Get Noticed: The Top 6 Marketing Channels for App Promotion
After you’ve poured blood, sweat, and tears into creating your app, now comes the fun part of marketing your product. You’ve brushed up on the many different marketing routes to take, but which ones will be the best ones to catapult your app to the top?
While the possibilities seem endless, endless possibilities are not what you want, or need, on your marketing roadmap. Instead, a sort of pecking order should be employed, itemizing which marketing efforts are going to be most advantageous for your app. Bear in mind, these endeavors will vary based on your app’s category, as a mCommerce app will need completely different marketing techniques than a gaming app would.
Marketing teams are at the crux of this decision-making process, and therefore it’s vital to have all the ducks in a row before the marketers select the right ducklings for the job.
And now the exciting part. We’re addressing the most worthwhile marketing channels for you to add to and employ in your strategy. Some of the below choices may have you saying, “well yeah, obviously” but au contraire–what’s obvious to you may not be to someone else, and what’s obvious to someone else may not be obvious to you. So, let’s get cracking and market your app like crazy.
App Marketing Channel #1: Medium
Medium is a primo content sharing site, and all the top bloggers, companies, and influencers are on here sharing and interacting. Creating an account is a simple enough process, and then you can begin sharing your content. There are major Medium publications out there depending on your field, but some of the top app and tech ones include Prototypr, UX Planet, and. Forming relationships with top publications will increase the possibility of them featuring your content on their page–thus really driving traffic back to you.
App Marketing Channel #2: Facebook
Facebook, is, of course, a powerhouse and by employing marketing tactics on this domain can quickly leverage your app’s exposure. Marketing on Facebook begins by creating a company profile for your app. You’ll quickly see the many possibilities, like Facebook’s Video Advertising, where you can create your own beautiful videos with Facebook-supported video apps. A presence on Facebook is critical in terms of SEO and content distribution, but it’s equally crucial not to push such a sales tone. Amp your presence by engaging with other personal and brand profiles, and influencers. Liking and following isn’t enough–you need to comment and interact, encouraging others to follow you as well.
App Marketing Channel #3: Twitter
Twitter is an excellent way to get short, succinct blurbs out about your product. Share links to content, write creative copy (although they’ve doubled the character limit, you still don’t want to write a novel here), and once again, engage. Don’t rely on simply liking other Twitter accounts. Follow top brands and influencers, retweet their posts, and comment on their tweets. Leveraging your base of Twitter followers is imperative because even if you’re following a lot of people, it doesn’t mean they’re following you. And at the end of the day, this popularity contest really does depend on how many followers you have and your engagement level. Plus, once your app has been launched, Twitter can serve as a great platform for customer service.
App Marketing Channel #4: Search Marketing (Google AdWords)
Search marketing may seem simple, but it’s quite an effective tactic. By linking your app’s keywords to Google searches, users will see your app featured at the top of search results and be directed to download your app. Sounds great, right? There are tons of different types of Google AdWords campaigns, so it’s advised to conduct thorough research before choosing–you’ll want to be certain you’re paying for the most effective campaign for your product!
App Marketing Channel #5: Instagram
The world loves visuals, and it seems that everyone is a photographer these days. Here’s a bandwagon you’ll definitely want to jump on, especially if you have some solid visuals, or at least can create some to really drive your product. And realistically, with today’s smartphones and scads of photo/video apps, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to create captivating images. If this type of creativity isn’t your “thing”, don’t worry, it can easily be everyone’s thing with a little poking around at top brands and influencers. You’ll quickly get the hang of what “sells” and what doesn’t (i.e. popularity content of a number of likes). Setting up giveaways or contests is a great way to engage with other accounts and influencers, and bring more and more traffic to your page.
App Marketing Channel #6: ASO (App Store Optimization)
This process is an important one for freshening up any app store descriptions and landing pages. Stale content is just like stale bread…ick. Having a professional content writer swoop in and leverage keywords will attract more users to the app via the search tool. Beefing up the creativity along with incorporating keywords that are specific to the app’s purpose and capabilities, will encourage prospective users to download.
Beyond Just Marketing Channels.
Now that you have this buffet of great marketing channels, what about your app’s actual experience? You may have successfully completed the first launch, but that’s just one hurdle in a series of…many. Ahead of you is the challenge of keeping your users interested in your product and appealing to their wants and needs. Here is where user experience comes in.
How are you tracking the user journey? Or how will you track it? Standard quantitative/traditional event-based analytics is an oldie but goodie, but there are limits to the numerical data that you’ll receive. You’ll be able to see, for example, the number of daily active users, the number of users who completed onboarding, and the number of users who made a purchase. And that’s all fine and dandy, but there are limits to this analysis, and we need to be limitless in the mobile sphere.
Insert the knight in shining armor, qualitative analytics. Through qualitative, you’ll gain insights into the “whys” behind the numbers. Why did users embark on that series of actions, why did they tap that button 3 times without getting a response, why did users from a specific campaign embark on that series of actions, why did that crash happen, why did users make it to the payment screen and then never return?
Not only will you be able to monitor user experience, but you’ll also be conducting user research in an entirely unbiased manner. Forget surveys, interviews, or questionnaires where users might give answers they think the company wants or answers that are rushed and not genuine (because who likes surveys anyway?). Instead, you’ll be receiving accurate and truthful insight and results into how your users like, or don’t like, your app. This is gold.
To get the full picture it’s wise to use a combination of tools. An attribution tool is highly necessary, but so is a qualitative analytics tool like Appsee. Utilizing the appropriate channels to market your product, and employing qualitative analytics to monitor your users, is the dream team that will yield better ROI and improved LTV.
Lesley
Latest posts by Lesley (see all)
- Get Noticed: The Top 6 Marketing Channels for App Promotion - September 21, 2018