How to Make the App Skyrocket? Rules for successful marketing in the mobile market

With a wide variety of applications available in the market, it may be a challenging task to attract attention of the potential customers. Yet your marketing strategy defines the success of the project even more than the technical expertise does. With the current level of rivalry in the industry you can’t expect the app to skyrocket all by itself just because it’s thoroughly designed — you need to attract attention, keep people hooked and literally make them download the application.

Every marketing strategy consists of a wide variety of elements that are interconnected between each other (pretty much like puzzle parts). And they have to align perfectly for a perfect effect. Let’s take a look at the most important components of the marketing strategy.

Media content

People are reading less on the internet, and it is actually quite natural due to the constantly increasing volume of information. An average internet user prefers listening and watching to reading because of the sheer volumes of information we face on a daily basis. And you need to make your content stand out, attract attention and keep the user interested long enough for him to download the application or make the purchase.

What means can we use for it?

• Screenshots show the people who are interested in your product what it is like to use it, what kind of interface they will be dealing with and simply how awesome the application actually is. Their static nature means that you should highlight the most important features;
• Videos can show real life situations that the mobile application may be useful in as well as the ways it can be used. High quality narrative is important to make the experience more immersive;
• Infographics. High quality images will help you explain the value of your application and its advantages in a convincing way.

Do not be a copycat under any circumstances. Even if it looks appropriate under these very conditions. It is NOT a good idea by any means. Invest in proper creative work. Should people see any sort of resemblance with another known brand, all your efforts will be good for nothing.

It is critically important to keep the content fresh and up-to-date, especially if your app is connected with the social field. If the app is still under development, inform the users on how the process is going on a regular basis, tell them when you’re expecting to release the app. If you can produce viral content that users feel like sharing with their friends on Facebook, you are set for success.

Communication with the audience

In the field that is changing dynamically on a daily basis it is critically important to collect feedback, process every single bit of information on user behavior that you may be able to harvest and implement the results in your workflow — which includes marketing. It is extremely valuable and one of the prime reasons apps are often launched as soon as they reach the MVP (minimum viable product) stage.

Adjusting your marketing strategy is inevitable. There is nothing to be afraid of, it’s totally normal to devise a plan and then alter it as you collect real world data. The right thing to do is to use transparent and efficient metrics that would display the efficiency of means used. This will allow to develop the successful ideas into fully pledged strategies and drop the least successful initiatives.

The actual methods may vary depending on the field you’re working in, but the bottom line is — the key to successful marketing is understanding the audience. And the only way to do it is to communicate a lot. Even if you can’t take input from every single customer (which is often simply impossible due to some people being extremely passive in their behavior), you should still strive to cover a wider part of the audience.

Social media provides great medium for personal communication between the product owner and the users. But make sure that it is efficient — utter neglect for the message your users send may have catastrophic consequences. Make sure you provide real and timely two-side connection with your users. Remember that people are looking for an interactive experience. If the audience feels like they are not getting any response or the response isn’t ‘human’ enough (more like an automated reply), expect the people to turn away — pretty much like in a real life dialogue.

It is also a good idea to give users an opportunity to provide feedback directly from within the application. Make this feature easily accessible and it will pay off. The users will also appreciate it if they can ask a question about the app within a single click from the functional screen and actually receive an answer over a short period of time.

Name and logo

These may seem to be minor elements in the overall strategy at first, but don’t let this thought delude you. Actually they are key ‘interaction point’ and once you get the steam train rolling, you may find yourself in a bad situation where you can’t actually alter these (because they are pretty much fundamental for your promotion campaign) and the wrong choices you made early on are becoming a big obstacle for your campaign.

Misspelling a name is quite widespread at this point, but is actually an arguable practice. You want people to pronounce the app name clearly and not to struggle with some weird way to spell or pronounce the name, do you? Make the name easy to remember, easy to say and catchy. It may be a hard task — but the rewards you may reap are worth the effort.

As for the logo, you don’t expect people to replicate it (actually this is the least you’d want), but you want it to be easily recognizable and easy to find on the menu. Don’t make it too complex — user is overburdened with information and will appreciate ‘lightweight’ graphic solutions. It still opens quite a lot of opportunities for creative work.

Get people hyped!

Let’s face the truth. Even if your idea is brilliant and may dramatically change the digital landscape in your opinion, people are still going to be quite reluctant about giving it a try unless you can really get them hyped. The market is just overheated at the moment and doesn’t show any signs of possible future stagnation. With hundreds of new apps emerging at the stores, the users are paying less attention to every new entry.

Make sure that everyone knows about the application! You need a media coverage; you need people to be hyped and anticipating the release. Get people talking about your application; make them share the updates on social media! Word of mouth is the best medium you may rely on.

Deliver real value — and make it crystal clear

People expect the application to resolve a certain problem for them. Be specific as to what your application does and why it is the best application the user may wish for. The general rule of thumb is that a single sentence should be enough to outline the framework of your product positioning. If you can’t get the user interested this fast, you actually don’t have many chances to do it further on.

In order to do marketing properly, it’s necessary to define the target audience with at least some level of precision. Who needs your app? Why do these people need it? How do you explain it to them? And most importantly — what makes the difference between your project and the rivals? You can’t really expect to be the sole competitor nowadays. Yet you definitely have a chance for success if you do the marketing properly.

Try to condense the information in order to deliver every necessary bit in one piece. You need to get people on board — once they’re hooked, go ahead and provide details.

There is at least one technical aspect that is tightly connected with this part — the keyword usage. It helps make your application more easily discoverable via search engine optimization (which is more often referred to as SEO), use of hashtags on social media platforms as well as other means.

Conclusion

Let’s sum things up. The two main things about marketing strategy are to make the process user oriented and to keep people agitated. It is also important to collect feedback and to adjust the workflow accordingly. A combination of these principles and a good dose of creativity make things happen in the mobile market.

At Octodev we put a special emphasis on high quality marketing to make investments of our clients work. Don’t hesitate to launch your project today — contact us now!

This article was originally published on the Octodev Blog.

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