Developing a Marketing Strategy for Mobile Apps – Before you Build

Most people don’t realize how challenging it is to develop a marketing strategy for mobile apps. Some brands think they need a mobile app because their competitors do, or because it’s new sexy thing. In many instances, however, a mobile friendly (responsive) website would be the easiest way for their target audience to find their content while surfing via their phones.

But let’s assume that you (or the brand you work for) have determined that your target audience would be likely to find the space on their phone to install your app as a way to find your content.

What goes into people finding your app?

Below is the latest US data around how people discover apps. Note that the vast majority of app users search the app stores or get recommendations from family or friends.

 

This post will outline how to ensure that your app is found in the various app stores, and will outline strategies to ensure that your are recommended by your target audience’s family and friends

Fact: The app market is flooded and your app needs to be awesome

Currently, the App Store has around 1 million apps, and itadds about 20,000 apps per month. Apple gets almost 1,000 app submissions a day. The Google Play Store has over 1 million apps, and there have been over 50 billion downloads.

Fact: Users ditch most apps they try

Only 5% of users keep the app after the first month, and uninstalls of your app negatively impact your app being found in the app store. In fact, Google has mentioned that 80% of apps go unused after the first download.

So how do you build an app that will be findable and that your audience will keep and use?

It’s all about understanding your target audience and your app’s competitors. You need to ask yourself these questions:

• Is the app you’re building filling a need that your target audience has? Is that need currently not served by your competitors?
• Do you have a sense of what your unique selling proposition is?
  • Your unique selling proposition should not only convince your target audience that they should pay attention, but should also have a call to action that encourages them to download the app. This statement should outline the points of difference and have compelling visuals and calls to action to download the app.

• Are you building something that allows the user to “snack” on content vs. “feast?”
  • Based on the data, most users are not going to use your app for more than a few minutes a day. US users spend 2 hours and 42 minutes a day on their mobile devices, and 86% of that time is spent in apps.
  • See the breakdown of how that 2 hours and 42 minutes is divided by the type of app being used:

 

So if you’re creating a news app, your users are only going to use your app for an average of 4 minutes and 18 seconds a day.

• Are you building a great user experience? If not, you might collect negative reviews that would negatively impact your app’s success.
• Are you testing your app with your users prior to launching?
• Are you developing the app for multiple devices? Apps that are featured on multiple devices are ranked better in the app store.

Tackling the app store – App Store Optimization

So you’re now aware that 63% of apps are discovered through app store searches and there are additional apps discovered via app store browsing and the “recommended for you” or “Top 20 App” sections.

What do you do to be found in each of those discovery methods?

Well each one runs a bit differently and I’ve outlined the best practices for each in the ITunes store and the Google Play store below:

Google Play – App Store Search Optimization (ASO)

1. Effectively tackle your app store landing page:

• Start by using ASO tools to conduct your keyword research. Try Google Keyword Planner, AppCod.es ,Search Man, MobileDevHQ, or Sensor Tower
• Optimize your App name – it should include your target keyword and the maximum character limit is 30
• Create a killer app description:
  • This description is what sells your app. There is a 4,000 character limit, and you should use your target keyword at least 5 times.
  • You can have a short snippet from review sites, provide reasons to download, highlight number of users, other apps you’ve created, and quotes from users with links to social media platforms – embedded Tweets, etc.
• Create a standout app icon
  •  It should be simple, it should not use words, and it should stand out from others in the stores.
• Add app screenshots of the best features
• Select the app type (either “applications” or “games)
• Add an App YouTube demo video to your app store page. ( Using video on your landing page has been shown toimprove conversion rates by as much as 80%).
• Localize your app and marketing materials. You can also upload localized: hi-res icons, screenshots, feature graphics, promo graphics, and promo videos.
• YouTube URLs for each language version of your app.
• Link to the app landing page on your website.

2. Understand and influence other app store ranking factors:

There are a variety of other factors that influence your findability in the app store (some of which have been highlighted by Google themselves) and include:

• Using a Google+ Plugin, as the more pluses your app gets, the more visible it is in the app store.
• Getting a large number of searches in the play store of your app by name.
  • Google recommends via your promotion you should ask your audience to “Search for us on the Google Play store.”
• The total number of downloads and “long installs” (negated by uninstalls)
• The install rate (number of installs per hour and over last 30 days)
• Your app’s aggregate rating and number of ratings
• The number of reviews
• Being able to use all features of your app cross devices
• Prompt app support and fixing of app bugs
• The time since last update (regular updates to features and bugs is critical)
• Speed in which your app downloads and runs
• Daily usage of the app by users
• Which apps your friends on Google+ have voted for.
• Online reviews of your app
• Usage: frequency with which your app is used (reported by some developers)
• Continually updating your app features
• Using Google’s deep linking so that the content of your app can be visible in Google search results.
  • You make your apps compatible by 1) updating their apps to support deep linking; and 2) submit an app deep link sitemap to Google Webmaster tools. Note, Bing also has similar functionality: http://www.bing.com/dev/applink

Google Play – Optimizing for “Recommended for you”

This “recommended for you” section appears at the top of the app screen and provides personalized recommendations:

This is influenced by factors like which apps your Google+ friends enjoy, what app you currently have installed, your Google search history, and the general geographical area in which you live. The 2013 Google I/O webinar also highlighted a variety of other tactics that you can deploy when developing your app to leverage  personalization to the end user.

iTunes – App Store Search Optimization (ASO)

1. Tackle your IOs App Store landing page:

Many of these steps are very similar to the Google play store, except that Apple has a few unique fields Iike the keyword field).

• Start by using ASO tools to conduct your keyword research. Like Google Keyword Planner, AppCod.es, Search Man, MobileDevHQ, or Sensor Tower
• Optimize your App name (you have 255 characters, but the user only sees 19 characters in their iPhone)
• Create a killer app description:
  • You have a 4,000 character limit to sell your app
  •  It should be optimized based on your keyword research
  • Include a brief opening paragraph or two and a short bulleted list of main features.
  • Localize for markets where appropriate.
  • Include user reviews, accolades, or testimonials only at the end, if at all.
• Keywords field:
  • There is 100 character limit field for you to list your keywords
  • Don’t repeat keywords that are already in your title and separate keywords by commas but don’t use spaces.
• Create a stand out app Icon
  • It should be simple, it should not use words, and it should stand out from others in the stores.
• Add app screenshots of the best features
• Localize your app and marketing materials.
• Link to the app landing page on your website.
• And now you can add an App preview video.

2. Understand and influence other app store ranking factors:

The additional factors in the iOs app store algorithm include:

•  Total installs
• Length of installs
• Number of reviews
• Aggregate rating
• Time since initial launch
• Time since last update
• Install rate (installs per 24 hours)
• App downloaded by not installed

The iOs developer library outlines many of these best practices.

iTunes – optimizing for App Store browsing behavior

While in Google Play the majority of app discovery is via search, in the iOs store most people discover apps through the browse rankings, especially Top 10, Top 25, and New & Noteworthy lists which are available from the App Store.

How do you get on these lists?

According to US market data collected by The Loadown in 2013, iOS app publishers and developers making version updates and price changes improve their positioning on iTunes’ Top Paid, Top Free and Top Grossing lists.

 

David Renard, CEO of The Loadown, stated that this ranking change is because:

“when a paid or free app is updated to a new version, the developer can change the name, icon, description, screenshots and keywords of the app as well as force users to notice the new update.”

For price changes, he adds that

“sales get featured on an Apple RSS feed that is distributed to thousands of sites and twitter feeds focused on promoting apps that have gone on sale or have recently become free.”

iTunes – Optimizing for “Top Free apps”

To break into the Top 10 free apps on the US App Store, an app needs 72,000 downloads per day. To achieve this, one obviously needs a great pre-launch, launch and post launch marketing plan. We’ll talk about how to create these in my next blog post.

 

Now that the user has found your app because of your landing page (and other factors), what convinces them to install it?

There is great data from Google that was shared during their 2013 Google I/O webinar about what drives US users to install an app:

Additional data from Google highlights that 57% of users say that cost is the most important factor when choosing an app to download, and 54% say user ratings and reviews.

Getting Good Reviews

To ensure that you get good reviews, you should make it easy for users to send you feedback and have a process in place to respond to those issues quickly, and notify users when those issues have been resolved. Here are a few ideas for how to handle those issues:

• Include some contact info at the end of your app description. It can be an email address, a Twitter or Facebook account, etc.
• Have a website for support. Google Play and the iTunes Store lets you add link to your app landing page where you should highlight your support options.
• Use software to monitor your feedback messages, run surveys, and engage them via in app messages. Some of the well-known software options are: Appboy, Apptentive, or Instabug.
• Ensure that you have built in push notifications that will allow you to ping users when there are new features available, notify them when a bug has been fixed, wake up dormant or less engaged users, and/or prompt them to rate an app.

How do you get others to recommend your App to their social media networks?

Again, this is where the marketing needs for the app influence the initial build of the app, as all Google Play apps should use Google Plus sign in functionality, and social sharing to friends should be baked into the app (Play or iOs) from the beginning. If you’ve done your target audience research from the beginning, you should have good personas developed that will help you determine which social media networks your audience is on as you build out the social media channels you might need to promote the app. Nothing is going to replace direct interaction with engaged users however, and that’s where mobile app CRM tools like the ones mentioned above will be the most valuable in engaging your users and getting them to recommend you to others.

Are you ready to build a mobile app now?

If the above list seems overwhelming, that’s because the competition in both app stores had driven a need for high quality apps and solid promotion to ensure that in both stores only the most highly usable and quality apps make it to the top. Keep in mind that both stores personalize their results to the end user as well which also creates an additional marketing hurdle.

But with a strong research and marketing approach from the beginning of developing your app, and a concurrent pre-launch marketing plan in place, it’s not
impossible to create an app that is perfect for your target audience, is found, used and recommended by them.

Stay tuned for my next blog post where I outline how to create a pre-launch and launch marketing plan for your mobile app.