Top 10 Hacks You Should Know To Ace Your Mobile App Marketing
Mobile App Marketing is the process of ranking your mobile app at the top of the result page of the app store, Play Store or say any other application downloading page.
In this article, you’ll learn about how to make a strategy that makes your app visible among millions of applications on the platform and hacks to look out for.
- Why is it Important?
- A Strategy to Follow
- Additional Tip
- Conclusion
- FAQs
Why Is It Important?
How many of you have searched for a category and scrolled past the top 3-4 application results in the app store?
As of 2024, there are 1.81 million apps in App Store for iOS and for Play Store the number stands at 2.26 million. With an audience base of 80% population of the world who have smartphones.
This is why businesses are now focusing on going mobile after going online. With such a great consumer base Mobile App marketing can do wonders for the brands. Not only the big companies but startups are also focusing on building an app to capture a major chunk of the audience.
A Strategy To Follow
Before diving into strategies you must know what your competitors are doing, and do detailed market research. This will help you to understand how to make the best of the Mobile App marketing strategy. Answering these questions at the early or development stage will help you to optimize your app launch.
- Who is the target audience for your app?
- How can this audience be grouped into user personas?
- What will each segment want or need from your product?
- How are your competitors currently targeting the same audience?
- What are my app’s key performance indicators?
User Persona is a hypothetical representation of your ideal customer, It is generally based on the user research derived from the behavior patterns of your target audience.
To evaluate the success, KPIs are very crucial, it will help you to set up the benchmarks at the early stage of your app depending on the market standards. You can accordingly amend your KPIs as you scale, it will help you identify your areas of improvement and you can focus where you are lacking in your mobile app marketing strategy.
Some common metrics for your KPIs –
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
- Active Users
- Cost Per Mile (CPM)
- Conversion Rate
- Cost Per Install (CPI)
- Click Through Rate (CTR)
- Retention Rate
- Churn
Audience segmentation, Market Research, and setting up your KPIs are the basis for your marketing strategy.
3 Stages of Mobile App Marketing Strategy
- Awareness Stage
- Acquisition Stage
- Retention Stage
1. Awareness Stage
This is a prelaunch stage where you answer 5 questions for the audience – The Who, When, Where, Why, and How for your brand identity. This will help you to create awareness and visibility for your brand. Also, it helps you to connect empathically and deeper with your audience, with clear messaging, your target audience will relate to your brand and form a loyalty towards it.
Below are the points to create awareness and visibility for your brand –
Create Your Landing Page
Your website or landing page is your first digital introduction to the world. It is the very first step towards your mobile app marketing strategy. It allows users to know more about your app or brand. Through SEO, you can attract new customers organically.
While creating your landing page it is important to make strong and influencing visuals keeping in mind the user persona you created. Do not forget to include,
- Links for your app on the App Store or Google Play Store
- Glimpses of your app
- Call To Action (CTA) Buttons
- Adequate creatives and copy
- Reviews/Awards and Recognitions
Writing blogs is another way to use keywords for your landing page or website to rank on search engine result pages (SERP)
Networking (Influencer Marketing)
Influencer marketing creates a deep impact on user behavior. This is basically using influencers or content creators to promote your app on different channels like social media, events, or any other social gathering. It can help to create a personality for your brand or mobile app marketing campaign.
Through Influencer Marketing you can introduce the functionality of your app to the customers and give them the reason to download and install your app by selecting the right influencer. Selecting the right influencer is very crucial as they’ll be the face of your app. You must ensure the following ticks while selecting the right influencer,
- Look for hashtags that are related to your niche and see which influencers are using it.
- Check your competitor’s list, and see what they are doing.
- Choose the one with the right tone that resembles your brand.
- See what type of audience is following the influencer, it should match with your user persona.
You can give freebies to the influencer or subscription to your services for the barter or you can do paid influencer marketing as a part of a mobile app marketing campaign. The difference is that the barter influencer has the upper hand on how to promote your product but in the latter, you have full control over the mediums and channels for the promotion.
Engage Your Social Media
Globally people spend an average of 2-3 hours of their screen time on social media and any marketer can’t afford to miss out on this opportunity. It is important to post on social media regularly to create awareness and visibility but you can also build your community to get authentic feedback and suggestions for your app which you can use to improve in further stages of mobile app marketing. On your social media page, you can post about your latest product developments and inform the audience even in advance.
Engaging in social media builds trust and credibility for your app which your audience can refer to and rely upon.
To know more about social media tips you can read 10 Easy Social Media Optimization Tips To Improve Social Media
Content Marketing
Nowadays, content marketing is doing wonders for brands, be it SEO, Social Media Marketing or Mobile App Marketing, creative and relatable content helps your audience to engage and builds trust. While making content you should keep in mind the following points,
- Clear message
- Relatable content
- Good quality audio/visual creatives
- Show how your app solves the specific problem
- Speak about the features of your app
You can choose your platform from various options available in the market, such as reels, shorts, posts, blogs, videos, podcasts, and many more. You can test these different platforms to see which engages your audience the most.
2. Acquisition Stage
In this stage of Mobile App Marketing, the main focus is to increase downloads and create a larger base audience for your app using the different marketing strategies mentioned in the awareness stage.
You must identify the strategy that is giving you the best results in terms of downloads and installation of the app so that you can analyze and bifurcate the budget accordingly. This will also help to modify other strategies to maximize the optimum results.
There are a number of strategies that you can adopt at the Acquisition stage to increase downloads.
App Store Optimization
App Store Optimization (ASO) is a very crucial step for Mobile App Marketing. ASO is the set of practices that helps to increase the ranking of your app on the App Store or Play Store. It aims to increase the visibility and convertibility of seeing the app to downloading the app by following specific technical requirements and user preferences.
ASO is very similar to SEO, the only difference is it helps the app to rank on the app store result page instead of the website on SERP. Similar to SEO, ASO works on algorithms that help the app to rank higher.
Just like the landing page, you should add screenshots or videos of your app functionality, show reviews and recognitions, and focus on primary and secondary keywords to rank your app on the application store and optimize your mobile app marketing strategy.
Paid Ads
Once your app is released, it’s time to do targeted marketing through paid ads (Meta ads or Google ads) on different social media platforms or websites. You can select the platform with the audience that resembles your user persona the most. It can be classified into different segments like age, gender, demographics, interests, or regions. It is very crucial to identify your target audience as its name suggests paid ads come with a cost and have a great impact on your mobile app marketing strategy.
Make It Through Reels
Short and engaging videos are the future. A study shows that more than 50% of the content consumed on mobiles is in the form of short videos. You can create short tutorial videos, shorts related to the app’s features, or reels on how your app is solving the issue in the hands of consumers.
To build trust and credibility for your app, you can add real consumer testimonials, user experience, or your own story to leverage the reels for your mobile app marketing strategy.
3. Retention Stage
Acquiring consumers is not enough, retaining them is a big challenge. On average, 80% of your revenue will come from the 20% of loyal customers who repeatedly buy your subscriptions.
However many people focus on acquiring new customers and fail to retain the old customers, this is where your mobile app marketing strategy fails. You need to focus on retaining the old customers as well while acquiring the new ones. You must ensure the active engagement of your loyal customers to make your app a huge success.
You can increase your retention rate by following some simple ways.
User Experience
The first impression is the last, make your app in such a way that users can easily operate it, and design your app in such a way that there are no issues in terms of functionality, features, or ease of use. Use creatives that are soothing to your eyes instead of aggressive combinations.
Integrate AI and Chatbots
You and your team can not be available 24/7 to your consumers, with advancements in technology AI has become revolutionary, integrating AI and automated chatbots for customer service for regular queries and basic FAQs is a great initiative in your mobile app marketing strategy.
It will help to increase the user experience and they can rely on your app with quick consumer support for a particular niche.
Communication
Mobile App Marketing is not limited to promotions, advertisements, or downloads but also how you cater to your customers after the subscription or download. You can use in-app messaging to interact with your customers indirectly. You can share the latest updates, issues, help, or news related to your niche or category. It will help you to build more trustworthy relations with the users. This is the time for personalized marketing, personalize your communication by referring directly to them based on their interest and behavior.
Push Notifications
Tell your users about the latest offers, coupons, rewards, or sales through the Push Notifications.
Additional Tip: Technical Lookout
As many would say, the first impression is the last impression, which makes it very important for the brand to test the app before the launch in terms of functionality, UI/UX, performance, usability, and safety. All of your mobile app marketing strategies will fail if the user is not satisfied with the app.
One can follow the sequence of testing mentioned below to determine the successful mobile app marketing campaign.
1. Alpha Testing
It is conducted internally with the experienced and required members of the organization in a controlled environment to catch the technical issues in the app.
2. Beta Testing
In this phase, the limited app version is released for the external users or beta testers to collect real-world feedback or any technical issue, that internal users may missed.
3. Usability Testing
In this phase, the participants feel the app, they determine any challenges faced in the design, navigation, or user satisfaction areas.
4. A/B Testing
Create two versions of the app or feature and assign the participants randomly to test it. It will help you to analyze which is better and can optimize your mobile app marketing strategy accordingly.
5. Regression Testing
The product may glitch after several updates and bug fixes, it is done to ensure consistency and stability of the app performance.
6. Load and Performance Testing.
Many times apps crash or slow down when there is a major update and maintenance during the peak hours of the usage. One must ensure that this will not happen and take the required measures to prevent it at the testing stage.
7. Security Testing
Test your apps in terms of vulnerability and security through penetration testing, code reviews, and govt. protocols with the assistance of certified hackers and coders. Making sure that your app is secured will build the trust in mobile app marketing campaign.
8. User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
Engage and survey end users or participants to get real feedback and suggestions for the app to ensure the productive launch of the app.
9. Crowdsourced Testing
Select a diversified group of external testers including different beliefs, cultures, and backgrounds to test your app and see if it can fit in the market and meet the expectations of the end-users. This will help you to make informed improvements based on their feedback and suggestions.
To know more about the technical lookouts for app testing click on https://www.sam-solutions.com/blog/mobile-app-testing/
Conclusion
In an era where going online isn’t enough for businesses, mobile app marketing is very crucial for the success of the brand. In this article, we have learned the three stages of app marketing that is awareness, acquisition, and retention.
If done properly businesses can position themselves among millions of other brands with the help of the right strategy. Creating awareness through influencer collaborations, following social media trends, and creating content that resembles users is the first step toward visibility. In the second stage, you focus on more and more downloads through paid ads, app store optimization, and video content, and at last, you focus on retaining your loyal users for the sustainable growth of your business through personalized communication and better user experience. These 3 stages are the main pillar for your mobile app marketing strategy and to make your app a great success
FAQs
- What is ASO?
ASO commonly known as App Store Optimisation is the process of optimizing your rank and visibility on app store result page. It is a technical process that helps to make your app visible on the top results of the app store leading to more clicks and downloads.
2. Are ASO and SEO similar?
No, App Store Optimization (ASO) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are not the same. ASO helps to rank your app on the app store and is used in mobile app marketing while SEO helps to rank your page or website higher on search engine result pages.
3. How can we choose the right influencer for Mobile App Marketing?
Choosing the right influencer is very important, the influencer you choose must have the related audience base as your user persona, and he/she must have a similar niche as your app category, for example, if your app is for the stock market then the influencer you choose must be from the finance niche.
4. What is User Persona?
User Persona is a hypothetical representation of your ideal customer created on the basis of demographics, pain points, interests, and behavior.
5. What are the tracking matrics for Mobile App Marketing?
Below are the common metrics used for tracking,
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
- Active Users
- Cost Per Mile (CPM)
- Conversion Rate
- Cost Per Install (CPI)
- Click Through Rate (CTR)
- Retention Rate
- Churn
6. How can Push Notifications help in retention?
Push Notifications remind users about your app updates, offers, or other promotions keep them engaged with your app, and build trust and loyalty.
7. How can AI and Chatbots increase user retention?
AI and Chatbots help the user with daily queries, FAQs, or customer support enhancing the user experience and increasing the user experience in your app.
8. Does reviews and ratings impact your mobile app marketing strategy?
Yes, positive reviews and ratings help to increase the credibility and trust of your app.
9. Is user experience important for user retention?
Yes, a seamless user experience leads to increased user retention because of the ease of use of functionality, design, and features.
10. How can we engage our old customers?
We can personalize the communication and push notifications to engage and keep our old and loyal customers.
