So, you’ve built an app. Congratulations! It’s not easy to come up with an idea and carry it through to fruition. No doubt you spent hours redesigning features, troubleshooting issues and working to give your app the ‘just right’ feel. But finally, you have a mobile app you can be proud of.
Marketing options
Now that the hard part is over, how do you market your app? You can’t expect the ideal customers to just stumble upon it. The app store is simple too large and too saturated. Sure, there are dozens of services out there promising to increase your impressions and downloads, but how do you know if these consumers are the right fit for your brand?
Similarly, network marketing your apps through social media platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn is a great start, but how do you know your new subscribers will be in it for the long haul? In other words, how do you know your installers will convert to paying users? Maybe building the app wasn’t the hard part after all.
Measuring performance
Many traditional mobile marketing services have yet to recognize that the number of installs isn’t the only key performance indicator (KPI) you should be measuring. After all, 90 percent of new users will abandon an application within 30 days of download.
Instead, mobile app developers ought to focus on marketing models that work to acquire mobile users likely to engage with your app right away and stick with it for the long haul. This will look differently depending on your application and your goals.
For instance, if you are a gaming app, you may want to capture players most interested in paying for premium in-game items or quests. If you operate an e-commerce app, you’ll want someone who makes a purchase within the first few days of download. Dating apps are a totally different animal, since developers will want users who create a profile and upload a photo right from the get-go.
Advertising
Various forms of programmatic ad buying will help you find and optimize the ideal mobile users. This could take the form of specifying demographics (such as age range, location, income level, etc.) or it could take the form of granulating app shoppers based on their current mobile app usage (such as targeting gamers for your gaming app or news junkies for your news app). Whichever path you pick, be sure to research it fully to understand which method is more reliable for capturing and keeping your target audience.
But even with all this, there are still dozens of possible improvements you can make to ensure even greater marketing potential for your app. This includes:
- Producing better or more personalized creatives to entice new users.
- Experimenting with you call to action (CTA) to see what works and what needs improvement.
- Including video of your app in action (or at least what it offers) in the app store.
- Re-engagement campaigns that put app users back into the revenue funnel.
- Encouraging users to spread the word about your app online, in person or through the application itself.
By following these tips, you will be more likely to find the kind of users you want – loyal, engaged and ready for your next push notification. Are you excited to market your app now?
