You’ve built an app for people to employ on their mobile devices. Now you have to fight to be seen among the 3.6 million apps listed on Google Play and the 2.6 million you’ll find on the iOS App Store. How in the world can you stand out from the crowd?
Top 25 App Marking Tips
Your position in the store is directly correlated to the number of downloads your app gains. Therefore, it’s essential to do everything you can to be seen and downloaded. Below, we outline our top 25 App Marketing Tips for your app project. When you master app store optimization, you’ll notice a change in your success.
1. Learn ASO
Tip: App Store Optimization (ASO) is essential for ranking high in the app stores. Nearly 75% of high-ranking apps use a keyword in their name.
Why: Like SEO for websites, ASO for apps works with keywords. Knowing how best to utilize those keywords in your app title or description will help users find your app among the sea of others.
How: If you’ve got a grasp on SEO already, you’re ahead of the game. Research a bit about ASO and how writing good copy for your descriptions can be the game-changer you need.
2. Market Early
Tip: Begin marketing your app as soon as possible to ensure that your app is a success
Why: If you can get your app into the minds and hearts of users long before you can get it onto their phones, you’re already set for success. Hype it up, and they’ll be waiting in the wings to download it when you launch.
How: Make sure that your client base knows that your app is in progress. Remind them of how the app solves a problem they may have and how it will make their life easier. When you put your app upfront to solve their inconveniences, they will be excited for the chance to download it.
3. Have Faith In Your Idea
Tip: Have faith in your idea. Brand new ideas often take time to take off. Invest some money and time in marketing your app to get over the initial hump.
Why: When you believe, your users will believe. Ensure that your app is a product you genuinely believe in and are willing to put in the time to market, even if it doesn’t seem successful at first. Don’t get discouraged because it takes longer than you hoped.
How: Shout your excitement to the mountain tops. Boast and brag to anyone who’ll listen about the issues your app will solve. Tell others why you and your development team believe so strongly in the benefits of using your app.
4. Consider Smaller Markets
Tip: Consider making your app for smaller markets like those in South America or Asia. It can be a great way to get noticed quickly, and marketing your app will be more comfortable.
Why: When you set your app in smaller markets, you can better focus your marketing and increase the download numbers before launching into more significant markets. Smaller markets also let you test the waters, make adjustments, and implement patches to your app before it hits the mainstream.
How: Research the smaller markets you want to target. Once you know what these markets need from your app, you can dedicate special attention to fulfilling that need and informing users of how they’ll benefit from downloading your app over another.
5. Plan Out Your Marketing
Tip: If you want your app to succeed, make sure you have a well-mapped marketing strategy.
Why: It’s easy to veer off-track when you don’t have a specific plan. Having a detailed map of the task you need to see success will keep you focused on your marketing plan.
How: Research the steps for marketing your app. Be specific, and write down the whos, whats, hows, and whens of your plan.
6. Build-In Sharing Features
Tip: Include a share button on your app. It helps your happy customers market the app for you on their social media.
Why: People want easy. When you put a share button and offer options and incentives for sharing to their friends and family, they’re more likely to do so. Further, when people hear from their friends how great a product is, they’re more likely to follow through with downloading and using your app.
How: Make sure to build into your app options for sharing often. Avoid making it spammy, but find a place in your app operation’s natural flow to put in your share options. Using familiar icons will help ease this process.
7. Know Your User Demographics
Tip: Knowing what regions you want to target for your app is essential when developing an app. You may need to allow for multiple languages depending on the demographics of your target audience.
Why: Language can be a massive barrier to success for an app that’s meant to be used by many people. If your app is only available in a handful of languages, you’re cutting a large chunk of users out of the pool.
How: Researching the demographics of the users you’re targeting comes down to looking at the data. Depending on the app’s purpose and what global market you choose to launch your app in, you’ll need to know the primary languages spoken in the area. You can always add more languages as you spread them into different regions.
8. Learn User Preferences
Tip: Learning your ideal user’s preferences is key to developing an app that they will widely use.
Why: This seems like common sense, yet it is a mistake that industries across the board make repeatedly. Remember that what you think is essential isn’t the same as what the end-user will want to see. Learning the preferences of your user will save you from a lot of negative reviews.
How: Look at similar apps. Figure out what their users love and hate in the app, and learn from it. Spend some time beta testing with small test groups. Listen and implement the information you glean from those test groups to perfect your app.
9. Study Failed Apps Before Starting
Tip: Make sure you study failed apps as well when drafting one for yourself. It’ll help you avoid repeating the failure of others.
Why: When you’re working on an app, there is a good chance someone else has created something similar. If you want to succeed over your future competitors, you must learn from their mistakes.
How: Using the mistakes of other designers can help you create a more robust app. Use your competition’s failures and shortcomings to fill in your gaps and slay in the app store.
10. Don’t Overuse Ads
Tip: Making an app that uses ads for revenue generation? Remember to avoid overusing ads, they may make you money, but too many ads will cause users to delete the app and never use it again.
Why: Excessive ads or ads that interrupt smooth play are the quickest way to get your app uninstalled. If the user has to break concentration during gameplay or watch an ad to use the app, they will not enjoy it.
How: Find ways to include your ads without disrupting use. Banner ads or ads for reward are an excellent way to place these revenue earners without discouraging your end-user from enjoying the benefits of the app.
11. Use Your App To Solve A Problem
Tip: Need an app idea? Try to resolve an everyday problem. The most successful apps help ordinary people in their daily lives.
Why: Whether your app is designed to fix something that’s broken, ease the use of something, or resolve boredom, you’ll want to show how your app addresses the issue.
How: There are plenty of problems that need solutions. Ask yourself what tasks would be easier or more enjoyable if you could automate them. An app should simplify, not complicate.
12. Do Keyword Research
Tip: SEO (search engine optimization) can be essential to help your app gain millions of downloads. Reach the top of app searches by optimizing for your chosen keywords.
Why: App stores use algorithms similar to popular search engines. Researching keywords and including them in your title and description will ensure your app finds its way to the first page of searches.
How: In addition to ASO, research how to use SEO in your descriptions, coding, thumbnail, graphics, advertising, and meta tags. Write catchy descriptions when you pitch your app to markets and potential partners. Make it memorable, and keep it in line with the keywords that will best serve your needs.
13. Make Influencers and Social Media a Priority
Tip: Social media and influencer marketing are two extremely successful methods of marketing your app
Why: Whether we’re ready to accept it, social media influencers have a lot of clout with the consumer markets. If a big name on Instagram mentions your app, TikTok, Twitter, or Facebook, what’s said will greatly bear how well the market accepts the product.
How: Make sure you have sorted out the bugs and glitches early. Once the app is working flawlessly, introduce it to social media influencers and let them spread it to their fan base.
14. Don’t Build An App For Everyone
Tip: Stay focused. Don’t try to cater to everyone; offer something substantial and meaningful to your prospective customers.
Why: You can’t please everyone. Focusing your efforts on a select demographic will help you create a quality product that people in that group will swear by.
How: It’s easy to get lost in the different demands of a wide array of users. However, not everyone will like or need what you have to offer. But to some, what you have to offer is all they need.
15. Consider Augmented Reality
Tip: Stay up-to-date on the latest trends. Augmented Reality is one trend that keeps people coming back. Try it in your app.
Why: Not every app will use trendy technology like augmented reality, but if your app can use it, do. The novelty of augmented reality is a moneymaker.
How: People want to see their games and such interaction with the things around them. Novelty sells experiences; use this novelty to your advantage if you can.
16. Focus Your App
Tip: Successful apps focus on a single problem that needs a solution. Don’t try to make your app all things to all people. The focus will drive success.
Why: Don’t try to solve every issue with your app. Focus on one problem and fix it in the most thorough way you can. Leave no stone unturned when it comes to that problem, and your users will adore and share their love for your app.
How: You’ll want to study the market and figure out what problem your app can resolve. Then focus wholly on that issue. Once you’ve solved it, you can add additional features to solve the other issues.
17. Include Unique Features
Tip: To gain millions of downloads on the market, make sure your app is extraordinary. Try to include features no other app can do or make those features better than the rest.
Why: Your app needs to stand apart from the crowd. Regardless of your app’s genre, you’ll want to make sure your app can out-perform its competitors, and unique features are how you’ll do this successfully.
How: Study your competitors, and find something they lack. Ask the users what they feel is missing from other similar apps and improve the concept.
18. Research and Analyze the Market
Tip: Validate your ideas through competitive research and market analysis. This ensures a worthwhile app for both your bottom line and customer enjoyment.
Why: It would be discouraging to spend time, money, and effort on a product only to find out the same thing exists in the market you’re planning on launching in.
How: Take the time to delve into the app store and search engines to see what has been done in the past to combat the issues your idea can prevent. Analyze what details and features you’d need to get consumers to commit to using your app.
19. Use an Attractive Icon
Tip: Want more people to install your app? Make sure your app icon is attractive.
Why: If your icon is unmemorable, unattractive, or confusing, you’re unlikely to succeed in the app store.
How: Contract with an artistic designer to create a recognizable and straightforward icon to use for your app. Ensure that it conveys what your app is about and communicates to users that it is legitimate.
20. Focus on the User
Tip: When designing your app, make sure you consider your end-users personality and taste. What’s suitable for fashionistas won’t be useful for financial analysts.
Why: The end-user has the final say on the life or death of your app. If the users aren’t happy, they’ll ruin your chance to succeed in the app markets.
How: Don’t try to do everything for everyone. Keep it simple, and design your app to do the job it needs to do and do it well. Focusing on the user means that they will have reason to share the product with their network.
21. Cross-Platform Marketing
Tip: Share your application and the problem it solves on social media through a professional business page and advertising.
Why: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and similar social media platforms are modern-day billboards. People spend more time with their phones in their hands than they spend in bed, on average.
How: Building a professional page on social media to promote your app is relatively simple; be sure to comply with the terms and conditions of the platform and the rules of private groups when sharing the app on those platforms.
22. Organic Reviews
Tip: Make it easy to leave reviews on your product.
Why: Build in natural points to review the product. Gently remind your user that reviews help the app stay current and successful. Organic reviews help google and other searches find your app.
How: Flow is essential when designing an app. If you can find natural points to pause and leave reviews, you’re more likely to get positive reviews on your app. Disrupting the flow of making it difficult to leave reviews will irritate people and result in less than stellar reviews.
23. Niche Ads – Mobile Networking
Tip: Advertise your app through other successful mobile apps.
Why: Mobile-specific apps often offer free versions full of ads and paid versions – ad-free. The best place to advertise a mobile app is on another mobile app.
How: Consider other apps your target market may enjoy. Work with those agencies and developers to get your app on their ad list. Music apps are great places to start. Spotify, Pandora, and iHeartRadio all have options to advertise within their free app versions.
24. Retargeting
Tip: Retargeting is running ads on other apps that your potential users frequent.
Why: Retargeting is why you can mention a product or concept in a Facebook post, and an hour later, there’s an Amazon ad for the same product on your Pandora sidebar. Many of these apps are linked back and forth in partnership.
How: Use the partnership big networks have built to reach a broader range of consumers by retargeting ads through their targeted ad campaigns. You can customize these campaigns based on keywords, visited sites, and similar products.
25. Keep Evolving
Tip: After launch, don’t stop developing. Keep evolving your app to fit the changing needs of your customers.
Why: When an app evolved to meet new needs, it stays relevant. If your app doesn’t stay relevant or update to accommodate new technology, it won’t survive in the fast-paced app market.
How: Stay on top of new technology specs, and adjust how your app runs through updates and patches. As new trends emerge, stay ahead of the wave and adapt.
Keep Looking Forward
No matter how many times you try and fail, there’s always next time. Keep working on your app. Don’t give up; your app could change how we work, communicate, eat, or sleep. Without dedicated creators like you, our lives would be less efficient and much more tedious. Once your app takes off, don’t get left behind; working with professionals like IdeaMaker will help you stay ahead of the curve.
