Effective ways to Promote your Mobile Application?
By: Octal Info Solution Pte. Ltd
Tags: Mobile App Developer, Mobile App Development

The arrival of mobile applications literally changed people’s lives for good. Today, even with the busy schedules, it is quite easy and convenient for everyone to have any service at their beck and call, be it taxi-booking, salon services, car-wash, and whatnot.

Hence, there is no doubt that mobile apps very much hold the reins of our lives today and they are most definitely here to stay.

With a myriad of mobile apps being introduced every day, users are certainly getting wide-ranging choices, as apps are concerned, in virtually every possibly imaginable category.

However, it won’t be wrong to put it this way that mobile app developers are at a kind of disadvantage as they may fail to provide the needed exposure to their mobile app, out there in the app marketplace. So, how to fix this issue? Well, definitely you can learn a thing or few to market your mobile app in a manner that it receives the attention it deserves truly. In this blog, we will put some light on how to launch your mobile app so that it becomes a success.

Mobile App Market at the moment:

When the Apple App Store was launched in the year 2009, there were just 500 mobile apps in the whole app store and basically, this is what the landscape appeared like. However, post four years, the scenario was entirely different, as Apple went on to announce on October 2013 that the number of mobile apps in the app store crossed a mark to a whopping one million. Thus, it generated a massive sum of $10 billion in the revenue. Soon, Google caught up and crossed this one million mobile app mark in just a matter of a few months.

Benefits of developing a mobile app:

Businesses from every corner of the globe, offering customers a wide range of products, are migrating to this mobile realm from the physical arena of handing over the leaflets, printed advertisements, and also hanging billboards. Mobile is the ultimate answer to them. Understanding the significance of mobile apps and seeing its massive benefits, they are embracing them and prepping for the future with them.

So here are the ways through which businesses can reap the benefits from, developing an app for their customers:

Enhances Customer Relationship: With the help of a mobile app, it gets easier to send personalized updates regarding your products/services to the customers in real-time. It also allows to access the client details & receive feedback that can be leveraged to enhance the long-term customer relationships.

Easily Maintainable: As you use a regular mobile app for the daily business operations, you risk yourself in the hands of this unknown mobile app developer. So, in case this developer decides to discontinue the app for certain reasons, then you are left with no choice but to find a new app and discontinue the current operations. However, when you create your own customized app, you have the full control of it and don’t depend on anyone.

Integrates with existing software: Customized mobile apps are created while considering your current business software and hence it is ensured that they function and integrate well sans any hiccups.

App data Security: In the case of the general business app, they might lack specialized security features and this puts the business data at risk. However, when you have a customized app, you can reinforce the data security system, as then the necessary security measures are going to be taken care of as per your business requirements during the mobile app development.

Highly scalable: When you get a custom mobile app developed, various parameters are kept in mind, like how the apps would handle the load when the business grows. So this way, the app can be easily scaled up as the need arises.

Enhances Efficiency: Custom apps are developed keeping the business needs in mind, as they very well suit your working style and helps in enhancing employee productivity as well as business ROI.

These were just the benefits that can be enjoyed by getting a mobile app developed for your business, however, in actual the benefits are endless and you keep on exploring new ones during the business processes.

Next, it is time for app promotional strategies.

How to promote your mobile app?

A lot goes into the app promotion and it is vital that you stay prepared once your app is ready, to begin with, the app promotion tactics. For this, three integral factors are,

Researching your Users & Competitors: This is a must, as it enables you to gain knowledge about what is being already offered to your audience and what they are actually looking for, so you can appeal to them accordingly.

Marketing your App early: Again a must-have. The sooner you start marketing your app, the better. By marketing right you would be able to make your audience look forward to your app. They must excitingly look forward to the exclusive features that your app will be offering. So as you market your app, ensure that the strategy does consist of capturing audience’s hearts by telling them about your app’s USP.

Creating a Website for your App: Many businesses nowadays think that when they are getting the app developed, they can let go of the website, but that’s not certainly known. The website has the significance of its own and this is one major reason that prominent online shopping brand “Myntra” relaunched its website, after earlier shutting it off post the app’s launch.

Apart from these, as you set your strategy for marketing, follow these integral measures:

Define the landing page of your app: Introduce your app to the audience it a clear and very simple manner. That way it leaves a lasting impact on the audience. You already have Tinder for example, which is one classic example in this regard.

Video Intro is a must: Now this can make all the difference to your app popularity but as you do so, there are certain aspects that need to be taken care of. First of all, create an app video only when you have proven the concept of your app when you have gained some traction, and you are certain that your app will be winning hearts. After all, there is no point in spending money on a product that has been changed a few times since its launch. Only if you are certain about these factors, then take a step ahead.

Include Social media in your plan of things: Do it, but with absolute caution. Often people have this mentality that just copying and pasting would suffice, and that’s where they make the biggest mistake. It is integral that you engage your audience. Sound interesting to them. The content posted by you should click to them and must be share-worthy. So creativity with your intro-text wins in that zone.

Asking for app reviews could be helpful too: There are many app review sites out there, apart from the big tech blogs. However, be sure to not dig for more, as despite the fact that you want to create a word about your app, still, you must make efforts to stay relevant.

Attract via discounts: If you are into in-app purchases, then offering your app at a cheaper price on specific days by letting them know via push notifications or via email newsletter could help.

Put your app in the right spot: Your app keywords, app categories, everything should be chosen carefully. This determines your ranking in these areas.

Once all these aspects are looked into, it’s time to move onto the pre-launch activity for your mobile app.

Pre-launch activity:

So the app store is pretty crowded and this we all know, right? So, what to do in order to grow your user base. Well, it is simple, just begin promoting your launch prior to its launch.

Begin with a Splash: There is no better way to generate the interest of the public in your app, than creating a Splash page. Regardless of what your app is about, creating a splash page will direct user traffic towards it. The Splash page for the app actually works more like an anchor supporting your app. Starting from initial stages of the app development to the very end, where the initial page is grown and the full-fledged website is developed for your app.

As a Splash page is being created, ensure that it includes a device image, basic information regarding app functionality, and what the app can be useful for. Besides, it should also be informed about how it will be helping your users, and also some aspects of app branding and the links to major channels of social media.

Keep your app users in the loop: When you inform your app visitors regarding even the little app additions and modifications, it leaves a serious impact on your audience. It tells them that you are very much serious and passionate regarding your work. Also, try asking your visitors about their own ideas. This way they will even be more intrigued all through the process. Making them take part in forums related to all development helps you in getting more exposure for your app. Besides, there are also app development blogs that are going to be much keen on featuring your mobile app very much from its early development stages. Try offering exclusive app information to these forums, which they won’t be able to find it anywhere else. This further stirs their interest.

Apart from this, in your Splash page, include a newsletter sign-up, as this will keep your visitors in sync of latest app updates and is also helpful in establishing personal relationships with your prospective customers.

Teasing the audience is again a good idea: Drive user traffic towards your app by making a teaser video. For this, it doesn’t matter much if the video is not of great quality, as the motive is to just inform your visitors about the app and keep them in the loop regarding the development progress. It is even not necessary that you offer the whole version of the application at this very stage. Rather, it is more engaging to flaunt your app that is still in the making. Just ensure that little background music is added and the line of narration is fascinating.

Now that you know all the basic necessities regarding the pre-launch and launch marketing, it is now them that we put some light on the post-launch activity.

Post-Launch activity

The app launch has taken place successfully, now what? Well, if you are keen on ensuring that your app continues to win your audience’s hearts for a really long time, then continuous efforts need to be made to ensure the same. As the initial version of your mobile app has been launched, it is now time that you make constant improvement and optimization. For that, these steps need to be taken:

Real feedback from the visitors: Starting by gathering feedback from users, analyze wishes of app owners and enhance the user interface in order to eliminate bugs & glitches, if any, and also introduce hints & tooltips in order to make app interaction easier. In case you have developed the app for an instance iOS platform, then a similar version should be created for Android, & vice-versa.

Additional features: Constant improvements and new features must be added into the app post the initial version has been launched. As per the preferences of different user segments, new charts of improvements and features should be prepared.

User Tests: Prior to enhancing app functionality for the different user categories, it is advised that you run a market test with the real users, to determine the user’s behavior and pricing strategy.

Market Reviews: In order to collect the user feedback, conduct surveys from time-to-time and accordingly introduce new functionalities and features to the app in order to offer the target audience what they actually desire for. Try to receive feedback from more number of users on the initial app version, as that way you will be able to enhance the functionality of your app’s second version.

SEO: Try optimizing the app description with the relevant keywords. It is advisable to promote the brand name in the app stores. Also, a QR link should be provided in order to download the mobile app from your website and apart from this, do cross-promotion of the website and app on mobiles & desktops.

Test the Promotional campaign: Try reaching out to the new customers by developing and launching a promotional campaign. This works best to test and select the best channels for customer acquisition.

Launch the new app versions: As you have launched your app, you must be trying to willing to increase profits and expand your audience, so for that constantly collect new users’ feedback, analyze new offerings that appeared on market, and design the new features can you can implement.

Few Tried and Tested Methods for App Marketing:

App Store Optimization (ASO): Incredibly useful, ASO strategy allows you to optimize your title, icon, description, and screenshots. This way, it gets easier and faster for your mobile app to be found on the official mobile app stores.

PR Agency: Even though hiring a PR help can be an expensive affair, but it is certainly very effective. Like, if have a great example in the form of Mailbox application. Even prior to its launch, the app already had half a million subscribers in the waitlist. That is the power of good PR. So make sure your app benefits from that.

Advertising: Do we really need to tell you the power of good advertising? No, right? In fact no you have a million ways to advertise your app, and what works better on booking advertising space on the relevant websites via www.buysellads.com.

Give a shot to guerrilla marketing: These kinds of campaigns works great in the areas that have a high concentration of your target audience. Few of the keystones of this kind of marketing campaign are:

· Appear

· Confuse

· Clarify

· Disappear

Among these, the clarification part should be mind-blowing.

Now that you are done with the app launch and marketing, let’s head to the next segment that you must be careful about:

Avoid these mistakes during the Mobile App Development process:

We keep on hearing from people about the things to take care of while developing a mobile app or software to order to produce a top-selling and engaging mobile app but did anyone ever tell you about the common pitfalls in the arena of app development. Well, here we have presented the common mistakes that developers tend to make and you must try to avoid them as you create a mobile app.

Don’t pack many features in just one app: We understand that you want to make your app feature-rich and all, but if you try to pack in too many features in your app, then you will certainly end up confusing the user instead. So, as a developer, it is your responsibility to have a tete-a-tete with the client to order to understand his requirement and demands with the app, and accordingly, keep the unique functionalities and avoid the extra features in the app. This way, you won’t overwhelm your users and in case you desire to add more features, then that can be done later as well.

Steer clear of creating complicated User-interface: As you are creating the first version of your mobile app, you should go with easy-to-use and intuitive user interface. This way, your app will learn to use it fast, without the need of referring to the user manual. After all, your target is usually the average user and this one is no geek, supposedly, so don’t offer something that is too difficult to understand for him.

Don’t add too many platforms: It is understood that as a developer you want the app to be available to a number of platforms, but that shouldn’t be done at once. By adding a lot many features & mobile platforms to the first version of the app will highly increase the initial costs. This may prove counter-productive for your business and may affect it badly. So rather thin of a unique concept for the app that would still appeal to the most number of audience, without taking the costs to sky-high.

Now that you are well aware of the major aspects that are to be taken care of while creating an app and while launching it as well, you are all set to begin the development process. Just get in touch with the right mobile app developer and start your earnings soon enough!!!

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