7 killer tips on how to promote your app in the Digital World - ITgenerator

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7 killer tips on how to promote your app in the Digital World

Jacek Knaflewski

10/03/2019 7 min read

3/5 - (2 votes)

Creating a mobile app often makes our customers wonder what is more difficult – its creation or maybe designing marketing activities aimed at attracting and then increasing the number of its users. From our experience, during software development, there is less room for errors, so this part is critical to the success of a mobile project. On the other hand, with a promotional strategy, we have more opportunities to test many solutions. The challenge in creating a large number of crowds using applications is the need to constantly search for effective user acquisition channels. Digital marketing is changing so fast and that’s why you have to be up to date with trends or entrust this topic to people who will do it for you. Know one thing: if you want to create a commercial mobile app and your profits from it will grow with the number of users, you have to take care of marketing your application as soon as possible. Below are a few vital promotional techniques for increasing the number of users of a mobile application:

  • App store optimization (SEO for mobile applications)

ASO is a process of improving the visibility of a mobile app in Google Play and App store by optimizing each element of metadata (application title, description, keywords, screenshots, etc.) in accordance with the best practices and trends. The idea is to make the application more visible in rankings and to increase its discoverability. Thanks to this, users of the application have a better chance to find the application in the store, and thus, the number of downloads will naturally increase. Below you will find good SEO practices for your mobile application and a tool to optimize it.

ASO good practice

ASO optimization tool

  • Gathering reviews from app users

Ratings and reviews are extremely important for stores (especially in the Google Play Store), so you need to make sure you get positive reviews. Also, try to avoid negative reviews. Fortunately, developers can now ask users inside the application for their opinions and respond to reviews, showing users that they care about their opinions and that they are working to improve functionality and remove bugs.

Create an easy way to communicate with your customers and lead them to app stores to leave positive ratings and reviews, as well as to the ‘customer support’ page if they are going through a bad experience while using your digital product!

  • Reach out to users from various countries

If you want to grow your user database, you need to locate your application in different countries. Users are more likely to get involved in the content that is provided in their native language. The multiple benefits of location also include reaching out to a wider audience, attracting more user segments and getting demand from unexpected locations.

  • App directories

Creating an application takes a lot of time. But what takes more time is actually encouraging users to experience the process. You can spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to attract users, but still not be able to reach so many. With the help come catalog websites where you can add your product and increase your visibility in the community of mobile app users.
Directories consist of a segment of users who are interested in a specific niche of the application – these can be games, productivity, social media or others. The point is to find the right application directory and put it on the list. Below there is a list of 150 locations where you can add an entry about your product.

150 app directories

  • Indexing app in Firebase

This is an extremely important topic for both iOS and Android App Developers. Firebase app indexing allows users to search for dynamic content in your application and works for both Android and iOS devices. Firebase app indexing not only helps to increase user engagement but is also an opportunity to attract new users. That is because it allows users to search for application content regardless of whether your application is installed or not. If you have a rich application, you should enable Firebase app indexing to take advantage of most of these possibilities.

  • Universal App Campaign (UAC) – Google Ads

UAC campaigns are a great way to find new users for your mobile app. This type of advertising campaign allows you to advertise on Google’s largest advertising networks, including search engines, banners, YouTube and Google Play Store while managing to advertise on the Google Ads platform. Besides, Google uses machine learning to display the most relevant ads for users to help you achieve the highest possible conversion rate for your campaign. Advertisers don’t have to create ads for any other advertising location. Instead, Google will create ads for them, using materials provided by the advertiser. Google also manages bidding and targeting to maximize campaign results for your target and budget. What you need to define manually:

  • daily budget
  • cost per installation (CPI)
  • locations
  • languages
  • up to four different lines advertising text up to 25 characters long
  • campaign start date (end date is optional)

Optionally, you can add any photos, videos, and HTML5 assets that you would like Google to use when creating an ad. If they are not set, Google will download photos and videos from your app store list.

Click  “New campaign”:

Select “App promotion”:

Now you can choose the type of device (IOS or Android) that you want to display ads and view your application. If you want to promote the application on two platforms, iOS and Android, you have to create two campaigns.

From there you can name your campaign and add text ideas:

Note, the text you set here is automatically selected and modified to create the best advertisement for your UAC Campaign. For example, if one line of text works better than another, it will be displayed more often.
Optionally, you can add any images, videos or HTML5 assets you want to show in ads:

When you add text, images, and other resources, you can set target locations and languages:

 

Then you can set the campaign goal, budget and amount of offers:

  • Campaign objective: Install volume
  • Daily budget – min. $ 100-200 (recommendation)
  • Install cost: $ 5-10 (recommendation)

 

The last step is to set the date of execution and confirm the campaign:

  • Facebook app install campaign

Ads encouraging the installation of applications can be displayed on Facebook, Instagram and their Audience Network. They contain direct links to App Store and Google Play stores, where you can download the app right away.

Select ‘Promote your app’, then paste the URL of the App Store or Play Store. Don’t forget to name your advertising campaign.

Search for your apps or add a link from Google Play or App Store.

Adding graphic materials to the content of the ad in the form of photos or video.

The next step in creating an ad set is to define the target group.

Set the budget and time schedule for your promotion:

The first thing you would like to be asked to configure is your application platform. In this example I chose iOS. For example, if your application only works for iPhones with iOS 8 or higher, choose 8 as the minimum operating system. You don’t want to waste your budget by showing ads to people who can’t use your app. Configure whether you want to display ads to people who are connected via mobile data and Wi-Fi, or Wi-Fi only. Apple does not allow users to download apps of more than 100m through mobile data.

Creating ad campaigns on Facebook cost money, but they work, which is why publishers still run them. The success of an advertising campaign is based on many factors, but budgeting and target audience setting are probably the two most important ones besides how well to reach the audience.

  • BONUS TIP – landing page for your mobile app

At the center of that marketing is your landing page or app-focused website. This site will evolve based on where your app is in its development lifecycle. For those of you debating whether your app needs a landing page, we’ve put together why a landing page is integral to building your app’s following before launch, and how each stage of a landing page’s evolution helps position your app for success. Below, 10 huge reasons why landing page should play a key role in your marketing strategy:

  1. A landing page and web presence serve as the hub for all information about your app.
  2. It helps in shaping your app’s design identity with its logo, typography, and color palette.
  3. Define the story of your app in a sentence to help showcase its purpose and core features.
  4. The landing page should evolve with the app’s development. Gradually reveal more.
  5. Analyze the hard data on your landing page to refine your marketing messages to a particular group of users.
  6. Use your landing page and social channels to gather emails for user feedback and beta testers.
  7. Interact with users through the landing page to keep the excitement level up after launch.
  8. A landing page and its further extensions (f.e. blog) gives you broad opportunities to collect traffic from Google search engine.
  9. Via a web page, you can show your values and what and who stand behind the idea of your app, which boost your credibility.
  10. You can also provide some additional pieces of information, which are essential for the users – terms of use, privacy policy, guides.

These are just some of the forms of promoting your app, although they seem to be the most important. The key to success in digital marketing is continuous optimization of conversions, i.e. an increase in the number of users per unit of time and budget.

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Jacek Knaflewski
CEO of ITgenerator, deeply passionate about helping companies transform their businesses through modern technologies.

The complete guide on how to avoid mistakes in creating mobile apps

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