If you are an eCommerce business trying to market mobile apps on a budget, you should keep in mind some of these things.
The best marketing practices don’t need a lot of money. They require careful planning and a keen understanding of your audience.
So you’ve invested weeks, maybe months of hard work and developed a stunning app. Now’s the time to take it to the market and get as many people as possible to notice. This part of the process cannot be overlooked because even the most spectacular app cannot generate revenue unless people discover it.
That is why marketing and promoting your app must be done with meticulous attention. And if you don’t have much money to spend on app marketing, just don’t let that bother you. App marketing isn’t about the money. It’s about doing your research, planning your strategy and following these intuitive best practices:
App store optimization is your first and arguably the most crucial step of your app marketing. A staggering 63% of apps are discovered through app store searches. This means users are proactively stepping into app stores and searching for apps. But they have over 2 million apps to sift through. By App store optimization, you can make sure that your app catches their attention.
Choose an attractive app title, and try to include a strong, highly searched keyword. Apps with a keyword in their title rank 10.3% higher than others. Include strategic keywords in the app description too. Take beautiful screenshots highlighting the app's best features and encourage ratings and reviews.
Branding is an essential part of marketing. Users should be able to distinctly identify your app’s name and icon in a crowd. Create a distinctive icon that looks great and sets the tone for your branding. Establish the brand persona and tone of voice you want to use in your communication – like an upbeat friend or a calm and soothing companion – and design your descriptions and other messaging based on that.
Take screenshots that reflect the branding. Choose an attractive color scheme and keep it consistent from the app store listing to the other channels you wish to promote the app.
There are many ways to build hype around your app, even before release. Creating a unique microsite doesn’t cost too much or take excessive time and can do a great job of drawing the initial attention of your target audience and setting the stage for a grand launch.
You can build excitement about the app, start a blog to talk about your app, run contests, put out teasers and do a lot to generate enough publicity so that people are looking forward to your app, hopefully thronging to download it on the first day.
The microsite will give you all the space you need to say things you want to say and even get the users to chime in with their opinions. This could be a great way to get your audience involved and gather some great early feedback.
To stay in the limelight after launch and not let all the excitement run out, keep a steady stream of fresh content coming. Write great posts about your app and try to get them covered by authority blogs in your niche.
Run teasers and campaigns before making significant updates and continuously interact with your users on social media to keep up the excitement. In short, keep the conversation because if you stop promoting the app, people will stop talking about it, and the downloads could begin to die down quickly. You have to keep the buzz alive.
A well-made video can create anticipation about your app. Use the video to capture your app's best features or most useful and beautiful aspects. You can link it to your microsite to add to the campaign and encourage a conversation.
Run the video on social media. Based on the initial response, you can create more marketing videos. Social media can be your greatest weapon in promoting these videos and creating anticipation about the app and, post-launch, about future updates.
Getting featured in high-authority press publications can go a long way in establishing trust in your app. If you can network well enough to get someone from print or online publications like Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Wall Street Journal, you can expect users to show tremendous faith in your app.
To begin with, make a list of the press channels that have a readership of your target audience. If you are a women’s fashion app, you want to feature in women’s magazines. Having done that, it’s time to look for reporters and writers who do features on new app releases and similar niches.
Then, you can contact these writers and reporters and tell them why your app is worth featuring in their magazine. It will take some skills to impress a writer worth their salt, but once you can do it, the returns will be worth it.
If your app is already past the launch phase, the chances are that your beta community and some early users have already used it. Send them a personal message thanking them for using your app and encourage them to leave positive reviews and ratings on the app store listing.
You could even try incentivizing them with free premium subscriptions or discount coupons in exchange for favorable reviews. Good ratings and reviews will provide the social proof that will entice other users into trying out your app.
So as you see, none of the above app marketing ideas needs much money. For a very modest budget, you can create ample buzz around your app and get your audience to download and try it. Just be sure to research your audience and get a perfect idea of what they like and what gets them interested. And then, all of the above moves are at your disposal, so put them to good use.
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