Mobile App Marketing: Tough Nut To Crack? Don’t Worry We Got Your Back

Mobile App Marketing Strategies To Make Your App Successful
Mobile App Marketing

Mobile App Marketing: Tough Nut To Crack? Don’t Worry We Got Your Back

While the mobile application ecosystem flourishes, getting lost in the crowd of over 7 million Android and iOS apps available today in the mobile application market is more likely than ever before.

Acquiring new users on your mobile application is always the ultimate challenge. And to make your application stand out, creating a robust mobile app marketing strategy is essential.

Before going any further, let’s put some numbers in this context.

  • 3,482,452 on the Play Store, 
  • Over 2,226,823 on the Apple Store, 
  • About 460,619 on Amazon App Store, and
  • 669,000 on Microsoft Store.

A mobile application is your silver bullet for increasing your business revenue. Because the mobile application market size has skyrocketed, referring to the past few years. The Global revenue for mobile apps in 2020 increased to USD 318 B and is forecasted to cross an astounding USD 613 B by 2025.

With these numbers in hindsight, mobile applications shall continue to dominate the market in the coming years. But, Going by these numbers, getting your mobile app trending in stores won’t be a walk in the park, for sure.

Every famous and successful mobile application you know of today involves astute strategies, research, hard work, dedication, and planning.

Indeed, it also involved a marketing strategy that was unique in its totality.

Let’s get into what mobile app marketing is all about.

Mobile App Marketing Plan

Before moving on to mobile app promotional strategies, we’d suggest you create a marketing plan overview based on this template for your mobile app promotion.

This template will help you define different aspects of your business to focus on priorities when you market your app.

Below are listed some key points that you must consider in your marketing plan to help identify your customers, meet their needs, and stay ahead of the curve. Creating this strategic roadmap is a valuable process contributing to your app’s success.

The mobile app marketing plan template includes:

  1. Set your App Objectives & Goals 
  2. S.W.O.T. Analysis
    • Strengths
      • What is your app good at? 
      • How can you stay ahead of the competition?
      • Unique selling proposition/points or U.S.P.s (explained later in this article)
    • Weaknesses
      • What needs to be improved?
      • What does your competitor do better than you?
      • What’s holding you back?
    • Opportunities 
      • What can market trends lead to improved conversions (market goals)?
      •  What can you use as an advantage for your business?
    • Threats
      • What could harm your business?
      • Any unforeseen market factor/risks.
  3. Financial Projections for App Marketing
    1. Figure out an initial budget.
    2. Adjust the budget.
    3. Refine your objectives & promotional expenses based on the budget.
  4. Understand Your Target Market
    1. Understand the industry.
    2. Measure the market’s size.
    3. Create buyers’ personas.
    4. Analyze your competition.
  5. Understand the Targeted Audience
    1. Understand the demographic profile (age, gender, languages spoken, etc.).
    2. Psychographic profile (their interests, behaviour, etc.).
    3. Needs & Wants.
  6. What can you offer?
    1. User Acquisition: Acquiring new users.
    2. User Retention: Bringing back lost users.
  7. Tracking and Analysis
    1. Figuring out which app marketing techniques or strategies can give you the highest R.O.I. (Return On Investment).
  8. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of your App Marketing Success
  9. Pre-launch and post-launch app Advertising Strategies you Plan to Use

Pre-Launch Mobile App Marketing Strategies

Don’t wait to crack the egg and a chicken riddle in planning the pre-launch marketing strategies for your mobile app because marketing your mobile app before launch is absolutely non-negotiable.

Thus, it’s always better to ensure you’ve gained many potential users for your app before you actually launch it.

It is important to keep an eye on the Tech calendar, cause if you don’t, you would probably find your product getting lost in the noise.

Invest In Market Research

Your first steps towards developing an effective app marketing plan must include understanding the key players in your domain.

You cannot strategize your app marketing plan until or unless you completely understand your target audience and competitors.
Research is a marketing investment that must be a priority for every business.

If you can gather meaningful data and insights from the market and then compare them, you will boost your chances of cracking the code by knowing what exactly works and what needs to be fixed before your app launch.

Start with creating a spreadsheet of competition analysis and collect every dataset you can throughout the research process.

Plan Your App Release Date In Advance

It’s human to want your mobile application out in the application marketplace, accessible to the world as soon as possible; after all, it’s your baby! But, planning a release date well in advance is essential!

I’m sure you would not want your app released on the same date as the next Apple iPhone or when any other major “Tech” update is scheduled.

It is essential to monitor the Tech Calendar. Because if you don’t, you would probably find your product getting lost.

Setting a well-thought-out launch date for your app will help devise product development deadlines and ensure you get enough time to strategize effective marketing plans around the app launch schedule.

Thus, planning your application release date in advance is an effective mobile app user acquisition strategy you should never ignore.

U.S.P. Analysis—Your “Competitive Edge” 

“Knowing what makes your app unique helps your app thrive in the market”

Knowing your unique selling points (U.S.P.s) can help create a definite mobile application marketing approach. After all, your “competitive edge” will make users want to install your app.

Here’s a way to help you identify your U.S.P.s: 

  • Invest time in brainstorming what value your app is offering to customers.
  • Moving beyond, identify what U.S.P.s competitor’ apps are offering.
  • Now it’s time to compare and rank yourself against your competitors based on these U.S.P.s.
  • Once you identify where your app ranks, it’s time to develop your marketing strategy based on content focused on those U.S.P.s.

Make sure you also develop a tremendous defending strategy for the U.S.P.s you identified because your competitors are also striving hard (just like you!) to research and analyse their competition.

As soon as they discover your U.S.P.s, they definitely want to try & copy them. So, one good way to defend your U.S.P.s is by investing more time & money to take it to a notch above so that most of your competitors struggle to keep pace.

And once they’ve boosted their level, Tada! You’d have already reached the next stage.

Beta Testing the Right Way 

When your mobile app development team is done building the app with unique features and top-notch UI/UX designs, the next step you follow is sending that app to your team to get feedback, isn’t it?

Though your development team is likely to give thumbs-up to the app, they are not the actual users of that application, right?

This is when you should be on the lookout for your beta testers. Identify them, reach out, reward them, and get genuine feedback that you need.

Beta testing is an important part of mobile app pre-launch user acquisition strategy
Email outreaching template example for the beta test of Wallup web/mobile app

It’s imperative to catch hold of the right audience when you are looking for unbiased feedback to collect points/inputs to actually work and experiment with before the release of your app in the mobile application market.

Description Of Your Mobile App

The description of an app on the store only exhibits the first 1-to 2 lines. If users wish to read the full report, they need to tap on “read more” to read the full description.

Getting your message through in the first 1-to 2 lines is an art you need to master for users to understand your mobile application better. Only a few would bother to tap on “read more” to go through the full description.

Promote your mobile app using a description that converts.

So, try to convey your message in the first 1-2 lines. When writing the full description, mention how your app will simplify a user’s life instead of detailing what your app can do.

Create a Website for your App

It increases brand visibility, credibility, trust & application discoverability.

What would you do if you wanted to know more about a product or service? You would search the web and head to their website, right?

In the same way, your potential customers would also search for your product on the web if they’re really interested in it. The discovery of your product’s website will cause users’ increased trust towards your brand.

Remember, all touchpoints contribute to building a brand reputation.

Fact: Not all people search for mobile apps on the app stores, some might search for applications on the search engines, and this is where your website comes into play.

A website allows you to provide in-depth details about your application

Your app store page can only provide limited information while having a website for your mobile app will enable you to deliver in-depth information about your application to potential customers.

It allows you to spread awareness & collect emails

Launching a landing page or website before the application is available in the app marketplace is excellent for spreading awareness & organizing emails of potential customers.

It opens new channels for targeted marketing.

You can promote this website via paid advertisements, social media, email marketing, influencer marketing, etc. so that people can know about your application before its launch date, and you can already have many potential users for your application when it gets rolled out in the market.

It allows you to leverage the power of content marketing.

One more important reason you should use a website as a part of your pre-launch app promotional plan is—it allows you to leverage content marketing via blog, which is very important to spreading the word about your application and keeping your potential users updated & engaged.

Blogging helps you grow your fan base & acquire new users interested in your product. You can consistently publish blog posts surrounding your application features that the users might be interested in.

Based on your objectives & target market, you can choose what kind of website suits your app promotion efforts best—single page website (landing page) or a website with a blog.

Spread Early Buzz on Social Media & Generate Curiosity

The core purpose of the mobile application you have created is to let more and more people know about it and install it on most devices. It is critical to focus on getting a better download conversion rate to get the most.

Creating a buzz around social media before your app launch can help you build brand awareness to get a better conversion rate when you hit on paid app advertising strategies on social media.

Understand this the simple way—when people come across the cost per install advertising you are running for your application, they are more likely to install the app if they have seen your brand before.

Also, creating a buzz on social media helps you build a community around your app before its launch date so that you can track & target these interested users when you finally launch the product.

The popularity of social media giants like Facebook (Meta), Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc., has made them a perfect channel for new apps to enter the market.

Pick a few social media platforms that suit well with your application marketing goals and start creating hype around your app before its launch date. Create a marketing plan to engage & distribute content to the prospective users for your mobile app.

Below are some best social media strategies for your mobile app promotion:
  • Post frequently and show the audience the benefits of your application and why they should install it.
  • Use relevant hashtags to reach more audiences and post around your brand hashtags.
  • Get influencers for your app & feature their reviews. 
  • Encourage engagement with contests, giveaways, etc.
  • Don’t miss sparking a conversation when someone shows interest. 

Create A Promo Video

If a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words, What’d a Video Worth?

People strive for visuals, and therefore video marketing would be a great addition to your app advertising strategy. Videos are straightforward to consume and help you avoid the overabundance of textual information.

You can leverage the video content across multiple promotional channels, like a website landing page, app preview, YouTube, social media, and other mobile app advertisement campaigns.

Here are some benefits of video marketing to find out why it’s important to include video marketing strategy in your mobile app marketing plan template:

  • It boosts conversion and sales.
  • It gives a glorious return on investment (R.O.I.). 
  • Video builds brand trust and credibility.
  • Videos are appealing to users.
  • You can explain your product in videos much more briefly than in other mediums.
  • You also get the privilege to target lazy buyers with video marketing.
  • Video content encourages social shares.

App Store Optimization (A.S.O.) – A Crucial Part Of Mobile App Marketing Strategy

A.S.O. continuously optimises mobile apps to rank them higher and increase discoverability on the app store search results.

The higher your mobile application ranks on the store, the more visible it is to potential users, thus increasing the possibility of downloads.

Few components that influence A.S.O.:  

  • Application’s name and description.
  • Preview screenshot quality.
  • Size of the application.
  • App Compatibility.
  • Frequency of App Updates.
  • The number of downloads.
  • Ratings and Reviews.

Post-Launch Mobile App Marketing Strategies

Now that we’ve designed the pre-launch promotion strategies for your mobile app, it’s time to devise a solid post-launch marketing plan to help your app get the exposure it needs to succeed in the mobile application market.

Value of Retention >>> Acquisition 

Acquiring new users for your mobile app is always desirable. However, a successful marketing strategy doesn’t end when the ink is dry on a paid acquisition marketing contract.

Not everyone is lucky enough to have a thousand dollars budget as part of their paid user acquisition strategy for their mobile application.

Every new user your app gains for you shall not disappear into the dust (never to hear from you again). Otherwise, you will see people dropping off your application from their mobile devices soon.

You should always have a keen eye on user engagement. Monitoring this will help you understand how practical and convenient the UI/UX of your mobile application is and how it can be improved continuously to retain users.

“Retaining users of your app is a game-changer in the mobile application industry. The more users you retain, the higher the number of installs you attain.”

Mobile App Paid Promotion Strategies

Paid promotion is one of the most effective forms of direct marketing. Be ready to churn out a handsome portion of your marketing budget to promote your mobile app via app advertising channels.

This will surely pay you rich dividends while you try to bring your app on top to reach maximum potential users. Below are some of the best mobile app advertising channels to supercharge your marketing efforts:

  • Facebook Ads: An excellent option for a mobile app promotion because of the advanced targeting options.
  • App Store Search Ads: More than 60% of downloads of an app are gained via app store search results.
  • C.P.I. Advertising Platforms: An excellent app advertising strategy to focus on.
  • Google Universal App Campaigns.
  • Pay Per Click.
  • Press Releases.
  • Influencer Marketing: Let the industry influencers promote your app to their audience.

Provide Lovable Customer Support 

You need to rethink treating the users of your mobile application.

High-quality and lovable customer service results in an increase in loyal customers for life.

You need to ensure that you’re following up with every user-facing issue with your mobile app.

A lack of response to issues faced by mobile application users might result in frequent uninstalls, so make sure your development team responds to and resolves every query they receive from the users.

You may evaluate enabling features like personalizing your email dashboard by labelling your customer queries as a priority, allowing users to opt-out from push notifications anytime they want, providing in-app chat support options, etc.

User Reviews Play A Huge Role

We live in a review-based society. People’s opinions play a vital role in deciding to install your app. Concerning the mobile application industry, reviews are responsible for the following:

  • The visibility of your application in the application stores searches results concerning keywords.
  • How likely will your mobile application be featured in the mobile application market?
  • The installation rate of the mobile application (Likelihood of a visitor installing the mobile app after its discovery).
  • Credibility, engagement, and loyalty for the mobile application.

Research shows that almost 90% of people read through online reviews.

Below is an example that clearly shows how reviews are critical for any business.

Critical review posted by a user
                      80% of people read this review and found it very useful.
                                     Users dropping off from the application.

Over 80% trust online reviews as much as a friend’s recommendation, and they make these decisions very quickly. About 68% of people form opinions after reading between 1 and 6 online reviews.

Measure Some Important App Metrics

It is essential to enable an app analytics feature in your application right from the beginning. This will help you track important metrics for the success of your mobile application.

You must figure out what metrics help your app succeed in the mobile application market. Once you’ve figured that out, keep tracking and analyzing it. These will help you make necessary adjustments when something is working well or making a user drop off from your application.

Define KPIs, analyze data, and ensure you’re putting in every possible effort for sustained gains.

Below are a few metrics you may track: 

  • How often are users using your app in a day?
  • Is there any particular path/section where users bounce back (exiting)?
  • Which feature do users like the most?
  • Daily and Monthly Active Users.
  • Avg. Revenue Per User (APRU) = Total Revenue Generated / Total active users.

Get in touch with your partner mobile app development company right away and ask them to build an app analytics section inside the application.

All in a Nutshell – How To Successfully Market An App 

Your pre-launch and post-launch app promotional strategies will pave the way for the success of your mobile application and help you acquire and retain users alike if executed the right way.

Needless to say, your mobile application is an ace up your sleeve, and you need to make mighty sure you get that right. This is one piece most people miss to focus on.

People often get blown away by the power of marketing and tend to let loose on the product. If your app doesn’t tick the right boxes, your marketing efforts will not bear fruit for long.

With these marketing plans, you will achieve user acquisition targets for your mobile app, but what about the retention rate? You need to make sure that you build a great app so that the users installing your app would want to keep it on their mobile devices.