[Android General] kamalshah:
Marketing is an integral part of any business. When it comes to apps, marketing is all that it takes to make them successful and well established. The problem that lies with marketing is that it can be a bit expensive at times. For the newly established app developers it becomes very much difficult to arrange funds exclusively for marketing.

There are many alternatives to such paid advertising and many people engage them. Marketing on social media is pretty much cheap and even creating a well structured landing page is a great idea to market without having to shed a lot of money. The problem with such channels of marketing is that their effectiveness reduces with time.

Cross platform marketing is quite a new term and has been greatly accepted with many of the new age app developers. In cross promotions the costs can be minimized and you are reaching an audience which is already engaged with your app/website. Here, you have to advertise your own app, but usable on a different platform. Loyal users are definitely going to install your app.

The only problem with cross platform promotions is that the number of users is limited; therefore, one must cross promote their apps with different developers.

In this article, we give you an in-depth inside of cross promotions, which is arguably one of the best marketing strategies.

What does cross promoting mean?

Anybody hearing this term for the first time would definitely wonder as to what it means. Cross promotion simply means promoting your own product but co-operatively with another platform or developer. You have to collaborate with another developer so that both of you benefit from each other’s advertisements.

Cross promotion is generally free, but some amount of money can be generated by selling each other’s traffic. There are various types of cross promotion networks and all of them have different set of rules. There is credit system for some networks where you get an ad credit for every install that is generated on your app. You can use this credit later on to showcase an ad on the other developer’s platform. Some consider the monetary value of an install depending on the place where they are installed.

Types of cross promotions

Types of cross promotions and cross promotion networks are two different things. Types of cross promotions generally deal with the strategy of cross promoting. It basically means the channel you are going to use to cross promote, it can be cross promoting through your own websites or apps and it also includes cross promoting through third party developers, websites and apps.

Cross promotion in your own applications:

You must have noticed while playing a game, a pop up appearing and telling you to install another app and unlock lives, this is what cross promotion means. You are simply cross promoting a new app on your own app. You have a definite customer base on the already downloaded app, therefore, there are strong chances of getting genuine downloads.

Cross promoting via other sources:

Everybody is happy to work with you if you can offer them something in return for your tasks. Approaching bloggers, websites and other developers to cast your ads on their pages on quid pro quo basis will give you a bigger market segment to target. Such promotions have become popular in the gaming apps.

Cross promotion networks have seen a tremendous amount of rise amongst developers. As of March 2013 only 7% of the developers were using them, but now the scenario has changed. CPNs are generally being used by gaming app developers as they generate the maximum applicability. CPN based promotions are easy to make and have shown quite a good amount of success.

Cross promotions on Websites, Social Media and other places:

Imagine people cross promoting their apps in their own plazas, parks and restaurants! Yes this is happening; Disney promotes their apps at their parks. You can see many people promoting their apps on billboards; hoardings etc. cab aggregators promote their apps inside cars and even on the outside. If this sounds an ardent task, then there are cheaper and convenient alternatives as well. One may opt to promote their apps on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others. You may also link up with famous bloggers, e-commerce websites and cross promote your app.

Conclusion

Cross promotion is a barter system sort of an exercise. You give something and you take something. Cross promotion is cheap and has been quite successful with new age app developers.

You can reach me now and seek more ideas about promoting your app with minimum budget.

You can also read more similar stuff here.