Developed the world’s greatest mobile app, but it will never succeed unless you market your app to right users. Obviously, that will require marketing and advertising expertise, which can be extremely costly, especially if your app is creating new markets or radically innovating existing markets. So, how can you get the marketing and promotional support your app needs, when you have limited financial resources?
Simpalm has expert team of mobile app developers in Maryland, and thanks to the hundreds of successful apps our team has developed over the years, we’ve gained significant experience in helping our clients promote their mobile apps. Here are some general tips for you to consider:
1. Identify the Ideal Audience for Your App.
For example, will your app be especially attractive to young teenagers? Single young adults? Wine drinkers? Farmers? City dwellers? Once you identify the audience for your app, it will be easier to identify the messages you will need to promote it, as well as the best places to target your marketing. Mobile apps development are almost exclusively marketed digitally. That is great for do-it-yourself marketing efforts because you can take advantage of a great deal of free or extremely low-cost marketing techniques.
2. Competitive AnalysisÂ
Analyzing competitor apps is a great strategy to start marketing your app. Everybody wants to stay on top of their industry. Find the competitors of your app. Create a list of your top competitors with their pricing plan, monetization model, app store ranking, user experience (UX) pros and cons, and reviews. These are useful considerations that should influence your entire app marketing approach.
3. Create SEO-Optimized Landing Page
Before you launch your app, you should create a website to serve as its marketing and promotional base. This can be relatively easy to do using a free or low-cost WordPress site template. The content of your site will include photos and descriptions of your app, news and other information about it. WordPress is essentially a blogging platform. You can use your blog to post news, photos, and information to promote your product, as well as link with other, related blogs that your targeted audience may be reading.
You can also increase the Search Engine value of your site by making sure all content–text, headlines, page names, photo names, and captions, include the keywords and phrases that your target audience is searching for on the Internet. If you aren’t at all familiar with Internet marketing, you can find a great deal of information in the business section of Google’s website. Or, give us a call with your specific questions and we’ll provide the answers you need.
A. Facebook Marketing
Facebook provides a variety of free and low-cost ways to powerfully promote your app. It’s absolutely free to create a Facebook page for your app, which you can link to your website. All news, announcements and events you publish on your website can be included on your Facebook page.
As people find your site, encourage them to connect with you on Facebook and to “like” your page. It’s amazing how quickly your page can attract followers and “likes” on Facebook, especially when you consider that it is all free of cost. As your Facebook audience grows, you will be able to target it with low-cost Facebook promotions, to call special attention to important news or product updates.
But, be warned: just as positive information about you and your business can exponentially spread via Facebook and other Social media, so, too, can negative information. Protect your reputation. Don’t buy fake “likes” or post bogus claims about your app. Be genuine and authentic. That’s the best way to quickly grow a loyal following for your app or for your company. In that same vein, be careful to not inundate your friends, family or customers with too many promotional posts. If you make a nuisance of yourself, your followers will simply stop actively following you, which will greatly reduce Facebook’s promotional value for you.
Remember, Facebook isn’t just a promotional tool. It’s also a Customer Relationship Management tool.
B. Twitter Marketing
Just like Facebook, Twitter also allows you to create a page for your product. You can also use Twitter to identify and connect with particular audiences using hashtags, which are words or phrases preceded by a hash or pound sign (#). Twitter uses hashtags to help users find messages on particular topics. You will be able to use hashtags to identify the users most important to your app or business.
C. Linkedin
LinkedIn is an excellent way to connect with professionals, entrepreneurs, and companies. We can target specific companies/organizations, and professionals. If your app is service-based and related to students, professionals, LinkedIn will help you connect with them. Linkedin also has several Groups and Forums that you can join related to your App and reach out to several of the industry professionals. To reduce your efforts and increase efficiency you can use various social media automation tools.
4. Press Releases
As a leading app development company in Pennsylvania, we suggest to write a press release for your app and send it to press release websites or targeted newsmedia. Some PR websites are available for free and some will charge you a fee. You will want to use both to gain the most traction. PRLog, Newsbox, Pressreleaser, Bignews, Pressbox, Openpr are examples of free sites, while PRweb and Newswire will charge a fee to publish your press release, typically from $100 to $500, depending on the audience you want to reach.
You should also send your press release to targeted newspapers, trade magazines, and websites, which are always looking for relevant, free content for their readers. It’s important, however, to make sure your release is well-written and contains real news, not just puffed-up claims about your app or your company. If your press release doesn’t have interesting information it, or requires a great deal of editing, it will not be published and the time you spent on it will have been wasted. However, if you do get your press release published, it will not only get in front of your target audience, it will help your website get better Search Engine performance.
5. Youtube/Video Marketing
Embedding YouTube videos in your content is a powerful strategy to not only promote your product on search engines but also to generate interest and excitement in using your product. Your video names and descriptions should include references to problems you can solve or things you can do using your product. Many people will choose to view a video rather than read an article to get the information they want. Using an online video editor tool can make your video content better and more interesting, helping you connect better with your audience. Create Youtube videos to exploit that fact and connect with those people for free. And when you do, think about adding a catchy YouTube intros to hook viewers right from the start, making your content more engaging and memorable
6. Communicate using Creative Ideas
You can create inspirational images, illustrations, videos or other creative devices to attract attention to your app. Once you create something that you believe will connect with your targeted audience, post it to sites such as Pinterest or Instagram. If your creative effort is especially good, your post may go “viral,” earning you an incredible windfall of valuable attention.
7. Get onto App Listing Directories
There are several App Listing Directories where you can submit your app details. These directories enlist your app according to the category, platform support, services, and reviews. Each directory has its own criteria to show your app on the app. You can review their terms and conditions to find out which are the best suits for your app services. You can submit your app to App.net, Hootsuite, Slack, and several others to get presence over there.
8. Ask Your Users to Submit Reviews
Any particular product with good reviews and ranking always provide better results in creating a new customer base and app store download. An educated user always sees your app reviews before downloading the app. Make sure to ask your users to submit good reviews about your app.
