The tech world is rapidly changing and with it, the internet, software and apps have to follow suit. Specifically, corporations and other small business have to find a way to be in tune with their customers almost every second. Apart from social media, many businesses have developed mobile applications to bring their services and products close to their consumers.
Suddenly, app development has become a booming business for developers. However, today’s focus is on their clients who contracted them to make an app for them. Acquiring the app is not the final stage. They have to get their consumers to download it. Then, they are at a strategic point. A point that their customers can access them and their products on their mobile phones.
Mobile app marketing is the discipline designed to spread awareness about your mobile app with the objective of acquiring users. It does not stop there. You need to nurture users throughout their user app experience for them to remain hooked.
According to an article from Digital Authority Partners, more than 40 percent of all Android app releases are considered dead in the water. These are apps that have received less than 10 ratings and no reviews. The same apps don’t get any single updates from their developers throughout their lifetime. This makes the perfect conditions for a vicious cycle, as apps that aren’t frequently updated will quickly fall out of favor.
Before you convince people to download your app, you need to understand the psychographics of your potential users. You need to know where they gather, what they want, the value your app offers. According to Hightower video production, “Communicate in a receptive manner and anticipate the evolution of their needs over time.”
Why Market Your Mobile App?
Combo App stated in one of their informative mobile app marketing guide that more than 70 percent of the people around the globe own a smartphone. This shows the kind of market that mobile apps can dominate. Statista estimates that 2.87 million people around the world will own a smartphone by 2020.
Given the statistics, the mobile app market is thriving, but it does not translate to every mobile application being successful. In fact, competition is extremely high and one service can be offered by 100s of apps. So, what makes your app superior from the others?
Here are four of the best and most effective mobile app marketing strategies you could use for 2019:
1. One Strategy at A Time
Going by what is on other sites, there are plenty of marketing strategies available online. A few of them are really good ones and should be applied to your business. Unfortunately, as a startup, you may not have the funds or the bandwidth to engage all of them at the same time. Sometimes, even if you have the capability, concentrating on many things at once will not give you the total desired outcome.
The best approach is to focus on one or two strategies that seem to give you the best results. This way, you can definitely give it all you’ve got in making the strategies a success. This will make it possible for you to track the strategies and analyze whether the strategy is working.
It is likely that about 80% of your success will come from one of your strategies. This is a result you would have not achieved if you concentrated on many strategies.
2. Search Engine Optimization and Marketing
It is important to note that 130 trillion pages are indexed by Search Engines on the internet. They are then matched to user search queries. The purpose of search engines is to deliver the most relevant, appropriate, and useful content to the user searching the content. And if it were your app, would you not like for it to be the first choice for the smartphone user? Therefore, with SEO, the target is to create content that Google will rank the highest.
Given the condition of the number of applications coming up, SEO is a tricky business as millions of other pages will be vying for the top-ranking spot. Here are the four pillars of SEO optimization to have your page at the top:
a) Authority
It is a measure of trust that translates to the most important aspect when it comes to ranking. One approach is having links from quality sites recommending your site. It tells the Search Engine that your business site is a quality site.
b) Relevance
This measures content quality using natural language learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Therefore, your content must be factual, well written and utilize keywords seamlessly.
c) User Experience
How easy is it to use your site? Your site needs to be responsive, easy to read and easy to navigate.
d) Site Health
Your site needs all the required metadata. These include page descriptions and image Alt tags. Make sure to eliminate broken links.
Content marketing and SEO could generate a lot of leads to your business where users can download your app. Search Engine Marketing allows you to run your ads at the top or at the bottom of the search engine queries. Once again you could use this platform to market your app.
3. Use App Store Optimization (ASO)
It runs the same way SEO does and the objective is to increase the visibility of your app. App stores rank the most popular and the most relevant apps at the top of search queries. You should strive to be among the top. Therefore, when looking at App Store Optimization you must consider the following:
i. Keywords – use the right ones.
ii. App Page Optimization – your app page should contain quality images and videos. Content should be packed with keywords.
iii. Quality of App – it should be small enough to download and should be working.
4. Social Media and Influencer Marketing
Social media is huge and the target group is enormous. The sheer volume of qualified people you could target is gigantic. By January 2019, Facebook had over 2.2 billion users, YouTube had 1.9 billion, Instagram 1 billion, and 326 million on Twitter. With such numbers, marketing is effective through social media. Use social media marketing platforms to market your app. It may cost you but the feedback is worth it.
Influencer marketing also relies a lot on social media. An influencer is a social media user with a great number of following. The main target from influencers is their followers. Pay influencers to market your app. Let them download it, use it and formulate a great opinion which they can influence their followers with. Influence them to download your app.
There are more marketing strategies that can be deemed important. However, the ones listed above are quite critical, especially for a new business.