10 Tips For Perfect App Launch Plan

Published in

ANODA Mobile Development Agency

8 min readJul 12, 2018

Original post: http://anoda.mobi/tips-perfect-app-launch-plan/

Many startup entrepreneurs who develop an app have one big problem that leads to app fail. They spend months developing their mobile app, but they don’t even bother creating pre launch marketing plan. Instead, their app launch plan consists of uploading their app to the Google Play Market and Apple App Store. This is basically the equivalent of a person investing money into a new business venture without any established marketing plan. New startup entrepreneurs tend to assume that traffic will come on their own after their app is listed in the app stores. Unfortunately, this rarely ever happens.

People like to concentrate on the things they have control over. If you need to create or update a feature in your app, you can do that because you have control over the source code. This gives you the independence to do what you want for these features. However, when it comes to getting attention to your app store listings, you don’t have complete control over this. There are many external factors which will determine if someone wants to download your app and leave a review for it. For a new startup entrepreneur, this can be a difficult challenge to get past. It is especially difficult to create a successful app launch plan knowing that you don’t have full control.

With that being said, you do have control over lots of smaller tasks which can stimulate the growth of your launch events. It won’t make the biggest difference in having a successful app launch, but it will for sure increase your chances of having one. How to launch your app to get many downloads from the very beginning? Below is the app launch checklist to follow.

Share Promo Codes Prior to App’s Launch

Here goes the first tip for app launch plan. After your startup app has gotten approved without going live yet, you should share some promo codes for it. This is where you give a select group of people the chance to review the final version of your app before it is officially launched to the public. You could invite your press contacts to review your mobile app prior to its launch. That way, they can write stories and press releases about it.

App Press Kit

A successful app launch plan definitely includes good app press kit. It gives more people the ability to write reviews about your startup app. The least that your kit should have is an icon of your app, screenshots of the app, app store web addresses, and a store description. The perfect press kit would also include a small video demo of the app. As short as 60 seconds in length that features some positive images which explain the app’s history and story would be a great addition to your app press kit.

Press contacts often take advantage of each one of these assets. This makes it easier for them to do their jobs. In addition, you can host your press kit on an online storage website like Dropbox and be able to modify its content instantly.

Use Short Links for Your App

There are going to be several critical links which you must share with your friends on social media and the people on your contacts list. If you have a successful app launch plan. Except for your website link, all these crucial links are going to be very long. When you paste an app store link into an email message, it could very well take up several lines in the box. If you use Vimeo or YouTube to host your video demos, they will have lots of random letters and numbers at the end of their links. But if you look hard enough, you can find services like which provide you with shorter link addresses. A few examples of these services include Goo.gl, Branch.io,and Bitly.

Get Your Support System Established

You may not think of customer support integration when you are creating your app launch strategy. This is a mistake, though, because you can benefit in two different ways from helping your users. Not only are you building a friendly reputation for providing customer service, you will also be attracting more people to your app in the process. The ratings on your app store listing pages will increase and your users will provide you with word-of-mouth traffic after they tell their friends and family about your app. Therefore, customer satisfaction is crucial.

Be sure to regularly gather user questions while you are conducting your beta app launches and your pre-launches. This will give you the chance to add lots of content to your FAQ page where people go to look up answers to common questions. That way, you can personally focus on the critical feedback the most. Sounds like an important part of app launch plan? It is.

Develop an App Message That is Consistent

Before someone goes out to give a public speech or an interview, they need to prepare for it thoroughly first. This is important because they need to make sure their message is clear to the audience and that they stay consistent with that message. You should treat apps the same way. An app must be presented consistently the same way throughout the marketplace. This why you need to thoroughly develop an app launch plan.

Think about why your app will be useful to people. What benefits does it offer them? Which features of your app will stimulate the benefits that you are giving people? Figure out what your overall marketing message is going to be and then keep using it as much as possible. This will capture the attention of people more. Remember to be consistent with this messaging as often as you can. This means keeping it consistent in your app press kit, app store listing, outreach messaging, app launch press release, website, and so on.

Your Website Needs to Be the Marketing Headquarters of Your App

Even though we are living in the mobile app age, websites are still valuable. People who use apps may still look at websites to research an app prior to downloading it. The standard press won’t usually link to an app directly. They will just convince people to visit its website. Whenever you have several apps or have multiple platforms for your app, a website can be a valuable tool for directing visitors to the appropriate web pages.

Your app needs a “marketing headquarters,” so let your website serve as that. It must have important messaging and links to various features, like your press kit, apps, support portal, contact page, blog, and so on. Remember that a powerful website will increase your organic traffic and that will bring you more downloads to your app. Any new app that you start will need its own landing page.

Plan an Official Announcement Regarding Your App

When you are officially launching your app, you need to announce it at some point. This will require you to plan ahead for these events. Figure out the day and time when you will launch your app and then figure out at what time you will announce this. These two times should be different.

App stores can propagate faster than ever now. However, on the night prior to your official app launch, you should release the app and update your website to reflect the full version of the app. You should include details about your app that are important for users to know. Most importantly, include links which will take them to your app store listing pages where they can download the app.

Have your blog post prepared before the official announcement so that you will be ready to publish the post immediately at the appropriate time. Create social media updates and send out an email newsletter for the announcement too. You may do an app launch press release separately, although a blog post can work just as well. If you have press contacts, inform them about your official app launch. Stay consistent in your messaging with each outlet.

Keep Track of Your App Everywhere

If you have a powerful website, social media platforms, and support channel, then you will be more aware of what is going on with your app. When you go to launch your app, this is very important. Pay attention to the things that are said. Because you will get to notice newly published articles relating to your app. Then you can reply to what people are saying a lot more easily. Users might begin the talk, but it could also come from a person who wants to cover your app.

Appbot and Buzzsumo are two tools that can send alerts about your app in real-time. No matter how you manage to find what people are saying about your app, plan an objective for the speed at which you want to respond to them.

Launch Day Outreaching

For successful app launch plan weeks before the app launch you should already be working with press contacts by sending the app launch press releases. But still, you should do some outreaching on launch day. When you have coverage for your app on launch day, this coverage can be leveraged to motivate other press contacts to mention it. When people notice reputable press outlets discussing your app, it will have a great impact on its success. When you watch your app throughout different channels, you may have some ideas about which people you should contact.

Keep Updating Your App

Not too many people update their app throughout all channels on the day of their launch. This is a mistake because doing this update will get people discussing your app with others and then it will drive word-of-mouth traffic to it.

When you receive basic questions through your support portal, add these questions and answers to your FAQ page. If you want to add updates to these questions and answers on social media, you can do that too because it may get more visibility that way.

Conclusion

When you initiate an app launch, you are beginning a new journey. You worked hard on your app for months and now you want it to pay off. If you need to put additional hard work into the pre launch app marketing and create good app launch plan, then so be it. Now that you have a better understanding of launch marketing, you can create your own strategy for it. Never assume that people will just show up to your listing page after the release. And if you want to have more chances on making it successful go through this app launch checklis