The Smartest Thing You Can Do Before Launching Your Mobile App

Your app is perfect. Your designs were flawless, your minimum viable product (MVP) got developed quickly, and user testing went — mostly- flawlessly. You now feel supremely confident that you have a product that’s ready to be put into the hands of the public. One thing worries you, though. If you just launch your app, will anyone even notice? Or will your app be silently added to the already plentiful options available? Even the more niche app markets are starting to have a veritable app banquet from which to choose. So how do you get your app to stand out? What can you do to nudge early adopters and influencers towards your app? Design a killer landing page.

Have a Goal

I cannot stress this enough. Designing your landing page will be infinitely easier if you’re designing around a specific goal. Maybe you’re rolling out your app to a waitlist of users, and you need some method of collecting email addresses? Or maybe you want to sign people up for a newsletter, or have them download your app directly from the page itself; the possibilities are endless and the end goal is ultimately up to you. But pick one specific goal, then design around it. Once you have your plan, the four main chunks of your landing page should look like the following:

• Your goal/proposition, ideally in one actionable headline.
• Images & video content displaying your app’s value.
• An explanation of your app’s functionality and core features.
• A CTA (call to action) prompting the desired action by the page visitor.

When laying out your page, make sure you’ve expressed your value, included visually engaging content from your app, and added your CTA all before the fold (before your visitors have to scroll down the page.) This way, as soon as your user hits your landing page, they are prompted to engage right away. If they want to, they can scroll down for further information about your app; but you want to make it as easy as possible for your visitors to complete the desired action on your landing page right away. Take, for example, our eBook’s landing page:

All of the pertinent information is front and center. If they want to know more about Iversoft, they can scroll down to see more about us and what we’re all about. However, we provide them all the info and tools necessary to download our eBook as soon as they hit the page. That should be your goal.

Choose a Web Page Builder

Now that you know what your landing page should consist of, the next step is to find a place to host it. There are a ton of options out there for you to pick from, but we’re going to recommend using PageCloud. And you can trust us when we say we’re fans of their product; we built the entirety of Iversoft’s website with it! You’re in excellent hands. It’s free to try out with no credit card required, is insanely intuitive with drag and drop options, and more integrations than you can shake a stick at! You can add sign-up forms, not to mention all the essential social sharing options are a breeze to implement. It literally integrates with everything, so the sky’s the limit when it comes to plug-ins, synching, and analytics.

See! PageCloud makes it almost laughably easy to build a killer landing page, using all of your own content; just drag it and drop it wherever you feel it will be the most effective. Use one of their ready-to-edit themes, or start completely from scratch, the choice is yours. Don’t see an option you need? Their customer success team goes above and beyond to make sure your page does exactly what you need it to do, so don’t be afraid to drop them a message for any assistance or tips.

Launch and Promote Your Landing Page

Alright, you’ve picked a host for your landing page, and you’ve tweaked it to make it look stellar. Now it’s time to promote your page, lest all of this be for nothing. This is where the real work sets in because the chances of thousands upon thousands of users finding your app organically are pretty much next to nil. So this is where some strategy will come into play; be prepared to think about a solid campaign — no matter your budget — and be ready to see it through. There is a bevy of channels to be discovered by these days; email, social, referral, direct, search and paid traffic.

Social media is easily the most accessible and cost-effective way of promoting your page. By integrating the social media sharing tools that we showed you with PageCloud’s easy drag and drop builder, you can spread the word about your page on Facebook, Twitter, etc. But outside of sharing the link to your landing page, what can you do to help spread the word about your app? First, you can start by creating designated social accounts for your app. These will be spaces to share relevant, informative, and engaging content surrounding with your audience. They will also act as designated spaces for your app’s community to engage. It also provides an excellent avenue for you to speak directly to your app’s users and vice-versa. But a word to the wise, don’t try to be everywhere at once, it’ll just end badly. Think about the social platforms your target audience likes to frequent and go there. Pick one or two and manage those two accounts very, very well. Email is another great tool to utilize. If you managed to put together a list, email them not only the download link to your awesome new app, but include your landing page link and urge them to share with their friends and social networks. Review sites are also an excellent way of getting fast, wide-spread exposure, although there’s no guarantee that they’ll cover your app if you submit to them. Try to catch their eye with some unique information about your app’s value and why it would be beneficial to their website to review you. Sending them your landing page to share on their website is also a great way to get back-linked, thank-you SEO, and will provide a place to collect email addresses if you have to roll out your app at a measured pace.

If you have some marketing money to play with, paid traffic could be an excellent source of discovery for your mobile app. Advertising platforms such as Facebook’s Ads Manager makes it simple for just anyone to get an ad campaign up and running. You can prompt Facebook users to download your app directly from their news feed. Just set your budget range, define how long it will run for, select your target audience, upload your ad content (pro tip: video content prompts more downloads than standalone images), and launch your campaign.

If You Build It, Will They Come?

The truth is, it doesn’t matter how brilliant your app is if nobody knows about it. Now that your mobile app is built, you begin the process of convincing people they need this app in their lives. By creating a mobile app landing page and leveraging it across multiple channels, you’re ensuring that your app has a standing chance of being discovered by a broad range of people.

The Smartest Thing You Can Do Before Launching Your Mobile App was originally published on iversoft.ca

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