6 Strategies for Marketing Your Mobile App

6 Strategies for Marketing Your Mobile App

mobile app development marketing strategy

 Saying mobile apps are popular is a vast understatement. There are apps for everything ranging from restaurant reviews and fitness trackers to music notation and social networking. In October 2013, Apple announced that there are over 1 million apps in their App Store. Needless to say, your app will have a lot of competition, so it is important to build sustainable marketing and distribution strategies to make sure your app gets into the right hands and has longevity. Here are six effective marketing strategies.

1.)  Plan ahead

Even before your app’s creation, you need to be leveraging its potential by building a web presence and social media profiles. Build a website before its release and have the landing page promote your app by giving information about its release and catering to target customers who have already been scoping out the site. Twitter is a great platform to give quick updates about its developmental stages and offer glimpses of the process. Outline a publicity schedule and regularly reach out to the press well before and after its release.

2.)  Be exclusive early on

Beyond managing traffic and working out initial bugs, exclusivity will garner curiosity. Spotify is a textbook example of arriving in the U.S. and being available by invitation only. Buzz was generated around the new app and they were able to capitalize on word-of-mouth marketing. Nowadays, it seems like nearly everyone uses Spotify and it stands out as the most popular music streaming service on the market.

3.)  Make the app easily discovered

Know your target market and establish it early on. Many developers fear bad reviews and therefore choose not to submit their apps to reputable site such as Buzzsumo or Followerwonk  who aim to get your apps noticed by their reputability and followership. Consider devoting a part of your PR budget to user-review and PR services such as PreApps, which can generate promo videos for your app and submit it to an arsenal of app review sites. Getting feedback before its release is a crucial step in determining the success or failure of your app.

4.)  Optimize the app for the App Store

Just like websites need Search Engine Optimization (SEO), mobile apps need to make sure they have the right keywords in their title and descriptions in order for users to find it. For instance, if you have a mobile chromatic music tuner, use the terms “tuner, chromatic tuner, guitar tuner, pitch, pro tuners, etc” in your description content so it can easily be found. There are even companies that include app store optimization as an essential component of their service.

5.)  Think long-term marketing

Now that your app is up and running, you need to think about sustaining it for long-term results. Part of your post-launch campaign will be constantly checking to make sure it is optimized to its target audience and standing out in searches. Continue working on the product’s development and generate press releases for all updated features. Utilize all social media outlets for these updates as well.

6.)  Build in social features

We have the ability to communicate instantly, so social features can be enormous in generating word of mouth. Fitness freaks can log in how many miles they just ran on running apps and movie buffs can share the latest film they just discovered on Netflix. Yelp is popular because you can peruse user-generated reviews of previous patrons to gage whether or not you will care for a particular restaurant or service. The more interactive, the better.