The Complete Guide to Mobile App Marketing
Mobile application success hinges on effective marketing in today's cutthroat app market. With millions of apps available for iOS and Android users, your app must stand out to attract attention. This comprehensive App Marketing Guide showcases strategies and techniques to promote and market your app successfully.
The numbers are staggering – 1.6 million apps are available for iOS users alone, and almost 3.5 million for Android phone users. It's hard for developers to get noticed in that massive crowd. That's where a deep understanding of the mobile app marketing funnel comes in handy: awareness stage, acquisition stage, retention stage – let's break it down so you know how to master each one as part of your overall strategy.
Understanding the App Market
To stay competitive in the app space, it's essential to study the industry dynamics and trends. A mobile app marketing funnel has three key stages: awareness, acquisition, and retention.
In the awareness stage, developers must have clear brand messaging and positioning that will make potential users take notice. This is where a successful campaign can help put an app on the map.
Take meditation apps as an example. These aim to help users achieve calm or relaxation in their lives. At this early stage of an app's journey, it might mean communicating how beneficial meditation can be for stress reduction or mental well-being. So people looking for such benefits know they might find them if they download your product.
Understanding who your audience is means conducting market research. Ideally, you do this at the outset before building your product. That way, you get insights into user preferences, what hurts about existing products (pain points), competitor analysis, and enough other factors that let you build multiple ‘user personas.
Let's consider fitness tracking apps again as a sample sector here. Through research, a developer may learn that its target customers are health-conscious and want to monitor their daily physical activity and progress.
Therefore, anything from this company should speak directly to fitness enthusiasts wanting these exact features and benefits – because now we're talking about joggers or gym-goers who care deeply about reaching goals.
This could be one reason why Fitbit devices became popular among serious athletes looking for advanced performance metrics along with everything else.
But back then, when most people had never even heard of wearables – let alone trackers small enough not to bug wearers during movement – Fitbit needed specific customers on board first.
So its earliest campaigns were built around yearning for 10k steps per day (the NHS' recommendation) rather than VO2 max improvement through heart rate zones nobody had ever heard of – as we'll explain further.
Building Awareness
Mastering app marketing requires developers to build awareness – the foundation for user acquisition and retention. Creating a website or landing page gives apps an online presence that drives extra visits to the store and provides potential users with more information.
Using social media platforms such as X, Facebook, and Instagram – which offer massive reach opportunities – combined with influencers can also help build awareness.
Suppose you want your food delivery app to connect people with local restaurants. In that case, one option is to create a website that showcases its features, benefits and testimonials from satisfied customers in a visually appealing way.
Using Instagram and Facebook could allow you to post images of delicious food –or ‘food porn' – run contests or provide exclusive discounts for those who've clicked through the site. If you want even more reach, you might also consider partnering with food bloggers or influencers on major social media sites with large followings.
App Store Optimisation (ASO)
If you want your app to succeed, optimising its presence in the app store is vital. That's where App Store Optimisation (ASO) comes into play. ASO means optimising different elements of your app's listing to make it more visible and discoverable.
Critical components of ASO include keywords, the title and icons of your app, screenshots, and videos.
Keywords are key
Getting keywords right will help with discoverability. By researching what people search for – and what terms your potential customers would use when searching – you can optimise the title and description of your app accordingly. This way, when people search for a type of app that yours matches, it will appear in their results.
For example, if you have a language learning app, some research might reveal that people often search for “language learning”, “learn a new language”, or “language proficiency”. Incorporate these phrases carefully into the title and description of your app – without overdoing it – so that when someone searches using those words, they're more likely to find you.
User Acquisition
User acquisition, attracting new users to download and engage with an app, is one of the most important aspects of app marketing. Combining paid ads and ASO techniques can increase user acquisition and drive app downloads. App reviews and ratings as social proof can also encourage potential users to download the app.
Paid advertising is a popular way to drive new users and increase visibility to reach more potential users. Advertisements on platforms such as Google Ads or Facebook Ads/ Instagram Ads are used by developers to get their apps noticed by millions of people in each given platform. By creating appealing ad copy that uses eye-catching pictures, developers can attract the attention of potential customers who will go ahead with downloading their creations.
For instance, imagine that there's a ride-sharing app looking for more people willing to use it; this example would look at how you could target new users through paid ads on social networks like Facebook or Instagram (and particularly relevant if you've got some cool features within your ride-sharing service).
By tailoring your ad creative around real-time tracking, secure payments, etc., you'll be able to find people who want quick, convenient transportation options.
Positive feedback from existing users (via high ratings) makes a big difference when it comes time for someone else on the fence about whether or not they should download your mobile product.
App reviews make all the difference during user acquisition: positive reviews/ratings = social proof = other people have downloaded this thing, so why shouldn't I? Encouraging happy customers to leave reviews thus becomes very significant here – these create credibility and help make sure you keep getting more downloads.
It's possible too – even encouraged – to use review platforms/mechanisms designed specifically to encourage satisfied customers to talk about their excellent experiences using your product.
Imagine something like: “Hey! Wanna tell us what you thought?” said via an in-app prompt/push notification once someone's finished a tasty meal, for instance.
And if you want to get more of an idea of how that works precisely in the context of mobile apps, check out our guide on how to get app reviews.
For example, there is a restaurant discovery app; after someone has visited and eaten at a restaurant thanks to your product, you can encourage them to leave reviews and ratings via in-app prompts or push notifications – incentivising with something like exclusive discounts or rewards. (For more info on this topic, read: what are some tips for asking users to review your app?)
Positive feedback and high ratings attract new users and play into higher rankings/visibility within the respective App Store/s.
User Retention
Regarding app marketing, user retention is as necessary as acquiring new ones. To keep an app growing and thriving, you must retain and engage its users for the long haul. There are several strategies you can deploy that will help increase your user-retention rates and drive more usage of your app.
One effective way to tap into the power of word-of-mouth marketing is by implementing referral marketing programs that incentivise existing users to refer new ones. One method is by offering rewards or discounts in exchange for successful referrals. This does two things: it acquires new users and strengthens an app's community.
For example, let's say you have a productivity app that offers task management features and document sharing among team members. You could implement a referral program where current users are rewarded with extra features or discounts if they persuade their friends or colleagues to download your app. By offering incentives for referrals, you'll be using word-of-mouth marketing effectively while at the same time turning valuable customers into brand evangelists — all of which should result in lots more downloads and even greater user engagement.
Push notifications and marketing automation can be another effective strategy for engaging with, retaining and reactivating users through timely and personalised communication.
With push notifications, developers can send targeted messages straight to phones/tablets/wearables such as reminders, updates and exclusive offers – these might tempt people back who haven't recently used the products/services.
Marketing automation allows developers to create personalised customer journeys based on behaviour or preferences (i.e. someone who did X get Y).
So imagine a fitness-tracking app where people want help tracking workouts/tips – like personalised training plans, etc.
Pushing out reminders about daily exercise, tips on how others stay motivated, etc., may keep someone engaged… but even better would be automating this process because it creates customised customer journeys based on personal goals or preferences… so content is tailored and more likely to keep someone coming back.
Overall, push and marketing automation can help improve user retention rates by providing relevant content at the right time – this could be a nudge to come back if they haven't used your product/service recently or by sending personalised offers based on previous behaviour.
To retain users, you must provide a good user experience. Use effective onboarding and deep linking techniques to help them understand and appreciate all your app offers.
Onboarding helps new users get familiar with the features and functionality of your app so they can start using it immediately. You can guide them through its core features, such as interactive tutorials or guided tours.
Deep linking allows users to navigate within your app seamlessly – think of it as web links for apps. This improves user engagement and retention because people can move quickly from one part of your app to another without losing their flow.
For example…
Imagine you're working on a music streaming app. Onboarding could introduce new users to personalised playlists or curated recommendations – two features that make it stand out from other music apps.
Consider adding interactive tutorials or guided tours to help people understand where they are in the journey at any time – and what else to do.
With deep linking, you might send an email that takes existing customers into a playlist tied to a relevant moment (for example, ‘workout').
App Advertising and Promotion
To achieve wider recognition and increase the number of people downloading an app, it is vital to advertise and promote it as widely as possible. By carefully planning and executing advertising campaigns, you can generate awareness about the app, drawing users in.
There are numerous ad formats to choose from when promoting your app: in-app ads, social media ads, search ads, display ads, native ads — all with their benefits. Using them effectively will help ensure that your marketing reaches its target audience.
In-app advertising involves placing promotions within other popular apps with your user base. This way, you can reach out to users already engaged with similar apps – a good sign that they may be interested in yours, too.
Social media platforms offer highly effective targeting capabilities for advertising. With Facebook or X Ads, developers can get their ads under the noses of those who want what they're offering by using interests, demographics or behaviour data.
For example, the developer could use in-app advertising to attract casual gamers to a new gaming app. One option would be to place an ad within a popular gaming app with a large user base. By doing so, she could catch gamers' attention at the point that they're looking for something new enough to download right now.
Another technique would involve running targeted ad campaigns on social media platforms such as Facebook or X – getting her message seen by users interested in gaming or related subjects (such as e-sports).
There are other effective ways that app developers can try. For example, search advertising, display advertising and native advertising. Search ads appear in search engine results, reaching users looking for apps or keywords. Display ads are visual ads on websites or within apps. They give a broad reach and brand visibility. Native ads blend with the content around them.
Suppose it's a weather app that provides real-time forecasts and personalised weather updates:
Search ads could help you reach people searching for ‘current weather' or ‘weather forecast'. You're targeting people actively seeking weather information – so you're more likely to be interested in downloading your app.
Display ads allow you to show your ad on popular weather websites or other apps with weather-related content.
Native ads could work well if you place them within news articles or blog posts discussing topics such as the latest heatwave or flooding risk in an area – it's less disruptive than banner advertising.
Video is compelling when it comes to mobile app marketing. It tends to drive high levels of engagement (something like 69% of all mobile traffic is video) and capture attention faster, too.
A fitness app offering personalised workout plans and exercise tutorials:
Think about creating short videos demonstrating various exercises, providing fitness tips, showcasing success stories from users who've achieved their goals – whatever shows how great your app can be.
Then think about where those videos might get shared: YouTube seems apparent; social media platforms, perhaps? How about using them on landing pages?
To sum up, if someone's trying to figure out what makes your product different from others doing something similar, there's no better way than putting yourself in front of him/her/them via video content!
App Marketing Analytics and Tracking
Evaluating the effectiveness of app marketing and enhancing it for optimal results is fundamental. App analytics and tracking are crucial to achieving this goal. Analytics enable marketers to measure campaign performance, track user behaviour, and understand preferences.
App analytics deliver critical metrics such as downloads, conversion rates, and user engagement. These give developers insights into what they need to do better regarding their marketing strategy. Metrics like average time spent on an app or conversion rate from browsing a product to buying can help identify how best to improve the user experience—and retain more users.
Take a shopping app with a wide range of products and a quick checkout process as an example: using app data could reveal which products people most frequently browse, the average time spent in the app, or the conversion rate from browser to buyer. Insights like these could be used by developers keen on optimising their UI or streamlining the process—increasing retention accordingly.
App developers may also want to think about A/B testing—a technique that helps optimise marketing efforts through experimentation—that they can apply here, too. This involves trying different approaches—for example, varying ad copy—and then learning from those experiments by looking at what yielded higher conversion rates.
So imagine your travel booking-orientated app allows customers to book flights and hotels—you might create multiple variations of your Google Play Store listing (for Android) or Apple App Store listing (iOS); then experiment with different combinations of visuals, descriptions or call-to-action buttons—all while gathering performance stats so you know what's working best.
App Monetisation Strategies
When marketing an app, finding a way to monetise it is critical. There are many different ways in which developers can generate revenue from their apps, including paid downloads, in-app purchases and advertising.
Paid downloads are precisely what they sound like – charging users a one-off fee to download your app. This model suits those apps with unique features or that target niches well. You can drive some direct revenue through downloading if you correctly set your price point to align with your app's value proposition.
In-app purchases enable developers to offer extra features, content or virtual goods within their app. These work particularly well for games where players need virtual currency or wish to unlock various levels for a small fee. If you can offer compelling enough reasons for people to make new in-app purchases, here's another way to generate more money from them.
For example, consider a gaming app where there is both a free version (which has limited features) and a premium version (complete with extra levels and exclusive content)—offering the free version initially and then tempting players into making various in-app purchases after that represents yet another opportunity for generating additional revenue while also offering up something that doesn't impact negatively on user experience.
Advertising remains one of the most popular models for monetising mobile apps. The idea behind this form of strategy? Developers show ads within their apps and get paid either per impression or click-through – dependent on how large an audience they have managed to build up over time – as a result.
It works well if you've got many people using your app already; alternatively, if you're giving access away without charge but still want to make some money.
So imagine being at home and firing up your favourite news-related app; within minutes, adverts are served all around the latest headlines and articles due to that app's developer partnering with ad networks or direct advertisers. The aim? To show targeted ads the outcome is another way to generate revenue while still delivering something people want.
Getting the most money from your app involves understanding what your target audience wants and what they are happy to pay for and then finding ways to implement techniques that offer value back without giving everything away entirely, all at once.
Conclusion
Succeeding in the fiercely competitive app market requires developers and marketers to master app marketing. This comprehensive App Marketing Guide covers all the tactics and techniques needed to raise an app's visibility, boost user acquisition and retention, and maximise revenue.
Staying ahead of rivals in the fast-moving world of apps means constantly tweaking your marketing efforts. Armed with knowledge about your target audience, effective marketing strategies – such as building brand awareness, utilising app store optimisation (ASO), acquiring users through advertising or promotion, retaining them through a great experience or retargeting, tracking engagement via analytics and monetising via various models – you can successfully promote any mobile product amidst millions of others.
The battle for exposure only gets more complicated as more developers flood into the saturated marketplace. Standing out demands foresight on trends and consistent effort: continuously optimising your strategy based on regular monitoring and analysis.
So take this guide's advice on what works now; brace yourself for some trial-and-error; never stop exploring new ideas from other players; test different approaches, then double down when you find something that hits home with users – because it is only by implementing tactics effectively that you will reap results.
