There is no doubt that having an incredible app idea, right UI, UX, and functionality are very important for the success of a mobile app, but is it enough? Are you sure that you need to focus on developing the app? What about marketing it?
In fact, you need to market your app extensively in different stages alongside the app development process. These stages include the pre-launch and post-launch marketing, along with marketing during launch. But all this needs to be pre-planned even at the earliest stages. Thus, to ensure the success of your mobile app, you need to come up with effective pre-launch app marketing strategies. Here are a few tactics that can help you in the process.
1. Thorough research of the market and your competitors
With the multiplication of the number of apps in the app store at a rapid rate, the principle of survival of the fittest is applicable here also. You need to be very clear about who your target audience will be and competitors that can pose a challenge for you in the market. You need to gather data about your competitor’s apps regularly and stand out by deriving data-driven insights about them. This can help you make sound decisions for attaining and sustaining the users during the pre-launch activities.
2. Create an effective landing page
During the pre-launch of the app, you need to design the landing page as it plays an important role in creating a buzz around your mobile app. It is the best platform to motivate people to check out and get engaged with your product so that they ultimately install your app. You can display your creativity on the page and drive higher returns for your business. Ideally, when people get to see your landing page, they should get the answers to queries they may be having in their mind like what is your business about? What your app has to offer? How is it different from other apps in the same domain? What should they do next? Etc.
3. App Store Optimization (ASO)
People generally go to the app store and decide if they want to use your app or not. So, you need to impress them with your app store page by creating it strategically, keeping in mind many things such as the name of the app, its description, right keywords, right visuals, and proper design.
Though the name of the app should be short and easy for everyone to remember, it should sufficiently express the essence of the app and contain the main keyword in its name. Think of what your customers are most likely to type when searching for the products or services that your app provides and choose the most appropriate one to optimize its ranking. Similarly, the app description is not completely read by users and thus should be very precise and clearly highlight the main advantages of your app. Highlight the problems your app can solve and what’s new.
4. Design a well-thought icon for your app
The app icon is your first communication with the users and decides whether the user will read the app description and look further or not. A vivid and catchy icon is likely to attract users to explore your app. Try to make a simple icon and test it against different backgrounds and sizes.
5. Make your app easily discoverable
Nearly 75% of people are looking out for mobile apps on Google. So, promoting your app on websites and on search engines to make them easily discoverable is a great idea to increase the optimization of your app. Search ads boost app awareness and drive downloads, thus becoming an effective marketing tool for your app. By optimizing your mobile app for relevant search queries and employing the SEO tactics, you can achieve greater visibility and awareness of your mobile app.
6. Market the content to advertise your app
During the pre-launch of the mobile app, you can use blogs, videos, podcasts, forums, etc. to promote the development of your mobile app. Blogging on your website and blogging platforms build not only the interest around your product but also better search visibility. You can choose target keywords and create quality content to improve the search engine ranking of your blog. You can also create effective videos on Youtube to increase engagement and downloads. Creating podcasts is simple and can increase the popularity of your mobile app rapidly as they can reach people almost anywhere and bring your message to a wide audience.
7. Engender curiosity about your mobile app
You should create a tension grabbing teaser video that can tell the story of your app in short and interesting manner, i.e., its meaning, purpose, best features, etc. to create an early buzz about it and a strong call to action. With social media, you can widen the reach of your mobile app internationally as well. You can target your advertisements to potential customers after thorough analysis through social media channels.
8. Email marketing of the mobile app
Targeted emails can also be sent to potential customers to induce them to visit the app and check out its features. The app release date should be indicated in all pre-launch promotional activities to keep the potential users on a lookout for it. You can offer incentives to people reaching through the email address and give a human touch to all communication. Also, the emails need to be scheduled in a manner that the user can read it. The frequency should neither be to less (to make them forget all about it just prior to the launch) nor too much (to make them get irritated).
Final words
After creating an app, you can’t just sit back and rely on the word of mouth to make it successful. Creating a buzz around it prior to its launch is thus very essential. You need to stay vigilant for marking your presence on app stores. With lots of data available to marketers today, proper strategies need to be developed after the analysis of this data for promoting your app. Thus, discovering new opportunities and challenges and having the flexibility to review marketing measurements for growth holds the key to the success of your mobile app.
Author Bio:
Juned Ahmed working at IndianAppDevelopers, a mobile app development company as a head of marketing department, Juned shares his ideas about mobile technologies which is adopt by app developers India on various blogs and websites.
