The Need-to-Know Mobile App Marketing Resources for This Year
Mobile phone use has increased by a whopping 4 billion since 2015. Much of this increase can be attributed to the fact that smartphones are rapidly becoming a technological extension of ourselves.
Forbes predicts that by the end of 2019, mobile advertising will drive as much as 75% of all digital spend. Further, where engagement with media channels continues to fall across the board, one category bucks the trend — smartphones.
Whereas many traditional marketers are only now beginning to mobil-ize their marketing vision, you are part of a club that’s already trailblazing a burgeoning industry.
It’s good you got there early, as the potential for reward across the mobile app marketing landscape for the next few years is likely to be huge — 385% growth through 2021. However, as the market continues to mature, the challenge to stand out and hold on to users will also become more challenging. There are already roughly 10 million other apps in the store to compete with, and its estimated the world will spend $1 trillion on reinventing the web to be mobile-first by 2021.
Preparing for the future
As an app marketer in 2019, the best way to prepare for mounting competition and further technological transformation is to embrace a curious outlook, a dynamic approach, and an obsession with both professional and performance development.
To help you out, we’ve scoured mobile application marketing forums, watched webinars, tested platforms, read blogs…and more… to provide this hand-picked catalog of tools, resources, and providers we think you ought to know about.
How to read this guide
We’ve structured our list of resources according to the complete mobile app marketing process, from planning your strategy to acquiring new users, activating them, and capitalizing on monetization opportunities. We believe that there’s always room to improve professionally, so we’ve also included resources for professional development, such as meetups and blogs. In each section, you’ll find a brief introduction, an overview of the types of activities associated with this stage, and our go-to resources for achieving your outcomes.
A. Planning & Documenting your Mobile App Marketing Strategy
Why you should care
The basics of good strategic marketing apply regardless of your exact marketing objectives or industry vertical. According to Coschedule’s statistics, marketers who document strategy are 538% more successful and those who document processes are 466% more successful. Despite these saliva-inducing statistics, only 48% claimed to be documenting their strategy, and 34% their processes. These statistics are good news for you if you’re strategic and organized when it comes to your own execution.
What to do in a nutshell
Successfully driving profitable customer action will rely on solid market research and a deep understanding of your users’ needs, habits, and desires. You’ll also want to understand the mobile app category you’re operating in an in-depth way — who are your closest competitors? What are they doing well? What are their points of differentiation versus yours?
Whether, you’re a web-first company launching a new mobile product, or an app-led company looking to monetize your growth, you’ll want to fully map out your strategic strengths and weaknesses with a SWOT. You should also clearly communicate your app’s marketing vision with SMART marketing objectives, and define your key marketing channels of communication.
In order to effectively plan out your tactical efforts, you’ll also need to define your marketing budget and the resources available to you.
APP MARKETING STRATEGY BASICS
- CoSchedule’s free marketing bundle is an excellent resource for getting started. You’ll find an in-depth marketing strategy checklist, a calendar template, and a general guide to building a marketing tool stack.
- Braze’s free mobile marketing course will help you build a mobile strategy that actually works.
- Neil Patel provides a useful check-list of app marketing pitfalls here for both pre & post launch.
APP MARKET RESEARCH TOOLS
- Keep up with macro technological trends with Gartner’s Mobile Marketing updates here.
- Refer to Google’s Mobile Playbook for insights into mobile behavior and useful case studies.
- When it comes to identifying your best keywords, deepening your competitive knowledge and understanding your most significant threats, App Annie is an extremely powerful app intelligence tool. If you’re marketing a gaming app, Pollfish’s intelligence service allows you to go behind enemy lines and speak to your competitors’ audiences directly.
- To learn more about your potential and existing audiences and broad usage habits, we can again recommend App Annie or taking a look at Sensor Tower for their insights into app reviews and macro usage trends.
USEFUL TEMPLATES & DOWNLOADABLES:
- Communicate your app user personas and analysis with your wider team by making use of Xtensio’s User Persona and SWOT Templates
B. Getting Your App Discovered
Why you should care
There’s no doubt that app usage is on the rise. In the 2017 Index: The Mobile Consumer, App Annie predicted that time spent on mobile apps will hit 3.5 trillion hours by 2021. However, discoverability continues to be a problem both for the marketer and the user. 37% of users felt they were missing out on great new apps while marketers see discoverability as one of their primary obstacles to success.
What to do in a nutshell
Whether your app is a support portal, mobile-version of a web store, or your entire business — it’s clear you’ll need to embrace a multi-channel promotional strategy and 360-view to get in front of your app users. This means you’ll need to have a considered landing page strategy on web for desktop as well as for mobile. See some great examples here.
Informed by your user and competitor research, you’ll additionally need to consider all the places your audience are likely to be — this includes specific influencers, bloggers, and communities to reach out to within your target industry. When defining your campaign channels, don’t forget your existing customer base and any other contact lists you have built up here. In-app advertising through related mobile apps also presents a targeted avenue for reaching out to new users. When it comes to finalizing your awareness tactics, consider both organic and paid tactics according to your budget, and a test and learn approach when it comes to identifying what’s working well and what isn’t.
Your App Store Optimization efforts will also contribute heavily toward organic search. You’ll need to optimize your listings and ads according to the best keywords, and ensure your screenshots and messaging are persuasive. Your review presence will also have a big impact. Ratings represent obvious trust signals and an absence of, or negative, reviews could kill your marketing app acquisition strategy before you’ve even begun.
PAID ADVERTISING TOOLS FOR ACQUISITION
- For reaching engaged users right from the start, we recommend a programmatic advertising tool like AppLift for their dynamic audience segments based on demographics and audience characteristics. If you’ve already got an engaged audience, you can use the tool to create lookalike audiences and target users similar to your existing loyal base.
- A referral marketing software like App Virality can also help you leverage the power of word of mouth through targeted and automated referral campaigns.
- As social media stories drive new levels of engagement for mobile marketing campaigns, it’s a good idea to engage an app specialist video agency like Apptamin to help your advertising videos stand out. This company has pioneered in-app video marketing since 2012, so has plenty of experience to offer.
ASO TOOLS FOR ACQUISITION
- Meatti provides a great breakdown here of the six types of ASO tools to consider, from keyword and product page optimization to improving search ads and more.
- When it comes to boosting your App Store Conversion rate, we particularly recommend SplitMetrics. They offer app store page audits, A/B testing for your page and comprehensive ASO analytics and benchmarking. You can also check out their guide to App Store Screenshots here.
App Marketing Attribution Tools
- Appsflyer is a leader in the mobile attribution field and has provided a detailed and thorough guide to mobile advertising analytics here. This guide is a great place to start for understanding the oftentimes complex world of app marketing attribution. You’ll also find a helpful breakdown of the different KPIs you should be tracking at the different stages of your marketing campaigns.
- For understanding the success of your mobile marketing campaigns, Adjust is a great platform to turn to. You can track all of your marketing channels from within their dashboard, aggregate your conversion data and attribute all your incoming users to their sources in real-time.
C. Activating your App’s Users
Why you should care
According to mobile app growth guru Andrew Chen, most app users abandon an app within the first 3–7 days of use so if you’ve got high long term usage goals for your app, you don’t have long to get your app users hooked on the experience you’re providing.
Your ultimate goal during the activation phrase is to convert your users into valuable customers. The type of event involved here will differ according to the app experience you’re offering — your initial goal could be to acquire user registration details, an initial catalog search, or completion of a level within a game.
What to do in a nutshell
Successful activation starts with great onboarding from the get-go. As a marketer, you should be paying attention to rapid abandonment rates and confirm that you’re not presenting unnecessary login walls or registration screens so early on that users decide to leave. Information capture should never be at the expense of user experience.
The precise way you choose to prompt your user towards their first actions will differ according to the experience you’re providing — if you’re a productivity tool, your initial engagement strategy could be sent as a welcome push notification that directs them towards your tutorial feature. If you’re promoting a subscription, you could offer a 7 day free trial period to new users so they have the opportunity to learn the value of your product for themselves.
Your marketing messaging also matters a lot at this stage. Research has shown that users increasingly expect a personalized approach and that it can ultimately make a huge difference to your bottom line.
IN-APP MESSAGING & PUSH NOTIFICATION TOOLS
- In order to successfully engage your users during the activation stage, LeanPlum is a powerful engagement platform for automating and personalizing your campaigns using push notifications, in-app messages and more. The tool leverages the interactions with your app so you can identify intent and deliver tailored content during the right micro-moment.
- Localytics also provides a range of in-app and push notification technology to drive feature adoption and activate your users. The tool’s proprietary TrueImpactTM score provides a unique way to compare the influence of your activation campaigns — and the platform also offers A/B Testing for up to 10 versions of your campaign messaging.
TOOLS FOR PERFECTING THE ONBOARDING JOURNEY
- To confirm your campaign messaging in the activation stage lands the right way, you’ll want to engage in a number of rounds of testing before going live. UserTesting’s on-demand platform is the leader for this. Their on-demand platform uses a panel of more than a million testers which you can filter down according to your demographics. You can opt for 1–1 user interviews or make use of their bulk testing.
- To ensure there are no glaring functionality issues with your onboarding journey, you’ll want to ensure your analytics tool offers conversion funnels along with qualitative and visual insights. Appsee offers an ebook specifically on this topic here.
- If your app makes use of a registration screen, this Usability Geek blog post can help you ensure you’re following best practices here.
D. Making Money from Your App
Why you should care
The ultimate goal for many app marketers is to generate revenue from their product. Depending on the business model and size of the app, some marketers will focus solely on ensuring their app functions as a profit-generating machine. Mobile ad spend is predicted to top $93 billion in 2019 and as user numbers continue to mushroom, the opportunity here is only likely to get larger.
What to do in a nutshell
The technology and techniques for making money from mobile apps are developing all the time. In-app subscription forms can help you build targeted email, push-notification and SMS strategies highlighting your promotional offers.
Many users are spending as much as a day a week online thanks to the era of the smartphone, so if your app boasts a substantial user base, signing up as an ad publisher could represent a phenomenal opportunity for monetization. Ads come in all kinds of formats today, from interstitial/full-screen to notification formats and playable videos. To maximize revenue, you can experiment with a range of types, then do more of what works best for revenue.
Many apps are free to download and use today but offer some kind of opportunity for In-app purchase. There’s a reason why these kinds of Freemium models have become the dominant monetization strategy for apps — simply, the strategy works. Users get to try and experience the benefit of your product for themselves. If they consider the experience valuable enough, many will be willing to pay for it.
TOOLS FOR MONETIZING YOUR APP EXPERIENCE
- Airpush offers monetization options both within and outside of your app experience. In addition to providing a range of app formats, their unique ‘Widget X’ enables revenue generation with minimum impact on UX — this is well worth trying out.
- Sweetpricing makes use of machine learning to optimize in-app purchase for users in real time and is a great option for maximizing revenue from a freemium product. They also offer a comprehensive guide to mobile app monetization here.
- Tapjoy specializes in providing high-impact videos to app publishers looking to monetize. They offer rewarded videos either directly or through mediators, and an ‘offerwall’ where users can receive further rewards like ‘points’ or ‘coins’ for spending and engaging.
- Vungle is another specialist in-app video monetization provider that works with Android, iOS, and Windows. If you’re looking to partner with some of the highest bidders for a 100% fill rate and control when and where your audience sees your ads, then this platform is a great option.
E. Capitalizing on Loyal Customers
Why you should care
It’s a basic fact of marketing that acquiring new users will be more expensive than re-engaging and cross-selling to existing ones. Existing customers are 50% more likely to try new products and spend 31% more on average than new customers, so it’s common sense to ensure your existing users are a focus for your marketing campaigns.
According to this App Retention & ROI report, apps only have a 21% retention rate by day one and by day 90, this falls right down to 1.89%. This suggests retention of app users is really tricky, but it also highlights the considerable opportunity for marketers that take the time to refine their retention strategy.
What to do in a nutshell
When it comes to your long-term engagement, marketing messaging matters a lot. Research has shown that users increasingly expect a personalized approach and this can ultimately make a huge difference to your bottom line. According to Leanplum’s research, push notifications alone can improve retention by up to 20% — if you incorporate this with your personalization strategy, this can result in millions more revenue.
When it comes to engaging users over the long-term, part of your strategy will need to be about relationship-building. It’s reported that 98% of app users are likely to leave feedback if a company asks directly — if the company then responds to that feedback, loyalty on the user side is likely to increase. In order to implement an effective retention and loyalty strategy, you’ll need to have a good understanding of your users, engage them in conversation, and learn what they really think of your app’s experience.
TOOLS FOR UNDERSTANDING & ENGAGING YOUR LOYAL USERS
For insights into your user’s experience, you’ll need to make use of a good feedback analytics tool. We recommend Mopinion for their range of in-app surveys, the inclusion of app screenshots on the user side, and comprehensive sentiment analysis.
- Apptentive is another great Voice of Customer tool — using it's out of the box Message Center, you can turn your app into a communication channel and pull back customers by sending them alerts once you’ve responded to their feedback.
- To ensure your in-app advertisements aren’t frustrating engaged users, you should make use of a good mobile app heatmap tool. This will provide an aggregate overview of your users’ interactions with a particular screen, enabling you to identify any glaring usability issues with your mobile ads before they have too much of an impact on performance.
- Adikteev can help you launch playable retargeting campaigns and analyze engagement performance in detail. You can push out reacquisition campaigns for lost users within the first 7 days of download, track your LTV over time, and schedule calls to actions around specific events to boost conversion rates among existing users.
F. Staying Relevant as an App Marketer
Why you should care
In eMarketer’s most recent round-up of the industry’s Mobile Marketing Trends, they provide a number of interesting insights regarding consumer use and attitudes towards smartphones. Though time spent on mobile is clearly on the increase, they also summarize a number of trends which could put a stop to mobile time’s apparently inexorable rise: a growing backlash against over-connected lifestyles and the advent of smart technology categories such as wearables and VR which could replace aspects of smartphone use.
As an app marketer, it’s your job to keep up to date with potentially disruptive technological and cultural advancements that might have an impact on what you do. The best way to achieve this is to embrace a positive attitude towards ongoing professional development.
What to do in a nutshell
There are countless tools, people and resources out there that can help you stay abreast of the most important updates and best practices, but identifying the best sources of information can be overwhelming. Here is our curated list of top information sources for mobile marketing:
BEST REPORTS & BLOGS
- Braze, formerly Appboy, offers a library of blog content and guides for app marketers — you’ll find content on cross-channel messaging, changing mobile landscapes, compliance issues for mobile marketing and more.
- Mobile Marketer provides useful up to date stories on macro-trends impacting the mobile and marketing industries.
- Grow.co provide a curated round up of the best customer acquisition and retention updates each week which we recommend signing up to here.
MOBILE APP MARKETING INFLUENCERS
- Andrew Chen led Rider Growth at Uber and has advised dozens of startups in this time. Sign up for his newsletter here for essays on growth and mobile marketing tips.
- Larry Kim is the CEO of MobileMonkey. Inc. & the founder of WordStream, a leading provider of AdWords. He blogs on a wide number of topics for a number of publications but his most relevant are the mobile marketing focused pieces here.
- Steve P Young is the founder & CEO of App Masters, a world-leading app marketing agency which specializes in growth hacking app downloads. He speaks regularly on Advance ASO strategies and growth hacking strategies via his Youtube channel and webinars.
NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES
- The App Growth Summit is an invite-only conference series for mobile app growth professionals. It’s a great way to connect with industry professionals and share best practice tips. You can request an invite here.
- The Mobile Growth Community, powered by Branch, will enable you to connect with mobile enthusiasts from around the world. Their primary goal is to share insights and spark discussions on how to succeed in the mobile ecosystem.
- The Mobile Growth Summit is the world’s largest mobile growth conference — it takes places in a number of regions around the world and boasts a helpful, friendly knowledgeable community mobile experts.
- For an acquisition and retention focused networking opportunity, you have Grow’s MAU Summit. This is a yearly conference which takes place in Las Vegas each Spring.
TOP LISTENS
- For insights on the go, we recommend The App Guy podcast — you’ll find regular and genuine stories provided by inspiring entrepreneurs active with apps and tech startups.
- We’ve already recommended Steve P. Young as an influencer to follow for expert insights. We also particularly recommend his podcast via AppMasters here for regular mobile app marketing related insights and tips.
Summary
When it comes to future-proofing your mobile app marketing strategy, having the right tools, data and information at your fingertips are absolutely essential. After all, this is a fast-moving industry which can change dramatically in just a day. We’re confident all of the resources we’ve listed will help to ensure you’re kept informed of the updates you need to know and that your strategies and execution represent the best-in-class for the mobile marketing world. For more mobile marketing knowledge, check out this free eBook on mobile app growth hacking.
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