With several millions of mobile apps available for download on hosting platforms, such as the Google Play store, your mobile app must be able to stand out amongst the many others in the app store. Standing out among the millions cannot occur if people do not understand the purpose of your mobile app. Building a great mobile app requires both commitment and hard work. The development phase is just one half of the life phases of a mobile app.
As a programmer, you need to put in the extra effort so that your software will attract substantial attention to break through the mobile app market. A great way to increase visibility in app stores is through implementing a social media marketing plan.
Social media is essential to the success of a mobile app, because it creates interest and enthusiasm around the app even before the app is published officially. Marketing your app on social media ensures that your mobile app reaches a larger audience, picques that audience's interest, and generates the traffic necessary for the app to break through the market.
Additionally, social media has a high ROI, as it is a cost-effective marketing tool for reaching your target audience. With cheap rates for ad posts, your software can reach several groups of individuals depending on their needs, and engage with potential clients. These early connections with the programmer can build trust through addressing questions related to the mobile app.
What's more, there is a wide array of social media platforms at your disposal to promote the visibility of your software.
During the idea phase of your mobile app development, you should create a user persona that gives you an insight into end-users. Research the different social media platforms to ascertain where your target audience is spending their time online. Every social media platform has unique features that make it different from the others. As a programmer, you need to understand and harness these features while marketing your mobile app.
Examine your competition's marketing strategy
The goal of your app and marketing is to stand out and be better than your competition. How will you stand out if you do not even know what your competitors are doing and how they are doing them? Just as in any business venture, it is crucial to know your competition. With a good social media guide, you will hone the skills needed to investigate your competitors and create marketing campaigns that help you stand out from the crowd. After determining your competitors, look at the pre-launch of your competitor, and look for creative ways to beat that.
Create and emphasize pre-launch hype
Create hype for your software through social media even before it reaches the market. After choosing a launch date, utilize the time before that to create some pre-launch activity that is sure to garner awareness about your software - especially if the competition is tough.
A rule of thumb in pre-launch activities is not to give away too many details; leave some room for mystery. For example, create teaser ads on your marketing channels. These should highlight some app features but leave the key features for the launch. You could also create branded hashtags on your social media channels and encourage user engagement. Basically, this is done in order to get a lot of people talking about your mobile app even before it drops!
Produce sponsored ads on your social media pages
Paid (sponsored) advertising is a way to achieve the goal of promoting your mobile app through sales conversion, awareness, and user engagement on social media. Sponsored advertisements can give you a greater chance to increase download volume than organic marketing can.
While creating a sponsored ad campaign, make sure that the key information is being passed across. Utilize CTA (Call to Action) buttons so that the audience does not just view, but also interacts with posts. Even if you don't have a marketer and are advertising your mobile app yourself, make sure to monitor and assess your results. This will help you to create relevant content going forward. Finally, tailor each ad campaign according to the social media platform where it will appear, in order to maximize ROI.
Carry out live product demonstrations for the audience
A live demo is important in introducing key app features and the mobile app's user interface. This is a great way for programmers to market their mobile apps. The target audience should be able to find these demos informative, engaging, and easy to understand.
Pro tip: Make sure everything is planned out ahead of the demonstration, as it will be live and you don’t want to be figuring things out in front of an audience.
The first live demo is quite vital to the success of your software, as it will shape how the end-users react to the mobile app. Try to keep it simple, but concise and engaging in order to generate feedback from the audience. That feedback can help you in future marketing ventures. You may even consider hiring a crew to assist with technical issues that may arise during the live demonstration.
Selecting your launch date is the perfect time to market an app demo across different networks.
Post-launch phase is equally important.
The pre-launch and post-launch phases are pivotal to the success of your product (mobile app). You’ve learned that pre-launch is about creating interest from now on. The post-launch stage is all about user retention.
The first thing you need to do here is analyze your present social media data to know your level of engagement. Observe the results of your campaigns and make changes as needed. Consumers generally prefer when their concerns and suggestions are addressed promptly. The next thing you want to do is ensure that you are providing the best user experience possible to your mobile app users. Running user-generated content (UGC) on your social media outlets is a great way to accomplish this. User-generated content helps to build trust and loyalty on social media platforms.
Keep engaging your audience even after the launch of your mobile app, so that their attention does not dwindle on your software. This is critical to your social media strategy.
Carry out social media analysis
Harness the power of analytics to do things better - from understanding your audience to creating relevant content that will boost the success of your mobile app even further. Analytics can even help you to monitor your competition as you go. Data like this allows you to launch a comprehensive and successful social media campaign.
Guest posting
You can write blog posts about your mobile app and host them on a popular blog in a related niche. Guest posting is not a new marketing model. This way, the content will reach the reader of the popular blog, and your mobile app will broaden its reach. The guest posts' blogs should be of high quality and also interactive so that the readers don't get bored while reading them.
Now that you have obtained a better understanding of the approach you need to take in launching your mobile app on the internet, create a strategy with the right attitude. Follow these tips, seek guidance when you need it, stay consistent through the entire process and watch your mobile app thrive!
Host a giveaway
Organizing a giveaway contest can help create a buzz around your mobile app by offering users something they want. For you, the thought should always be in the back of your mind that the aim of organizing the giveaway is to increase downloads of your app or your mobile application's popularity. For example, you can offer people something, like a discount, for every referral that downloads your app.
Work on your app store optimization
When you open the app store, some apps are immediately visible, while others might not even come up on the first page in a search. Proper app store optimization is necessary to increase the visibility of your app, and thus increase its downloads.
Ask for an app review
The more people are familiar with what your mobile app can do, the more likely downloads will be among people who need your service. One way to showcase your app is to reach out to influencers on social media pages (like YouTube) that review apps. Some have a significant number of followers subscribed to their channels. The process is usually that the influencer briefs the followers about different apps and reads their pros and cons.
You can also ask musicians, actors, and actresses to talk about desirable features in your app – passing the message on to an even broader community. Although it might be expensive to get famous people to talk about your app, it is often worth the investment. However, any type of review that creates (positive) awareness for your app is good.
Apply for app awards
You can get press exposure by applying for App awards. App awards are a great platform to discover new apps. Imagine you have the opportunity to be mentioned in a global app award show. You will definitely have international recognition for your mobile app after that. Although it is not quite easy to be nominated for an award because of the number of apps they have to consider, you can keep trying and applying for different app awards. Eventually, you might win.
Start a community
Building a community of people interested in your mobile app is a great way to sustain your customer base. Some ways to build a community include creating a forum or podcast where you talk about the mobile app and interact with the people who use it.
If you think a community sounds good but is too time-consuming, you could hire a community moderator to help interact with the community. When there's no interaction, people tend to lose interest in the community you are trying to build.
Hire a PR company
The use of professional PR can help you generate pre-launch buzz for your mobile app. It is a necessity during pre-launch marketing. A PR company can help you build a long list of people who are waiting for your app to launch. A company like this can also discuss trending topics, topics relating to the mobile app, and how your app applies to different aspects of humanity. In other words, they’re super helpful in creating a successful app launch.
Conclusion
There are many people out there that will be interested in your mobile app, but they may not get to know about it. If they are not aware of the great mobile app you are building for them, employing all the tips mentioned above will help you generate prelaunch awareness in your locality. Employ all means possible to increase awareness of your app before and after launching the app on the app Play store.