Mistakes You Must Avoid If You Want Your App To Be Successful App brands that are very successful create awareness for their new application even before its official release
By Harnil Oza
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Developing and releasing a mobile application is a very tricky task. When you finally release the application, it's a moment of celebration.
However, at this moment, you have more work to be done. To release the full potential of your amazing idea, you have to bring your new app to the users by successfully marketing your app.
When a mobile app development company distributes their applications via traditional stores, they have a lot of competition to deal with. Most app development companies, therefore, have difficulties with marketing their applications successfully. In this article, you'll find some of the marketing strategies unsuccessful apps have in common. As an app development company or marketer, you should avoid these mistakes to have a successful mobile app marketing strategy.
Start Advertising after the App Has Been Released
The release of an app is an important moment for markets as well as for app developers. Most of them tend to wait until their application is launched before they start marketing it. However, app brands that are very successful create awareness for their new application even before its official release. The approach of announcing your new application enhances your app marketing in two specific ways — it brings reasonable initial downloads, and it creates awareness for your app. If people already know about your app and can't wait for its release, they will download the app immediately it is released the app store. The initial downloads will help you attract other users in the app store, and this will boost the ranking of your app in the store from the very beginning.
Useful Tips
To avoid such mistakes and to successfully promote your mobile app, here are some useful tips:
• Begin a beta program for your mobile app, get early users to use the app and give your feedback.
• Ensure that you create a social network appearance before the release of your application. Try to know more about your target users; this will help you have a better focus on the marketing strategy of your app.
• Do pre-launch teaser advertisement to share the word and create awareness for your application.
Failing to Do App Store Optimization
The two largest mobile app stores (Apple App Store and Google Play Store) already have over 4.3 million applications. It is almost impossible that there won't be at least an app in the stores that will be similar to your application. If you want people to see and download your application rather than installing the app of your competitors, there is no alternative to App Store Optimization. As the number of your downloads is strongly impacted by ranking in search results, your main aim should be to increase the ability for your app to be found in app stores.
Therefore, the higher your ranking in search results, the higher the chance that users will download your application. Despite how time-consuming App Store Optimization (ASO) can be, it should be a vital part of your mobile app marketing as a mobile app development company. By continually using your app meta-data such as keywords, description, and app title, you can increase your keywords ranking without spending money.
Useful Tips
To get the best out of queries of organic search in app stores, below are some very useful tips.
• Use an App Publishing Tool and App Store Optimization that will help you optimize the appearance of your app in app stores more efficiently.
• Always adopt assets and texts on the page of your app to appeal users and increase app downloads.
• Stay above your competitors by using a comprehensive keyword strategy.
Ignoring Paid Advertising
Many iOS and Android app development companies don't like spending money on app advertising and marketing. But the application market is full of so many apps, and it requires a variety of marketing strategies to make your app outstanding. Hence, not including paid advertising in your marketing campaign is even less efficient than emphasizing on incentivized downloads. Ad campaigns can really be beneficial when a mobile app development company does it properly and gets to the right people.
Hence, you first of all have to look for a suitable channel to advertise on, and you have to know who to advertise to. Apart from ASO, app installation ads also increase your downloads as the ad redirects users to the page of your app on the app store. The most frequently used channels to get ads for application installations are mobile application install campaigns, Apple Search Ads and app install ads on Facebook.
Useful Tips
To get some returns on investment, here are some tips on how to utilize advertising platforms.
• Make personas for the marketing strategies of your mobile application and make your marketing to focus more on your targeted users.
• Carry out some customer research and who your targeted users are, and find out the type of users that converts the best.
• Try to use other ad channels to increase your app awareness to users and get known by more potential users.
Failing to Analyze Results
It is easy for you to get distracted by little tasks, and as a mobile app development company, there are a lot of tasks on your list to be executed. However, analyzing and tracking app key performance indicators (KPIs) is very important to be really confident in what you are doing. By outlining indicators, your main goals are always fresh in your mind.
Keeping track of relevant app metrics such as Daily Active Users (DAU), Retention, Performance, Findability, and Engagement are curial for the success of a mobile app marketing. Not analyzing the results of your marketing makes it difficult to determine the success of the app marketing campaign and where you are heading. You need to be able to determine if a particular marketing strategy is yielding the desired result or not.
For instance, if the rate of your clicks is very low, focus on optimizing keyword strategy to boost the ability of your app to be found in search results, or redesign the icon of your app to be unique and exceptional from your competitors. Similarly, if the conversion rate of your app is very low, try convincing users by polishing the screenshots of your app or add preview videos of your mobile app. Finally, you should frequently test various ways of improving the page of your app on the app store and turn visitors into users.
Useful Tips
You can't look for ways to improve the marketing of your app if you don't know what is going on. Here are some tips to help in your marketing analysis.
• Use other analytic platforms other than App Analytics to get different metrics relevant for the marketing of your app.
• Observe and define KPIs such Return on Investment (ROI), Cost per Install (CPI), Average Revenue per User (ARPU) or Retention Rate.