You have driven your great mobile app idea into a reality, and yet, you are far from being a millionaire. Your app idea might not just be sufficient. It is a sad reality of the app market that great apps are still failing because of no user engagement.
The best way to let your users know about your existence is to create an app from your website with AppMySite to hype your brand amongst them.
Your mobile app is not going to sell itself. To achieve absolute success, mobile app marketing is the key. Therefore, in this post, we will guide you with top ten tips to get started with your app marketing. Read on:
1. Test again and again before launching
If you have not followed any tests and launched your app, your users will probably leave a poor rating and complain about the design, and usability of the app. For this reason, you might not get a high rank in the app store results or keep a decent average rating.
Testing your app thoroughly is the key.
You can get some people who were not involved in the app development, to test your app for a while.
It is a fact that if you have spent sufficient time working on something, it is tough to identify the ifs and buts of the app. App features that might make sense to you could be less sensible to others.
Consider testing your app repeatedly before you launch your app, and even after the launch.
2. Choose the right app name
It does matter what kind of app you are building. Find out the two examples of the same genre:
a. Utility apps
If you are building a utility app, you must need something that is functional and shows some purpose. It is because a utility app has been designed to make the user’s life easier in some way.
Therefore, the name of the utility app should be simple and clear with its functional utilities. People deliberately search for the work that they want in the stores. If you, however, use difficult names for your app, they may get involved in the mayhem.
b. Game or social apps
For games or social apps, you may incline to something more memorable and quirkier. If your app does not involve practical and functional elements, name it with something that will stand out.
Let us say: Plants vs. Zombies, a tower defense game.
The name of the gaming app does not explicitly express that it is a tower defense game but throws a quirky concept at you. You need to evaluate your aim of selling the app, whether it is based on the execution of an idea or a unique approach and creativity.
With this in mind, keep your app name short and simple.
Make sure your app name does not get trimmed. If, however, it’s too long, shorten it.
Unluckily, for giving a name to your app, there is no character limit because the font that you have used has no fixed width. Therefore, you need to do some trial and error.
We have curated a few important parameters to consider when naming your mobile app to get started.
3. Create an eye-catching app icon
An app icon promotes your app in the most important marketing spaces available to you, the app stores, and your user’s home screen.
App websites, reviews, PPC ad campaigns, Facebook, are no more used to download apps. Users generally download apps directly from Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store.
If your app stands out and represents your brand effectively on the App Store grid and Google Play libraries, it will be a key for your app’s success.
Here are the following tips that will help you keep your app icon sleek and stunning:
a. Make your design bold, yet simple
You need to focus on the basic concept of your app. Also, try to make sure that the app icon you will design really jumps out at you.
Complex icons generally lose definition and become unnoticeable on the results of app stores.
Take Angry Birds icon as inspiration, for example. The icon is original, simple, and makes the app stand out from others. You may notice that even the small icon can grab your attention.
Like any other branding exercise, choose a color palette and work out how you will use them in a complimentary layout before worrying about the details.
b. Be careful with text
The text on the app icon often dilutes the overall impact. Using striking shapes with unnecessary details detracts the icon.
Some app builders are against using text. However, it can sometimes work.
With that in mind, if you are using it, the text has to be large and a part of the design. You cannot directly paste it over the app design.
For example, the BBC news app, which is made up of text and a classic BBC red background, and the ESPN app, that has a bold, clear, and central to the designer brand name.
These are examples of great use of text in the app icon. That means you need to design your app icon that visually represents the concept or functionality of your app.
To be precise, your app icon should demonstrate functionality, content, or concept at the most basic possible level.
c. Keep image quality
If you are using Photoshop for designing a striking app icon, you may lose a substantial amount of definitions, unless you resize each element of the icon individually.
Make sure you take time to properly resize each app icon’s element to maintain distinctiveness and contrast between those elements.
A fuzzy, non-descriptive icon will rarely attract the user’s attention.
Know more about the importance of app icons, which is the most overlooked element of mobile app design, and help yourself get started with your design!
You must remember…
Your app icon will give you an added value if it is rightly designed. This helps you promote the repeated use of your mobile app.
A great app icon can draw your user’s attention when they are looking for a useful tool.
4. Press releases
Understand the two primary purposes before you write a press release:
- Take some time to think about the purpose of the report on the release of your app
- Get your tone of writing in control with the initial perception of developing an app
Your aim should be to create awareness amongst your target audience and gaining some interest in blogs or news websites.
If blogs and news websites start talking about your mobile app, you have automatically created awareness among your target audience. However, there should be the right kind of recognition.
If we talk about bloggers, they usually share the content in the interests of their readers. But they are more technically sound and have more considerable expertise rather than their audience.
News websites, on the other hand, are typically less tricky as they do not give their personal opinions and do more audience-focused reporting.
In that sense, a good press release helps you sell your app to the intended audience instead of a few dedicated enthusiasts.
You can consider these four points while writing a press release for your app launch:
a. Timing
When you are putting out your press release, there are always some optimum times of the week where you can increase your blog readership.
You need to find out what they are and push to get your app in talks on those days.
b. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
When you make sure that your app hits the right keywords, you also need to ensure that your press release shows up prominently in search results.
You need to write your press release with SEO in mind as it will have two benefits:
- Press release publishers will love to post your press release as it will drive more traffic to their websites and encourage you to publish more and more.
- Press releases increase the likelihood of your target audience, finding your piece of content, even if they have not subscribed to the website it is posted on.
c. Avoid feature lists
The primary purpose of a press release is to generate some excitement or enthusiasm for your app amongst your target audience.
Therefore, avoid listing every feature. Besides, focus more on what makes your mobile app distinctive as opposed to your competitors.
Why is your app unique, what it offers, and why should your target audience be amazed about that? If you are mentioning answers to all these questions, you are spamming your copy. It is something that every app does, and thereby, you can probably skip mentioning it.
d. Link to the App Store
Do not link your content to your website. Ensure you provide direct links to the App Store or Google Play Store instead.
If your press release has been successfully published and got more reviews, your target audience is likely to go through it. Do not push them to jump through the unnecessary loop of visiting your website first.
You can refer to a wiki-how’s article on writing press releases. It does not have app-specific stuff, but you will get a good idea of structuring a press release, how long it should be and what you should focus on.
5. Write a concise and simple app description
Do not leave writing your app description to the last minute. It is important to market your app.
When you are going to publish your app, you are sending it to potential reviewers. Also, you are using it on the App Store in press releases that help you sell your app.
Here are a few points that you should know before writing an apt description:
a. Start your description that really grabs attention
Take a reference for any app in the App Store. The way the app description has been written and shown by default (before you click ‘More’).
That is of about two or three lines, which are required to convince a user that your app might be worth their attention.
If the first sentence does not make your potential users read more, add app screenshots. Else, you are going to lose your prospective customers at first sight.
Be concise and make your app description as interesting as it can be.
b. Be clear about your genre
If you are building a restaurant app , do not leave it like a guessing game. Tell your users what your app is all about.
Explicitly explain why your app is unique from other apps. Besides, you should also write why your app should be chosen over the competition.
However, you need to make sure that your app description should not look like a long list of app features. Remember that this is a marketing document, not a tech specification. It is important to consider if you are using bullet points.
Invest some time and get your app description right and to-the-point.
6. Leverage social media
Make the best use of social media platforms. However, it should be real.
Find two reasons to create a great social buzz around your app:
- It is a cheap and effective advertising tool
- It is good for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Sometimes, it becomes difficult to trust the authority of someone you do not know. The anonymity of the internet makes it tough to believe. It could be the app developer posting on social accounts.
For example, when your friend likes a restaurant or a movie, you can be sure that the same person is posting pictures on their social channels.
A ‘like’ or ‘tweet’ is as valuable as a review or advertisement, specifically if your app has a social component.
Join in with the conversation
Avoid spamming on Twitter or Facebook. You should try to engage in conversations with your potential customers.
With social media, your app’s visibility is great. However, most importantly, you need to get people more interested and encourage them to return.
You need to find the places where your users are asking for what you are offering and then share it with them. Try not to make it a marketing story. Else, it will turn users off immediately.
The best way to make people aware of your business is to have real conversations with them that are socially approved.
7. Get reviews for your app
Many review websites will give you an honest opinion instead of giving you an advertising spiel.
The following are a few review websites:
FreshApps: It is similar to Reddit or Digg, wherein users can post and upvote mobile apps.
Daily App Show: This website has a ‘featured’ section that provides you valuable text reviews including videos.
iusethis: This website features how many people have been or are using your app, along with reviews, comments.
However, there are many other websites where you can post your app to get reviews.
Get some opinion floating around your app using such websites.
Here are a few considerations that you should remember while searching for review websites:
- Ensure including all the information the reviewer may need.
- Do not forget to include the app name, description, features, brand name, contact information and, most importantly, a link to the app store page.
- Keep the reviewer positive when they are reviewing your app. Make their job easy. Else, they may not bother with it at all if you make it too complicated.
8. Use landing pages
It is a simple strategy to market your app. You need to be more focused on getting users to find your app quickly and easily.
Do not push them to search your website for a product page. Using landing pages help you send your users straight to what they are looking for.
Landing pages drive traffic to your app, whether it will be from Facebook or Twitter. You can make these pages as a default destination when users want to share your app using social media or email.
Unlike the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, your landing page has no constraints for selling your app. On landing pages, you can experiment with a short or long copy to increase user engagement. Furthermore, you can also use animations, demo videos, and screenshot galleries.
With AppMySite free online app maker, you can curate a theme for your app landing page that will help you draw your users’ attention.
9. Do not include only text. Use audio or video, and other formats
As you know, people are lazy. They do not want to read the entire text.
If people do not identify a benefit while they read something, they will not probably read. It is because you are encouraging them to read, but they do not know what they want.
The easiest solution is to create videos that help your people know about your products and services without making them read a wall of text.
Videos can be created as simple as a narrated showcase of your product.
Today many apps are using flip board’s ad, which is on a higher-budget, but the equivalent of the simple video. It does not even need a voice over, though many will.
10. Use screenshots to sell your app
Similar to the app description, you can also use screenshots of your app to pitch.
While they do not have to be just screenshots, you must integrate text into your screenshots, that make your people understand about your app.
You are familiar that people are less likely to click on the ‘more’ button, rather than looking at your screenshots. Therefore, you will have a short window to describe and sell your product.
The ending notes
Most brands are using different social channels and marketing tools to make their app flourishing.
Mobile marketing, today, has scooped up the entire web like a gushing wave.
Indeed, with marketing data, everything is evolving. Even if you are using social media, email, or search options, consumers do like to connect with your brand.
While developing and maintaining a good marketing campaign takes time and effort, you may need to re-evaluate your strategy and marketing tools until perfected. This is how you adapt to changes in the marketplace to align with today’s consumer behaviour.
In this modern world, people are either asleep or connected. Therefore, never leave them alone as they have mobile phones to connect with you and your business.
Now that you know how to market your mobile app in ten easy steps, you must bring your brand story where your users are, and grow your business.
If you are questing for mobile app builders to build your app, just by the way, you can get in touch with AppMySite WooCommerce mobile app builder to give your business new heights.
