How To Make A Killer App Marketing Strategy

Anastasia Zakrevskaya
HeadWorks
Published in
3 min readAug 10, 2017

Do you want your app becomes worth being called practically useful? Yes, I agree — it’s a rhetorical question. If you have still not heard such words about your product then probably something goes wrong … But what exactly? Well, let us not procrastinate and solve problems together.

So what is that which makes an app successful? Many believe a mobile app becomes hit just because of the idea behind it. But no such luck! Owning an incredible app-idea doesn’t mean you also own a successful app. The process of app development involves a number of stages, however, a significant stage, which starts right at the beginning of development and goes on to app’s publication on the store and so on, is the App Marketing. Believe it or not, no app succeeds without an effective marketing strategy. Start with the development of an app marketing strategy and you will certainly go great guns!

Is an app marketing plan really necessary?

Let’s imagine that you are the ship master. And if you want your sailing to be successful, you should have the charts in order, know how to run your ship, and have a port of destination in mind. The same goes with your business. Yes, plans are imperfect things. How can we exactly know what will happen in a year? But if you don’t plan, you’re doomed, and an inaccurate plan is far better than no plan at all. And to stay with our sea captain analogy, it’s a lot better to be five or even ten degrees off your destination port than to have no destination in mind at all.

Then there’s only one conclusion we can draw: If you want your ship to reach its destination, you need a strategy, otherwise you risk to wander the seas aimlessly.

Here is a quick checklist you can follow to create your own app marketing strategy

  1. Carefully consider the user’s behavior with your app. A well-thought study on your user’s behavior will help you find out what is good and bad in your app, add more features to increase engagement. That way you can exactly fulfill your users’ expectation.
  2. Establish clear goals before developing an app. Many apps lack at providing the exact functions and features they are made for. So make your app crystal clear. You must surely understand what is a key objective an app will need for serving? What is your expectation from users and what user’s expectations are from your app? The clear aims in the very beginning will help you later achieve them without any obstacles.
  3. Don’t bury your app marketing strategy in mystery. In fact, real marketing strategy is one which never stops. This is why you can’t alone do that on your own. Regardless of your size, get feedback from all parts of your company; this is especially vital to make your marketing strategy work. Your key players can make a significant contribution: provide realistic data about what’s achievable and how your goals can be reached, share any experience, add another item to your plan.
  4. Describe your target audience. It’s a key element for coming up with effective and successful marketing plans. Knowing your target market and their needs allow you to determine where and how you should advertise. If you do not intimately know your target market, you cannot effectively communicate how your app meets their needs.
  5. Analyze competition. Conduct an objective assessment of your competitors and what they have to offer that you don’t. In addition, look closely at what they are doing right and where they probably made mistakes. A thorough analysis of your competitors will help you to understand whether you would be able to address the challenge posed by your competition.

One last point: Creating an app marketing strategy is not just an exercise to be done once and then put on the virtual shelf. This is a step-by-step guide for your app success. You should regularly refer to your app strategy and update it as conditions or situations change.

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