How to Market Your Mobile App in 2018 and Beyond

There are more than 3.8 million apps in the Google Play Store. Apple is hardly lagging behind, with a little over two million. As difficult as it can be to develop a mobile app, trying to market an otherwise unknown application against millions of competing apps sounds next to impossible. But the reality is quite different and fortunately, there are more ways than one to ensure your mobile app is reaching just the right audience. Here are five tips on how to market your mobile app in 2018 and beyond.

Guest Blogging

Writing blog posts about compelling and relevant topics and posting them on your website is an excellent way to raise your website’s rank, improve discoverability and increase traffic. But establishing authority and building an audience is a resource- and time-consuming businesses. Guest blogging is the perfect way to reach a broader audience fast while still targeting those who are most likely to get the app. Aim for authoritative, niche-relevant blogs with a loyal user-base and provide them with an informative, high-quality copy.

Even though guest blogging is to promote your mobile app, the posts themselves should never be too promotional. Avoid being overly promotional in your posts and try to provide the audience with real information and value, not another sales pitch. Use Google AdWords and Google Trends to identify the most popular relevant keywords and include them in your blog posts and specifically, in the headings. Write an eye-catching bio that includes links to both your website and the app page, if possible.

Influencer Marketing

Reaching out to social media influencers has solidified its place as a crucial part of any well-developed marketing campaign. It’s a cost-effective way for brands to reach new, more targeted audiences and increase awareness organically. Considering that it generates 11x greater ROI, it’s easy to see why 94% find the practice highly effective. There are two types of influencers, macro- and micro-influencers. Macro-influencers have a greater reach, while micro-influencers offer much higher engagement.

Finding just the right influencer is never easy, as you need someone who can connect with and adequately represent your brand persona. At the same time, it needs to be someone who your target audience trusts and engages with on a regular level. Find influencers you think are capable of carrying your brand persona and simply tell them about the app. Better yet, send them an event invite or offer them free products and service-related experiences.

 

Mobile and Social Advertising

Leveraging both paid-per-click advertising and paid social advertising will help get your app directly in front of the target audience. Google Ads allow you to only target users who are searching for a specific term using their mobile devices and display them on websites. Social advertising and Facebook ads, in particular, allow for hyper-targeting users based on their demographics, interest, and intent. Just have in mind that a small audience whose interests are closely related to your app often require lower costs of advertising and generate higher returns.

ASO

Just like a website can be optimized to rank higher in the search engine results page, so can your app be optimized to rank higher in the app store search results. Improving your apps ranking position increases its visibility and makes it easier for potential customers to discover it when searching.

You can optimize the app by adding relevant keywords into the name, subtitle, and description of your app and using high-quality graphics that can easily be seen on a mobile device. If you know very little about ASO or app marketing in general, then you might want to consider outsourcing it to a professional agency by browsing through the directory of some of the top digital agencies and finding one that has the most experience in the field of mobile app marketing.

Re-Engagement

Having the audience install your app is one thing, but getting them to use it on a regular basis is a whole new ballgame. In fact, a quarter of all apps are installed and used only once, which only increases the pressure to create an app that is fun, engaging and genuinely useful. Guide the users step-by-step through the set-up and on boarding processes and don’t shy away from in-app messages. You can use e-mail, SMS-texts and push notifications to re-engage your audience when they’re not using the app, as long as you provide the option of turning off the notifications.   

As the number of available applications continues to increase, so does the amount of competition you will have to face in order to successfully market your mobile app. These are just some of the most effective and popular marketing techniques at your disposal, but each marketing campaign is different from the other, so make sure to test them out and tweak if necessary before including as a part of your overall marketing strategy.