Mobile App Marketing: How to Successfully Build & Execute Your Strategy

2020 is the year of digital marketing, and you can see it reflected in the hundreds of mobile apps available at the app store. Building a mobile app is easy, but marketing the app is much more complicated than you can think. You not only have to attract customers but also leave your competitors behind.

Mobile app marketing is about creating marketing strategies to reach your users at every stage of the marketing funnel. It has three main steps: attract your target audience, acquire, and then retain them. Below are some of the marketing strategies that would guide you on how to do it.

1.    Define Your Target Audience

After building a mobile app and deciding its release date, now you should be clear who your potential customers are. The mobile app should be designed for a specific group of audiences to cater to their needs. However, there can be multiple user groups for a single mobile app.

 The grouping can be based on age, gender, background, mobile preferences, lifestyle, and psychographics. You are not a successful marketer if you would try to reach everyone.

Before launching the app, you should know:

• Who is your customer?
• What they value?
• Central goals of the customer.
• Challenges your customer is facing.
• What mobile Operating system your target user is using?
• What type of content does your client visit often?

2.   Collect Information about Your Competitors

The next step is to know about your competitors on the market. You should collect the following information:

• Who are your competitors?
• What is unique about their mobile app?
• Who is their target audience?

Collecting information about your competitors will give you preliminary information about the target audience, projected trends, pricing strategy, promotional plan, and customer acquisition cost, etc. You may also wish to look into using something like Van Westendorp Pricing Research to see whether you are on the right track with what you are planning to charge, and how your target market is likely to respond to that, so you can make any necessary adjustments before you launch the app. Taking the time to do this research can really help you improve your mobile app and its offerings to make it a unique one.

3.   Make Your Mobile App Visible In the App Store

Mobile SEO is crucial to the success of your mobile application. In this marketing strategy, you have to make your mobile app rank higher in the search results of the app store. A carefully crafted SEO strategy that focuses on primary keywords, Local SEO, and long-tail keywords can make your app more visible to the target customers.

Some common SEO practices to boost app visibility are:

• Title tag – the title should be readable and relevant.
• Meta Description – salient features of the app – use keywords.
• Optimized Images – focus on one element that is the true reflection of the purpose of your app and design it in a unique shape.
• Screenshots – it shows the main features.

4.   Design a Website or a Landing Page for Your Mobile App

Mobile websites are the primary source of downloading an app. A website helps you in search engine optimization (SEO) by starting to build your domain authority.  With a website, you can collect or send emails to keep your followers updated and let them know the launching date of your mobile app and when you have new updates and features.

The landing page’s primary purpose is to inform the customers about the app in a unique way. The landing page plays a vital role in the selling as it contains the following items: name of the app, salient features, promotional video along with images, and call to action.

5.   Create a Blog

Creating a blog is an exciting way to attract potential clients to your app. The blog’s primary purpose is not only to introduce the app to people but also to create interest. It also plays a role in providing more visibility. For a blog, great content is necessary. Also, incorporate an SEO strategy to improve the search engine ranking of your blog.

6.   Market Your App via Social Media Tools

Social media tools are the most widely used digital marketing tactic around the globe. Facebook and Instagram are the most common, but others are equally popular. You can market your latest mobile app via these social media platforms and highlight its offerings and uniqueness to your target customers.

Social networks help you with social listening. It gives access to the data about the interests, preferences, and hobbies of the users.  It allows you to customize advertisements and reach your target audience for higher conversion.

7.    Measure App Performance against Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

This marketing step is essential to know how your app is doing.  The overall performance and success of the app can be measured via the following factors:

Total number of App downloads- number of times the app has been installed. This is an early indication of how well your app is doing on the market.

Daily active users – number of people who are using the app daily.

Monthly active users – the number of people who use the app once in a month.

Daily sessions per day – how many times a user use the app in a single day?

Retention rate – the number of people who returned to the app after their first visit.

Stickiness rate – turning a monthly active user (MAU) into a daily active user (DAU).

Churn ratio – the number of users who have stopped using the app.

Our Verdict!

We are living in the most exciting era of humankind. Today you can see hundreds of mobile apps in your app store. However, to be successful, app developers need to invest in grade-A marketing efforts.

When you build up a mobile app, before launching it on the market, the first thing you should do is know about your target customers and competitors. Build a website or a landing page to understand what the app is offering and how it is unique. Additionally, you can advertise it via the blog and social media platforms. 

Last but not least, never forget to measure your app’s performance against predetermined KPIs so that you can get insights about the overall performance and improve where needed.

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