This Year’s App Marketing Strategies to Upscale Your Business

Do you have a mobile app?

If you don’t, now is the time to build one. 

Unlike a website, a mobile app always stays on users’ screens, so they will be more likely to revisit you. 

In today’s article, we’ll be sharing 10 app marketing strategies that you should keep an eye out for in 2020. However, before we dive in, let’s take a look at the latest mobile app statistics…

Mobile App Statistics

You may be wondering why having a mobile app is so important. Here are some statistics that might convince you: 

• There are 2.7 billion smartphone users in the world and 1.35 billion tablet users
• The average American checks their phone every 12 minutes
• 90% of time spent on mobile devices are spent using apps
• 80% of internet users own smartphones

10 Mobile App Marketing Strategies For 2020 Success

1. Optimize Your App’s Description & Landing Page For The App Store

You might have a great app, but that won’t help you if people can not find it.

It is important to optimize your app’s description and landing page for “app store SEO.” This starts with having a great app title. Think about keywords that people are typing in to find apps like yours and use them in your title and description. 

In your description, clearly lay out the benefits your app provides and its main features. While you don’t want to be extra long, you don’t want to be too brief either. 

Choose a great logo or image for your app’s avatar. You can also add screenshots and videos of your app a great way to do this is with an iPhone mockup. Choose them carefully and make sure they display the best features of your app. 

2. Encourage Reviews

Encourage users to leave reviews of your app. This is also an important part of the app store SEO. Without reviews (good reviews, in particular), your app is less likely to show up at the top of the search results. 

You can remind your users to leave reviews through in-app notifications and popups. If you have used any mobile apps yourself, you have probably seen them – the popups that ask “Enjoying Our App?” while also giving you the option to be reminded later. 

3. Create Promotional Videos 

Videos are powerful and that’s why video marketing is one of the most popular means of marketing today. In fact, marketers who use videos grow their revenue 49 percent faster than those who do not. 

As mentioned, you can create a video to demonstrate your app’s main features to be displayed on your app’s landing page. 

However, create videos for other social media channels as well including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and especially Youtube. You can even create a series of videos on YouTube that explore different ways to use your app. 

4. Take Advantage Of Influencer Marketing

Did you know that influencer marketing yields 11x more ROI than banner advertising? 

Since much of influencer marketing takes place on mobile devices, it easily goes hand-in-hand with promoting your app. 

For example, you can get YouTubers, Instagram celebrities (or even just Instagram meme accounts), Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and more to promote your app.

Many people use apps such as Instagram exclusively on their mobile devices. You can also work with bloggers to promote your app. They can write app reviews and include a link to the app store page. 

5. Advertise Everywhere

Try to increase brand recognition by advertising everywhere. Start with cross-promoting your app on your own social channels. However, be careful not to copy and paste the same content to all of your channels. Different platforms have different audiences, so try to customize your content for each channel.

6. Consider Starting Paid Ad Campaigns 

Although you can promote your app on your own social channels, you can increase your reach significantly by running paid ads. There are many types of paid ads that you can run: 

• Social media: You can run paid Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube ads.
• Video: Running advertisements on Youtube has been an effective strategy for many app owners. 
• Search engine: You can promote your app on Google Adwords or Bing Ads. Of course, you will only be targeting people searching on mobile devices. 
• Banners: Again, with banner ads, you should focus on having your ads shown only on mobile devices. Another strategy would be to focus on in-app banners; in other words, banner ads displayed on similar apps. 

7. Don’t Neglect Email Marketing

According to an eMarketer study, the average email marketing ROI is 122 percent. This is four times higher than any other digital marketing channel. 

Building an email list allows you to promote a product or service to people who you build a relationship with over time. Most people don’t take action, especially if it involves paying for something, the first time they are exposed to its possibility. 

By exposing people to offer many times over a longer period, especially if you focus primarily on providing value and building trust, you can get more conversions. Email marketing can be even more useful if you manage to build a pre-launch email list.

This can help you get your app on its feet, so to speak; you can get a lot of users and reviews in a short period of time if you build up suspense correctly. 

8. Get Feedback And Create A Beta Version

It’s important to allow your app users to submit feedback. You can create a separate tab or button for this. This way, if the app has bugs or isn’t working properly, you will know about it right away.

You can’t always test everything yourself, for example, the app can act differently on different operating systems (and OS versions). 

Another great idea is to create a beta version of your mobile app. This is especially important before you launch your app to the public. By creating a test version that is only available to select users, you can try out different features before your app goes live. 

However, even after your app goes live, you can have a separate app version, which you use to test out new features. This can be available to only selected people or only to those who want to be the first ones to get access to new updates. 

A beta version allows you to test out new features and get feedback from real users without possibly ruining your main app version. 

9. Offer In-App Purchases

There are many ways to make money with apps, including displaying banner ads on the top, bottom, or sides. However, offering in-app purchases is one of the best ways to earn money. 

Whether you are selling premium features for a few dollars each or offering a monthly subscription to a premium app version, in-app purchases can be one of the leading sources of revenue for app owners. 

10. Use Text Messaging To Drive More Downloads

You can use SMS marketing to get more app downloads. This is especially useful if you are advertising on desktop devices. 

On your landing page, you can have a “Send to Phone” field. When users enter their phone number, they can be sent an automatic SMS with a link that brings them to the app page on the app store. 

Wrapping It Up

As more and more people start using smartphones, having an app becomes even more important. Although competition can be fierce, the above 10 tips can help you get more downloads and boost your app revenue. 

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This article was contributed by Karina Ramos.