoft Store. Currently, iOS users can access over 1.8 million apps and Android users can enjoy over 2.5 million apps. Furthermore, 80% or more of the world’s population owns a smartphone today and spends an average of 5 hours per day on the phone.

If your app must break through this noise and clutter, it requires a proper app marketing strategy that will help it stand out from the competition.

Mobile app marketing strategy – primary outcomes

People search for apps in the categories of interest and typically end up downloading one of the top three or four apps in the list. These apps are ranked at the top because of a well-planned mobile app marketing strategy. Obviously, featuring on the top of a Search Engine Results Page (SERP), and a large number of downloads, are the main outcomes expected out of an app marketing strategy.

The marketing funnel for mobile apps

Mobile apps are an outcome of the massive mobile phone penetration and digitalization that has taken place over the last several years. The digital ecosystem has clearly defined stages through which a customer progresses, called a funnel. Most digital marketing strategies have a marketing funnel, and mobile app marketing strategies are no different.

The main stages of an app marketing funnel are:

1. Awareness
   • This is the prelaunch stage
   • The focus here is on building awareness and visibility of the app
2. Acquisition
   • The focus here is on gaining the maximum users for the app
   • The focus is also on generating maximum downloads
   • This is an ongoing process that should be continuously refined to ensure high rankings in app stores
3. Retention
   • Mobile apps need to hold on to customers it has acquired
   • They need to be regularly engaged and turned into loyal customers (users) of the app

A strong mobile app marketing strategy moves the users through all the stages of the app marketing funnel. The users can also go back and forth between the different stages, in a process called the “mobile engagement loop”. This loop can be visualized as below:

The best app marketing strategies

As we noted earlier, nearly 5 million apps are fighting for consumers whose attention span on a mobile app could be a few minutes! To gain customer attention, acquire customers and retain them, the following app marketing strategies are considered to be the most useful:

1. Understand your ideal customer
   1. Build personas of your ideal customer
   2. List down all the attributes of these personas
   3. Identify the pain points that they face
2. Do your market research
   1. If the app must be successful, it has to solve a user problem that other apps in the category are not able to do
   2. A “me-too” app could be ignored or downgraded by the app store policies
   3. A thorough market research plan can identify your ideal customer’s browsing habits, typical search and purchase behavior and the major digital media and channels that they follow
3. Map your competition
   1. You need to know who your competitors are, and what they are doing to attract, engage and retain customers
   2. Feature mapping the top 10-15 apps in your category will present opportunities, service gaps, and any other opening that can be exploited to market your app more effectively
4. Launch an app landing page
   1. Your website is the first impression of the business for most customers and acts as a “window” to your app
   2. A well-designed and user-friendly landing page is very important for your app
5. App review and ratings
   1. Most users check the experience of others before downloading an app
   2. Therefore, app reviews and ratings are a critical element of your app marketing strategy
   3. Get reviews and ratings from both current customers as well as professional reviewers from app-review websites
6. Optimize for app stores
   1. Your app listing must be optimized to appear at the top of SERPs
   2. The higher the ranking, the better the exposure to potential customers
7. Develop influencers to promote your app
   1. Influencers such as bloggers can be a valuable extension of your app marketing strategy
   2. Choose the right influencers for your category and send them links to your landing page
   3. This will result in backlinks and credible reviews which will reassure your customers
8. Use social media channels
   1. It has been estimated that an individual spends approximately 145 minutes daily on social media apps – nearly 3 hours per day (source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/433871/daily-social-media-usage-worldwide/)
   2. These channels are a great source of potential traffic to your app
   3. You can extend your app awareness and acquisition efforts by integrating social media channels into your app
9. Cross promotions
   1. In cross-promotions or partnerships, you allow another app to advertise in your app, in exchange for your app being advertised on the partner’s app
   2. This helps push awareness, downloads, and engagements with a larger audience
   3. Cross promotions work best when the two apps are complementary products
10. Measure and track the app KPIs
    1. Your app must keep growing
    2. KPIs like the number of downloads, retention, stickiness, daily active users, and churn paint a realistic picture of your app’s health
    3. These data also help you optimize your app marketing strategy to be more effective

Conclusion

Mobile apps have come a long way since Steve Jobs first predicted their growth in 1983. Competition today is huge in the app world. Hence, a proper app marketing strategy is very important to help your app stand out amongst the millions of apps out there.