The Ultimate Guide To Mobile App Marketing: 30 Best Tips For 2022

This is where mobile app marketing comes into play and fills your application’s funnel with users.

Every company launching a mobile product needs to have an app marketing strategy. To be successful, a mobile app marketing strategy needs to be well-thought-out, carefully planned and precisely executed. Here at ComboApp, we’ve helped bring almost 1,000 apps to market and would like to share the top 30 actionable tips on how to market an app successfully based on what we have learned over the years of mobile app marketing experiences.

For your convenience, we have chunked down these tips for how to market mobile apps into two broad categories:

1. Marketing tips for before you launch your mobile application

2. Marketing tips for the first 90 days after you launch your application

First Things First: What Is Mobile App Marketing?

Mobile application marketing can be described as guiding app users through the mobile app marketing funnel, which consists of the five main stages:

• Exposure/Discovery: This stage is about introducing your application to its potential users.
• Consideration: Engaging your target audience with marketing messages, providing information about the application, highlighting its value and competitive advantages.
• Conversion: Motivating prospects to download your app and nurturing them throughout the on-boarding process.
• Customer Relationship: Listening and responding to your users.
• Retention: Ensuring that your users are delighted with the application and brand experience. Giving them reasons, such as new content, features and flawless user experience to keep using your product.

As you can see, mobile application marketing is not a one-off process, but a circular one, constantly taking new users through the marketing funnel to generate downloads, purchases, and long-term engagement. That’s why people who are experts in marketing mobile apps often talk about the mobile engagement loop.

Why Marketing an App is Crucial?

Building an awesome mobile product for your business is half the battle.

Yes, more than 85% of Americans and 70% of the global population own a smartphone, and the future of marketing is certainly mobile apps.

But, get this: over 65 percent of small businesses and almost all big brand companies have already developed a mobile application. In fact, the global app development spend hit $28.1 billion in 2021, and is expected to reach almost $35 billion in 2022.

That’s some serious competition in a market that is increasingly becoming saturated.

Depending on your product’s niche, you will face tough competition from hundreds and thousands of similarly positioned apps. And, as if that’s not bad enough, you only have a measly 8 seconds to grab the attention of an online user in order to encourage them to download your product.

So, how to promote your app when users have a sea of choice? Keep on reading; you’ll be glad you did once you’ve learned how to execute a digital mobile app strategy.

(I) BEFORE You Launch Your App

Many, if not MOST, product owners in the world make this mistake. They wait till the last (i)responsible moment before thinking about their app promotion efforts. However, any marketer that has even a modicum of experience will tell you this is absolutely wrong.

A mobile app marketing plan doesn’t just happen overnight.

The reality is that to have a successful app launch, you need to develop a mobile app marketing strategy and start executing on your marketing initiatives at least 60 days before the launch date. Follow our guide on how to develop a successful product and why you need pre-launch marketing.

The infographic below lists what digital marketing for mobile apps typically needs to be done before your app goes live.

Let’s breakdown the main activities that should be completed before you even know the exact release date in more detail:

1. Decide What Need Your App Satisfies

So, you have a plan to build and market a great app. Wonderful! But, have you figured out what purpose it will serve in people's lives? A great idea is a start, but you have to define who your audience will be and what value it provides to them. This should be your very first step in your mobile app strategy, before you start spending money on design and marketing.

Once you are able to answer the question of what value your app will have to its users, then you can devise an elevator pitch that clearly explains why someone should download it. An app does not need to serve some grand purpose either, it can be something simple and straightforward. A game app is there to entertain, a shopping app is to sell products your audience wants, these are all simple needs that you are fulfilling and easy to define. For more specialized apps, you need to clearly give a simple reason that speaks to your audience segment. For example, an educational app should be clear in what it is teaching and to whom.

Marketing a mobile app will be much easier once you know who you are marketing to and the need you are fulfilling. At some point in this process you may find that your initial idea lacks enough value to bring to market, and instead shift your digital mobile application strategy to something that is a better fit. A full-cycle mobile app marketing agency such as ComboApp can help you from the earliest planning stages, saving you time by finding the right idea and purpose at the start.

2. Define Your Revenue Model

Now, you have established what kind of app you are going to build and who the target audience for your applications marketing is. The next big step you need to take is finding out how you will monetize it. Developing and marketing a mobile application comes at a cost, and at the very least you need to find out how you will make that money back, or (for most developers) how you will profit from it.

There are quite a few revenue model options to choose from, so let's take a look at the major ones:

• One time, up-front fee – A simple model where someone buys the app up front for one fee. While simple, it does limit you to a set amount of income per install.

• Up-front fee + in-app purchases – This one is hard to work into most mobile app marketing strategies. Asking people to pay to use your app and then pay for more features is only going to work in a select few niche cases.

• Free + in-app purchases – Otherwise known as the microtransaction model (or mTx model). This is used by many of the most profitable and successful apps and games in the world. There are many marketing strategies for apps with this model that are proven to work.

• Free (“lite version”) + paid version – This option is best if you are using a model with a free app that serves as advertising for mobile apps that have a more robust paid option. This is a common form of marketing mobile apps by demonstrating the value they offer in a limited way.

• Free + advertising – People are not huge fans of ads in general, but when it comes to using ad supports apps it is a common option. Marketing for apps like this often include the option to pay a fee to remove ads. Some apps even combine these options with a microtransaction model for a robust revenue plan.

• Subscription – This model is incredibly popular because it allows you to build a recurring revenue stream that will allow for further development and growth. A marketing strategy for apps with this model would focus on promoting the value of the app to the user and why it is worth the cost.

These are some of the main revenue models used by apps. A revenue model is an important part of any mobile marketing strategies. ComboApp’s mobile app marketing services include helping you figure out which revenue model is right for your app along with every other aspect of your applications marketing plan.

3. Develop Consistent Branding

Your brand needs to be able to stand out from the crowd, and having clear and consistent branding is the way you achieve that. You need to have consistent messaging across all of your mobile app digital marketing channels, and a visual style that is easy to identify.

Two factors of the highest importance when it comes to how to market mobile applications is your brand story and your logo.

Your brand story is where you convey to potential users what your company offers, what you value, and how your brand can solve their problems. This is one of your strongest app promotion strategies and an opportunity to convince potential customers of why they would want to use your app, which is a vital part of any marketing campaign for mobile apps.

When it comes to establishing a brand identity, your logo is a defining factor. Think about it. Whenever a user clicks on their mobile devices, they do so by tapping an icon that is a representation of your logo. The color, the design, the fonts: these are all key parts of what makes your logo memorable and lets you stand out in the app market.

Once you have your logo and brand story established, carry that messaging and branding across all of your channels for marketing mobile applications in a consistent manner to build and retain brand recognition.

4. Build a Great Site and a Comprehensive Landing Page for your App

Having an informative site for your product is the first key step in any marketing plan for mobile apps. And literally 99% of developers don’t even think about it.

But here’s the deal: without a website, how else will potential users find out about your mobile application organically and download it? A well designed website is crucial for SEO purposes, and it’s best to make sure that it is up even before you write the first line of code. Also, we’ll talk about how to market an app on the App Store/ Google Play later in this article as well.

No matter how amazing you think your application might be, if no one has heard about it, cannot find it online, or you aren’t reaching its target users, then it will probably flop.

That’s why you need to build a website that will engage your product’s target audience right from the outset. You might want to include run-of-the-mill features like a blog, live chat, etc.

However, if you think your product doesn’t warrant a fully-fledged website, a comprehensive landing page can do just fine. Use the landing page to tell your app’s story, and explain to potential users what it brings to the table. Use cheap/ free tools like Wix, Unbounce or Leadpages to get off the ground quickly.

When it comes to creating a sound landing page, remember that the value of relevant keywords is critical to the overall success of your web efforts. Additionally, take advantage of website analytics tools (Google Analytics will do just fine for this purpose) to track its performance and adjust your mobile app marketing strategy and tactics accordingly.

When all’s said and done, however, it’s a no-brainer that your app website should be simple, easy to navigate, and optimized for mobile browsing.

Last but not least, your website should load in a snap.

5. Create a Robust SEO Strategy

You can’t do SEO for a native mobile application – that is understandable. But you can do SEO like a pro for your website that is designed to promote your app.

Creating a rock-hard SEO strategy starts with zeroing in on the right keywords. After all, how can you market a mobile app effectively without understanding the keywords that matter the most for your target audience?

In the app space, the ideal keywords would be terms often used by potential users to recognize what your product does. For some apps, the keywords might come to you naturally, but for others, they might not be as obvious. Either way, top-down keyword research is a must-do when developing any mobile app marketing strategy.

Not sure where to start? It’s easy – head over to Neil Patel’s FREE UberSuggest Tool and type in keywords that you think are most related to your application. The tool will give you traffic volume, difficulty levels to rank against specific keywords and derivative keywords (aka keywords you may not have thought about).

One more thing you need to know about SEO: It’s absolutely critical that you start your SEO efforts at least 60 days before the launch date because it usually takes 60 to 90 days until Google picks up your website and content. So the golden rule is to already rank for some keywords when you launch the app – and then you continue with this strategy during the growth phase too.

In the world of SEO, it’s no secret that content is king. As such, you need to generate attention-grabbing, original content that resonates well with the potential users. Make sure to leverage your content and rank for relevant keywords to get long term traffic to your app site. Also, don’t forget to do link building and cross-promotions; they are the best way to build organic buzz for your up-and-coming mobile product.

6. Recruit Influencers to Promote Your App

Influencer marketing is all the rage right now, and it can surely help ramp up downloads and visibility.

In fact, 49% of users say they downloaded an application because it was recommended by people they trust or follow online. So, it pays to make social media and direct influencers part of your app marketing plan.

Perhaps the first step is to learn how to effectively pitch influencers:

• Pick the right influencer: Make sure that the influencer is a good fit for your niche. Influencer marketing is all about engagement, so pick an influencer with a ton of active followers, most of whom are your target users. You should be familiar with the influencer’s personality and understand what makes them unique and why their followers like them. Brands sometimes make the mistake of partnering with a popular influencer whose personality is fundamentally incompatible with their brand voice, which causes their message to fall flat.

• Make your offer attractive:Popular influencers constantly receive offers from brands that would like to partner with them. To make your offer stand out, provide value to the influencers and their followers, including exclusive access to your product, discounts, and other enticing rewards. If your application is already generating a lot of buzz, you may consider commissioning credible influencers to provide a sneak peek to your application in exchange for the exposure and traffic they’ll receive.

• Personalize your pitch: Partnerships with influencers are fundamentally different from partnerships with businesses. When pitching to influencers, personalize your pitch as much as possible to show that you haven’t simply copy-pasted the same message for the 100th time. Most influencers want to work with people and not brands, so it’s a good idea to provide a personal email address instead of some generic address like contact@brand.com.

• Create a sense of urgency: Providing influencers with a concrete time frame is important for two chief reasons. First, it encourages influencers to respond to your pitch as soon as possible. Second, it sets expectations for the future. Many businesses have made the mistake of giving an influencer money for promotion without discussing a specific time frame only to see their investment go to waste because the influencer took too long to deliver their part of the deal.

• Keep it simple: Your initial pitch should be short and sweet. After a brief introduction, tell the influencer why you would like to work with them and explain your goal. Don’t include too many details just yet—there will be time for that later. If you manage to keep the entire message under 200 words, the chance that the influencer will read it in its entirety will be high.

With that said, you need to find trustworthy influencers for marketing mobile apps across many digital channels, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Pinterest, high-authority blogs, Medium, and YouTube, just to mention the top few. More importantly, you want to have a list of influencers ready to promote your app the day you launch and then increase the engagement after launch.

7. Create a Demo Video

Chances are that your potential users don’t have a clue on how your digital product works and therefore can’t tell if it will benefit them. That’s why your mobile app marketing plan needs to include a 30-50 second demo video, which clearly and concisely highlights the value prop for your application.

When you get down to it, we are visual creatures. In fact, the human brain processes visuals 60,000x faster than it does text.

That said, it’s not enough to post the video inside the application.

Go ahead and upload it to YouTube, cross-promo sites, and other video sharing platforms across the web. Needless to say, the video should be on your site and ready for when your product goes live.

How do you make your demo video stand out?

• You can count on cute animated characters to capture the attention of your viewers.
• Keep it experiential, or make it look like a review.
• Try a live recording of your application in action.
• Make sure the overall look and feel of the video is sleek, modern and simply cool.

8. Create a Kickass Press Release to Boost your Mobile App Marketing Efforts

Press releases are needed to send pitches to journalists who may be interested in covering your application (aka free publicity). Because of that, working on an awesome PR kit is absolutely key to marketing an app.

When marketing your apps to reporters and publishers, you should always have a strong press kit containing promo screenshots and videos of your application, high-resolution logos and icons, a concise description of your product and its features, company profile, and your press release, among other things.

Having all this information streamlines communication with people who you want to write or talk about your application since you can simply send them a single file containing all the information they could possibly need to cover your product in detail.

Here are the best tips for how to create an amazing press kit before the app launch:

• Use tools like Cision to research a list of journalists likely to cover your product.
• Send your press release to journalists 2-3 weeks BEFORE the launch date.
• Include a review guide, preferably a PDF file that outlines your app idea, how it works, features, and anything important in between (keep it visual!).
• Incorporate high-quality screenshots of your application in action into the PR kit so you can make a great first impression and for readers to get a feel for it.
• Follow and interact with relevant journalists and tech bloggers on social media to get the conversation rolling.
• The subject line of the press release should spell out in black-and-white the value of your product.
• Get straight to the facts, and avoid blowing your own trumpet.

9. Post on Q&A and Social Platforms

Social media platforms can do wonders for any app marketing strategy because you’re taking your campaigns to where your target users spend an average of 134 minutes every day.

So, it pays to post frequent blogs, videos, articles, case studies, white papers, links, and press releases on social media platforms, most notably Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Posting on Q&A platforms can also do the trick. On Quora, for instance, find threads that your application can be relevant to. However, don’t spam, but rather post informative and relevant comments for those online users seeking answers to a specific problem that your product can help solve.

When it comes to Reddit, it’s very important to find the right communities so you can engage and build rapport with your target audience. The same goes for Pinterest.

Last but not least, don’t forget that Slideshare can do wonders for app promotion and brand awareness. Make sure to create a short 5-6 slide presentation and share it with the world on Slideshare.

If your app site is already up and running, make sure to link all your posts to it to drive traffic, build buzz for your mobile product, and eventually boost downloads.

10. Join Linkedin and Facebook Groups Relevant to Your App

Creating credibility and awareness for your upcoming product online can be daunting, but important part of the app promotion. That’s where LinkedIn and Facebook groups come into play. Join a number of these groups and communities that are relevant to your application.

Stay off by posting relevant content that’ll resonate well with group members. Here, think about tips, tutorials, industry insights, expert opinion, and other stuff that will help you build authority on the group. Also, post about your yet-to-be-launched product every so often to help build buzz before its actual launch.

The idea here is to become a valuable member of these groups BEFORE you launch your app. So then you don’t come off as spammy when you launch your product and post about it. And given that tens of thousands of apps are released every day, you don’t want yours to fall through the cracks.

Here are a few clever ways to leverage the power of Facebook and LinkedIn groups:

• Discuss or contribute to hot, current events and topics in the industry. This way, you’ll establish yourself as an authority in your niche. Ultimately, the community will also attach the same respect and authority to your application once it goes live.
• Provide value for members.
• Communicate with influencers, industry leaders, and brand advocates directly on the groups.
• Keep your conversations brief, lively, and to the point.

11. Create Social Media Profiles

When deciding on how to market an app, consider that social media is the easiest and the most convenient way to get found online. And, consequently, one of the most valuable mobile app marketing strategies you can deploy for your digital product.

Unlike SEO, the springboard is already set for you: the platform itself. So, don’t slack off – be very active on your social media profiles. But, more importantly, create profiles across popular social media sites, including a Facebook page, Twitter handle, Instagram account, and YouTube channel.

Once the profiles are set up, make sure to invite everyone you know (including micro influencers) to like them. It’s worth noting that these social profiles should be live and buzzing with activity at least one month before the release date. This will give you plenty of time to build a community, generate pizzazz, and get people talking about your product before it hits the mobile app market.

• Plan ahead, especially when it comes to the content topic, type and style – what posts does your target audience want to read?
• Leverage user-generated content to make your fans part of your mobile app promotion.
• Offer incentives to users who share your posts, visit your website, etc.

12. Make it Easy for People to Share And/or Refer Your App

Numbers don’t lie: 59% of app downloads come from people searching for the app by name, meaning they learned about it via word of mouth referral. Word-of-mouth marketing has always proven to work like a charm. After all, 92 percent of people say they trust recommendations from their friends and family. As such, a referral program should be a consideration when deciding on how to market an app.

But how can you incentivize users to invite their friends to download your application? First and foremost, make it super easy for them to share. Oftentimes that means making the sharing functionality embedded right in your product. Also, integrate with services that allow you to send the app over text messages: social platforms like Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, Hangouts, etc.

Another great way to gain referrals is to ask for reviews from current users.

• Use clear Call-To-Actions (CTAs) in your posts, app landing pages, and social media profiles.
• Give value-based incentives.
• Make sure your application is easy to use.
• Use personalized links in your email & social referral campaigns.

If you actually build your product with user referral techniques in mind, you are bound to set your mobile app marketing initiatives for success early on.

13. App Store Optimization

App Store Optimization (ASO) is the foundational brick for your mobile app marketing strategy. Start off your ASO with a short, but comprehensive app description. Optimizing for the right keywords is also important. Selecting the right category to file your product under, and doing a little keyword research to ensure that it gets discovered through search might seem like something trivial but nonetheless fundamental part of “how to market your app”.

• Understand your target user: the success of your ASO strategy hinges on having a deeper understanding of your typical customer. How would they describe your application?
• Maximize your keywords: When it comes to Apple’s App Store, make sure to use all of the allotted 100 characters to maximize the use of keywords. For Google Play, you can use keywords liberally, given that the character limit is set to 4000. Don’t forget to use the right keywords in the title because it can boost rankings by over 10 percent.
• Include Videos and Screenshots: The screenshots in the App Store/ Google Play are one of the most important mobile app promotion tools you have. Make sure the images are stunning, self-explanatory and with catchy captions.
• Make sure your app listing is localized as appropriate.

14. Don’t Forget About Alternative Stores

Getting noticed in the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store can be a brutal challenge considering there are millions of other apps competing for the attention of Android and iOS users. While gaining prominence in the two dominant application stores should always be one of your main goals, you can also look for less competitive alternatives.

Alternative stores like GetJar, Appland, TutuApp, Amazon App Store, SlideMe, 1Mobile, Opera Mobile Store, or NexVa have much fewer monthly users than Google Play Store and the Apple Store, but that just makes it easier to become a big fish in a small pond.

15. Market With Swag

People love free stuff, that is one of the number one rules of both marketing for apps and life in general. Use that to your advantage to get people to advertise for you. Put your logo on high quality T-shirts, hats, mugs, stickers, magnets, and/or anything that people might want to wear or use.

Give this branded swag to your employees and to their friends and family. Pass the swag out at events in your city or during other events your company will be attending. Consider just passing them out in busy areas of a city.

(II) AFTER You Launch Your App

So you’ve gotten so far. The launch day that you’ve been waiting for so long has come. Naturally, the first priority is to make sure your product is released without any issues or bugs. Once you’ve tested and launched it, you need to focus on your mobile application marketing efforts. Of course, if you’ve acted on the recommendations we talked about earlier in this guide and invested time and effort to properly prepare for the launch, now you’re in an amazing shape and position scale up quickly. Now, let's shift our marketing strategy for apps to the post release phase and see what we work on now!

16. Celebrate Your Launch

Turn your launch into an app promotion strategy to generate hype for your app by throwing a launch party. You can offer drinks, food, music, and even some of that swag you made to those who come to your celebration. Use it as an opportunity for influencers to interact with your company and employees. Marketing a new app with a launch party is a great way to get coverage from media and social media alike.

17. Get Busy with your App-Install Campaigns

Now that your product is live, it’s time to find a fix for the empty room problem (no one has downloaded your application) with app-install campaigns. At this juncture, you might want to break out your big mobile app marketing guns, so to speak.

Spend on Facebook/ Twitter/ Adwords to get your first users. In the beginning, your app promotion should focus on getting at least a few hundred users, which are the easiest to get via paid social media campaigns. After that, you can expect some organic growth. Also, if you get a lot of downloads within a week of launching your product, it has a chance to get featured, which will get you a lot more installs. We wouldn’t recommend making getting featured a cornerstone of your mobile app marketing plan but look at it rather as a possible, and desirable, “bonus side effect” of your app promotion activities.

Tracking: Determine which ad channels drive the most installs. This way, you can focus your app promotion efforts and advertising dollars on them. Nonetheless, don’t forget about the little networks that have bigger potential for increasing your installs.

Organic growth: Before you spend a lot of money on ads to boost downloads, you might want to consider, observe and calculate the potential of organic growth first.

Use Creatives: Mobile app promotion should include the use of static and animated graphics, infographics, and videos. We usually start our user acquisition campaigns with 20-30 different creatives to test their effectiveness. In 72 hours we evaluate which images perform best and optimize the campaign accordingly.

18. Reach Out to Blog Owners That Rank High in Google

If you own a website or an online store, then you probably have a love-hate relationship with Google. But search remains hands down the best way to get heard and found online. That’s why you need to work with people who’ve been there and done that.

Marketing an app should involve reaching out to blog owners that rank high in SERPs (search engine result pages), preferably one of the top three on the 1st page. Pitch them sending your PR kit.

Tactically, just look up “app reviews in X”, where X is your industry. Then write a personal email to everyone you see in top 10 search results introducing your application and giving them reasons on why they should check out your product.

19. Get App Reviews

Quantity and tone of reviews can make or break your app marketing campaign. In fact, having fewer user reviews can do more harm than not-so-sterling feedback. Generally, you can get app reviews in the following ways:

1. Create pop-up messages encouraging people to review the application. Most people do not like these pop-ups but they’re effective, 15% of people seeing them end up giving you a review.

2. A mobile app marketing plan should include activities tasked to persuade users to review the app (emails, personal outreach, etc).

Of course, there are a ton of other things you can do to get more and better app reviews in no time:

• Ask users plainly and explicitly to review within the application. This is where a handy review plugin can be especially useful.
• Get a handle on your customer support. If you help and answer user queries in a breeze, they’ll definitely leave a good feedback.
• Give users an incentive to review your application. If you have a game, for instance; provide players with additional points or rewards for reviewing.
• Organize contests across several different forums, channels, and social platforms to encourage your fans to leave reviews.
• Rectify issues that most users are complaining about (and tell them about it in the comments section of your app listing). This will provide a platform where you can interact and eventually motivate the user to leave a positive feedback.
• Take advantage of updates, and release notes to boost reviews.

20. Submit Your Mobile App to Review Sites

Whereas # 16 is about organic reviews from people who use your product, marketing an app should also involve soliciting reviews from websites that review apps professionally. While there are myriads of review websites, the following 8 are considered to be the creme de la creme:

TechCrunch – This site is a darling for techies, and listing your product on this site can do wonders for installs. It’s an ideal site for standout brands and apps.

ProductHunt – If your application ends up being reviewed on ProductHunt, you’ll put it in front of millions of tech enthusiasts across the globe. Just make sure to go over their best practices before submitting it for review.

Mashable – Here’s another amazing site that can build buzz for your product. With a huge audience, Mashable provides you with a great platform to showcase what value your application can offer its users.

AppAdvice – If you’ve built an iOS application, AppAdvice is a great place to get it reviewed professionally.

FeedMyApp – Your app gets reviewed and tagged. This platform caters to all app genres and OSs.

AppStorm – This review platform covers the entire OS gamut, including the not-so-popular Windows.

148Apps – Please note that 148Apps does only iPad and iPhone app reviews.

PreApps – at PreApps, you can get just about any kind of app reviewed, from productivity to games and every application in between.

21. Apply for Awards

How can users trust your application enough to download it? Turns out, the best way is to get recognition. The good news is that there are lots of sites that accept applications for design/ feature awards. Marketing an app can be made easier by applying for the following awards to build reputation, credibility, and trust for your product:

Appy Awards – Organized by MediaPost, Appy Awards is an annual event that recognizes the best of the best apps for the year. Given that MediaPost has many publicity channels, you can easily get your application in front of millions of potential users.

Best App Ever Awards – This Award honors the best mobile games and apps in two categories: Best Android Apps and Best iOS Apps. It has proven quite effective for applications like Minecraft. Even better, this is an award organized by 148Apps.

Apple Design Awards – If you build iOS apps, you might want to enlist for Apple Design Awards. If nominated, your product will be light ahead of other applications in your niche. Make sure that the creativity of your app is up to Apple’s scratch.

Appsters Awards – The app review site also recognizes over 5000 app developers across many categories. So, if you think you did a bang-up job with your application, Appster Awards is for you.

The Webby Awards – Webby Awards is all about honoring the best of developers doing great things in the internet age. If you believe you’re a Webby material, your product will get a new lease on life.

Best Mobile App Awards – This award finds and recognizes people that make apps great. It’s sponsored and starred by big brands like NBC, Yahoo!, CNET, and ABC.

The bigger question is: why to apply for app awards? It’s simple. When you get awarded, you’ll build awareness & credibility for your application, and you’ll ultimately see an increase in the number of installs. Awareness is king for app promotion purposes.

First, it’s free publicity – and who doesn’t like that?

Second, if you get any awards, go back to your app description and website and update both accordingly. Street Cred and public recognition are very powerful strategies to go viral!

22. Sponsor a Contest

Mobile app promotion, depending on a type of an app and its intended target audience, can be augmented by a sponsored contest.

Find websites that sell complementary products to your application, whether its t-shirts, caps, mugs, subscriptions, vouchers, gift cards, and so on. Offer awards for your contest, for example, high quality t-shirts. The participants will need to download your application and complete specific tasks in order to qualify. Your options when it comes to running a contest/raffle are simply unlimited. For example, we’ve run multiple campaigns for our clients with сustom apparel from ScreenPrintThis.

23. Spend Money on Mobile Ads

Global spending on mobile ads is growing rapidly. In 2020 over $240 billion were spent on mobile ads worldwide, and the figure is expected to keep increasing for many years to come. The reason why mobile ads are experiencing such a massive boom is simple: people now spend most of their digital time on mobile devices.

If you want to raise awareness of your mobile application, it makes sense to include mobile ads in your mobile app marketing strategy. There are many different mobile ad formats you can choose from, including mobile banners, video ads, and native app-based advertising. It’s always a good idea to experiment with several different types of mobile ads and do a lot of A/B testing to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

24. Post your app on Product Hunt / HackerNews

Product Hunt is one of the most influential platforms for new applications, software, and techs.

This online community is certainly one of the best sites to show off your product’s best features and appeal to tech enthusiasts. If your application is stellar enough, ProductHunt can be a great place to get noticed by potential investors, developers, and users alike. HackerNews is yet another incredible website that can take your app recognition to a whole new level.

Once your application is live, your app marketing plan should include reaching out to these sites to list your app. If you get lots of upvotes, it will be amazing for downloads. Of more importance is that websites like Product Hunt have strict product curation algorithms, which is why you need to read their best practices before you consider submitting your solution to them.

Once listed, go harass your influencers, online fans on social media and friends to upvote you on these platforms. That’s a free tactic on how to market an app which works every time!

25. Leverage Affiliate Marketing Programs

Whether you’re looking to increase app installs or boost revenue from your mobile app, affiliate marketing can be what the doctor prescribed.

Like influencer marketing, affiliate marketing makes use of external partners or collaborators to drive potential leads to action. In return, you will offer a commission to them for every install they encourage. It’s a win-win mobile app marketing strategy that has proven to be effective in the digital age.

You can offer rewards or free credit to affiliates when their referrals download your application. You can use a unique referral code to facilitate the whole process and ensure that your affiliates are satisfied with your reward system. Your mobile application marketing campaign might also want to take advantage of tools and networks like Apple App Store Affiliates. A marketing plan for mobile apps that uses affiliate marketing can find themselves in a great position for growth when teamed with the right partners.

26. Make Sure To Use Push Notifications to Engage With Users

Push notifications are a big part of mobile app promotion and are opened way more often than emails (almost 3x higher open rates). Make sure you leverage this tool as part of your mobile application marketing mix so you can engage with your users at length when the product is live.

• Generate new content frequently to keep users using the app for long. Consider creating a captivating video, audio, blog posts, white papers, and other exciting creative content to keep users engaged.
• Don’t go overboard with push notifications, otherwise, users will turn off the feature. If your application is heavily used, limit notifications to one or two per day. In other cases, your mobile app marketing strategy should call for push notifications twice a week.
• Segment your users and tailor your notifications to make sure that the right message reaches the right person.
• Point notifications to messages that are easy to find and read.

27. Check the App Analytics/ User Feedback to Improve Your Mobile App Over Time

An application is not a one and done deal. Once it is released on a mobile app market, keep it fresh, relevant, engaging and continuously evolving. Make sure you use feedback from users and improve the product over time. Successful mobile app marketing strategies make heavy use of analytics.

According to Kyros Insights, using analytics like a pro and acting on insights is one of the best ways to improve your app loyalty metrics. And of course, as soon as you fix issues, leverage the mobile app marketing techniques above to inform your current customers of the improvements you’ve made. Follow our guide about data-driven marketing and how to use it.

28. Keep the Hype Going

Launching a successful application is just the start of a long journey, and your challenge is to keep the hype flame lit. Besides the mobile app marketing strategies we’ve mentioned so far, there are several other effective ways to keep the momentum going and the downloads increasing.

For example, you can talk about the practical benefits of your application on your blog and create interesting infographics for readers to share on social media. You can also collaborate with other software developers, preferably those whose apps truly complement your own, and come up with various cross-promotion ideas. Marketing mobile apps is a process that will last the lifetime of your app, so keep finding new ways to make people excited.

29. Respond to All Reviews You Receive

A survey conducted by ReviewTrackers, revealed that 53 percent of consumers expect brands to respond to reviews. When you respond to reviews, you tell users that you care about their satisfaction with your application and are willing to make the changes necessary to increase it, instead of just relying on your mobile application marketing plan to drive conversions.

It’s especially important that you respond to negative reviews because they can drive away users in large numbers if not addressed properly. Responding to negative reviews is not a pleasant activity, but it’s well worth the effort. As long as you avoid being defensive and take full responsibility for the problem the reviewer is complaining about, you can save your reputation and avoid bad outcomes.

30. Tell Your Success Story

What a better way to celebrate a successful launch of a mobile application than by telling your story to the whole world, generating even more interest in the process.

Instead of simply providing an overview of your app’s features, focus on how it has changed the lives of its users. That way, you don’t have to limit yourself to tech blogs and app review sites and can engage even the audiences of lifestyle websites and news outlets.

Important Mobile App Marketing Metrics

To come up with the best mobile app marketing plan possible, you need to know how well your mobile app digital marketing strategy is performing. In other words, you need to keep an eye on important apps marketing metrics, including:

• Cost per install (CPI): Marketing your apps should be a cost-effective process. You want to keep your CPI as low as possible, and that’s possible only by experimenting with different marketing strategies for mobile apps and prioritizing those that deliver the best results.
• The average number of active users: You can measure the average number of active users over 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, or any other time period. Regardless of which time frame you choose, this metric always tells you how used your product is by the people who have installed it.
• Retention rate: If you gain 100,000 new users in a month but almost immediately lose 99,000 of them, you don’t really have a reason to celebrate, which is why you need to keep an eye on your retention rate, the percentage of customers you retain in a period.
• Churn rate: You can think of the churn rate as the opposite of the retention rate. In simple terms, it tells you how many users uninstall your application or unsubscribe from a premium plan.
• Average session length: This metric is somewhat difficult to interpret because it varies from product to product, but knowing how much time each of your users spends on your application can help you determine how engaging your product is.

With these five mobile application marketing metrics, we’ve barely scratched the surface of analyzing the success of your mobile product. Keep in mind, however, that apps marketing metrics are useful only if you can extract valuable information from them, which is why it’s often better to stick to a smaller number of essential metrics instead of spreading yourself thin.

KPIs To Use For Your Mobile App Marketing Plan

KPIs are a specific kind of metric that are the most important to achieving the goals of your mobile app acquisition strategies. These KPIs help you to make more informed decisions and know exactly which metrics are telling you the most important information for marketing a mobile app.

Some mobile marketing examples of KPIs include:

• New User Referral Rate: This KPI tells you the new users that are acquired through referrals from existing users.
• ARPU: Average Revenue per User, a KPI that shows how much your users are spending.
• LTV: The lifetime value of a user. This combines average revenue with other stats such as referrals and how long they remained a paying user.
• DAU/MAU: Daily or Monthly Active Users of your app. Shows how many users are active on your app over a given period of time.
• CAC: Cost of Acquiring Customers. The best way of knowing how to acquire users for your app in a cost effective way. See which channels are providing the best ROI.
• Free-to-paid conversions: For freemium style apps, this KPI shows how many users convert from free to paid services.

Summary

Pre-launch and post-launch mobile application marketing is no picnic given that you’re going up against cut-throat competition from millions of other worthy apps. Leverage the 30 handy tips on how to market your app to improve its visibility, increase downloads, and stay ahead of the competition.

Not sure how to market your app? Don’t have time or resources to do all this by yourself? No worries.

ComboApp is a mobile app marketing agency that has been helping app developers and companies successfully market their mobile apps since 2009.

Simply call us at 773.305.0886 or click on the Contact Us button in the header of this site. We look forward to helping you become the next unicorn!