Mobile App Marketing Strategies in 2020
There’s nothing worse than putting in months or even years of hard work into developing an exciting and intuitive app, finally launching it on the app store, and then instead of receiving an overwhelming amount of downloads and reviews – crickets.
This happens all too often because many people believe that a great app idea with the right functionality and UI is enough to land millions of downloads. They fail to account for the importance of proper pre-launch app marketing.
That is, no one knew you were building something amazing, and so, no one is excited that it’s finally available for download. So, you need to make sure that your app gains enough attention and traction before it’s available on the store so as to get a flying start when it actually launches.
Here are six of the best pre-launch app marketing strategies you must implement for a successful launch:
1. App Marketing Strategies – Get Pre-Launch Feedback
In the early stages when you have a minimum viable product (MVP) ready, you can seek out real app users who can provide detailed feedback, and eventually, when the app launches, these people can become your app’s biggest supporters and word-of-mouth champions.
Early adopters can be anyone from your ex-colleagues to family and friends. The aim here is to gain as much objective feedback as possible.
Furthermore, put out a call for beta testers. These testers can provide you with new feature ideas and help in eliminating unnecessary features that bloat your app.
For Beta Testers Go To Preapps
You just need to go on Preapps and fill out all information about your mobile app.
They also serve as a resource for further audience research. Besides, the allure of a closed beta can create excitement around your app, building interest in your target communities, and rewarding those who choose to opt-in as a beta tester.
2. App Marketing Strategies – Build Buzz on Social Media
Leveraging social media for pre-launch app marketing is an absolute must as it is a highly effective way to reach an enormous audience of potential users. So, months before the actual launch of the application, you must create social media profiles for branding your app. Make sure to choose and focus on the right social media channels – don’t try to create a presence everywhere.
Social Media Apps
For instance, if you’re creating a fitness app, Facebook and Instagram are perfect for you.
If it’s a B2B app or an app for freelancers/professionals, LinkedIn and Twitter would be your best bet.
You can analyze where your competitors are thriving and build your brand’s buzz on those channels by engaging with those audiences and niche communities.
Focus on consistently creating exciting content for your app’s social handles and engaging with the audience by sparking discussions.
Forums and Q&A Sites
Plus, forums and Q&A sites like Reddit and Quora have strong and active niche communities where you can get invaluable feedback to improve your app before launching.
And if you have some budget for ads, social media platforms are amazing for targeted paid advertising to reach your exact target audience demographics and get them to click through to your landing page.
3. Market Your App Creating a Landing Page
Don’t underestimate the power of a killer landing page with strong visuals and copy. Essentially, your pre-launch landing page is just a web page that turns strangers into potential users by collecting their email addresses. It doesn’t have to be a full-fledged website with multiple pages.
Needless to say, your landing page needs to be impressive with compelling visuals and copy in order to motivate people to sign up.
It should include high-resolution screenshots of the app.
Exciting benefits listed clearly.
Links to other marketing materials (such as a YouTube video and your app’s social media profiles) and press mentions,
A “refer a friend link”, and finally a persuasive call to action button.
Within a few seconds of arriving on the landing page, the visitor should be able to answer the below things:
What your app is all about
Its benefits and USP
What they should do next.
Getting more and more email subscribers for your app before it launches is a solid way to ensure you won’t be launching to the sound of crickets.
4. Mobile App Marketing Strategy – Start Content Marketing Early On
It is never too early to start creating and promoting content that grabs people’s attention and brings them to your landing page.
So, apart from social media marketing, you must also focus on content marketing in the form of blogging, podcasts, and even YouTube videos.
App Marketing With Blog
If you already have a blog,
you can use it to update your audience about the development of your new app.
And if you don’t have a blog,
it’s never too late to create one and luckily, creating a blog is easier than ever, with super intuitive and affordable platforms like WordPress or Medium.
Blogging is an excellent way to build a fan base for your app.
It builds interest around your product and long-form textual content helps boost your search visibility.
Figure out your target keywords, create high-quality engaging content, and try to get other authority sites to link to you in order to improve your blog’s search engine rankings.
For example, you can address important issues in your industry and how your app is going to help tackle them.
App Marketing With Podcast
Also, more than one-third of Americans age 12 and over (104 Million) are consuming podcasts regularly, which means podcasts should definitely be considered in your content marketing strategy. They’re relatively simple to produce and distribute too.
Moreover, with over 2 billion monthly active users spread over 100 countries, YouTube can be an extremely powerful tool to spread the word about your upcoming app. You may think creating professional-grade promo videos is difficult, but is simpler than you might think.
Your modern smartphone is capable enough to shoot high-resolution videos and there are plenty of cost-effective tools to edit a high-quality and professional-looking video that can showcase everything potential users need to know about the app, thus allowing you to present your app in the best possible light.
5. Prepare a Media Kit for PR
Another highly effective strategy to gain attention before launch is doing some public relations. This means reaching out to big bloggers, influencers, publications, and online magazines and letting them know that something exciting is about to launch.
For that, you must create a media kit that includes all the necessary stuff :
A review guide (what your app does and how)
High-resolution screenshots
Lifestyle images, videos, the backstory behind the development of the app
Contact details, FAQ, and so on – in an easy-to-understand way
A well-prepared media kit will help interested parties, such as influential bloggers with a huge following, create more informed and in-depth content about your app.
6. Focus on App Store Optimization (ASO)
Ultimately, the app store is where people decide whether to download your app or not. If they aren’t impressed with what they see on your app store page, you may lose a potential user forever. What’s more, people search for apps on the store when they want to solve a problem, and ASO is crucial for achieving high rankings and visibility on the store.
Essentially, app store optimization is all about using the right keywords in your app’s description and making it compelling enough (with clearly highlighted features and benefits) for the reader to hit “Install” (or “Get”).
You must also pick the right brand name (with a killer logo) for your app that’s unique and memorable.
consider appending your primary keyword with the brand name using a hyphen.
Finally, make sure to upload stellar screenshots (and if possible, a video) with short captions. It enables potential users to visualize what it would be like to use your app.
Doing all this will boost your app’s rankings and conversions on the launch date and beyond.
Final Thoughts – Prelaunch App Marketing Strategies
With over 2.56 million and 1.85 million apps available on Google Play and Apple’s App Store respectively, it goes without saying that the mobile app industry is fiercely competitive and there’s no single strategy that guarantees success.
Also, research by Localytics revealed that across all industries, 71% of all app users churn within 90 days.
This means that user retention is an increasingly big problem for app owners, and it is vital that your app marketing strategy incorporates retention techniques to try and ensure that users don’t uninstall the app soon after they download it. One way is to ensure that users’ first interaction with your app is seamless.
Focus on creating and marketing a stellar app onboarding flow so users realize how easy-to-use your app is.
This can be a YouTube video tutorial, step-by-step onboarding screens with captions, or interactive onboarding. The goal is to make your app’s value proposition clear. And securing this pre-launch means you are creating a strong foundation for user retention.
You need to invest in the right mix of the above-mentioned strategies and continually test what’s working for you in order to optimize your odds of a successful launch.
When done right, your pre-launch app marketing campaign can have a snowball effect on your eventual downloads post-launch and can even lead you to the top charts in the long run.
