Learn how to – Digital Marketing Tips for App Development

Learn how to – Digital Marketing Tips for App Development.

A lot of time and hard work goes into app development. It begins with the initial concept, and it doesn’t ever truly end as there are updates and maintenance tasks that need to be performed regularly to ensure the app continues to deliver a great User Experience. The last thing you want to do is squander all of the time and resources invested in app development.  

However, if you are not thinking about marketing your app, you miss out on acquiring new users and strengthening your brand image. There are several different reasons why you might have built your mobile app, but regardless of your motivations, people need to use your application for it to accomplish your goals. 

Let’s look at some digital marketing tips that can help your business when building and promoting your mobile app. 

Understand Your Target Users

Who is going to benefit the most from your mobile app? This is an important question, and if you want your app to be successful, you need to answer it. If your business cannot clearly define what users will most benefit from the use of your app, how can you expect users to find and use it? 

The most effective way to understand and define your target audience is to do research. Audience research will help you determine the demographics of your target users. Your business should know several key things about your target audience, including:

• Average age
• Lifestyle
• Spending habits
• Recreational activities

Understanding these important facets of your audience will help you market and sell your app to them. A common mistake that many organizations make is trying to please everyone. It is okay if your target audience is mainly college students, for example. Over time, it is possible to expand and broaden your audience, but if your research tells you that your target audience is mostly one demographic, lean into that information and market to them. 

Research Your Competition 

Successful marketing and app development requires your organization to focus on more than just your target audience. Your organization also needs to be researching your competition. This is even more important in niche industries like alternative dispute resolution, where the target audience is very specific. Remember, you need to focus on more than just what worked for your competition. 

Sometimes, failures teach us more about how to get success than triumphs. Therefore, your competitor research strategy must include an analysis of what went wrong for your competition as well as what went right. 

Understanding what your competition has been doing in the market gives your organization the ability to avoid common mistakes and stay original. The last thing you want consumers to think is that your app is a tired copy of something else. Plus, your competitor research will guide you on what marketing strategies worked and which ones didn’t. 

Focus on Shareability 

When developing a mobile app, you need to ensure that your users can easily share it with their friends and family. Word of mouth, or social selling, is one of the most valuable ways to acquire users. When thinking about shareability, there are two things to keep in mind. 

First, your app should be integrated with iMessage, Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, etc., so that users can easily share your app. Think about Spotify and how easy it is to share songs, playlists, and albums via message. This shareability helps apps acquire new users and keep users interacting with your app even while they are using a messaging app. 

The other facet of shareability that is important to cover is referrals. Creating a referral reward program is a great way to incentivize your existing users to share your app with their friends and family. Many apps offer bonuses to users who successfully refer new users. The specifics of these programs vary based on each brand’s product and service offerings, but they are highly effective. 

An example of this type of program in use is Robinhood. Users who refer new users to the Robinhood platform get a free stock in their portfolio. You can structure a referral reward in any way you want to entice users to help you social sell to their friends and family. 

Ask Users for Ratings 

The overall user rating of your app affects its visibility on app stores. Unfortunately, most people won’t go out of their way to leave a review unless they have had an extremely negative experience. However, too many of these reviews will hurt your app store ranking and damage your reputation in the eyes of potential users. 

A great way to encourage user reviews is to build a small pop-up in-app that asks users if they like your app. It is very simple to click on a rating out of five stars, and many users will respond to this type of prompt. You can also link the ability to write a review as well so that users don’t have to go out of their way to leave one. However, don’t be too intrusive with your pop-up window. If a user ignores it or decides not to leave a review, do not bombard them with requests, which will create a negative User Experience. 

Final Thoughts 

These are just a few of the ways you can improve your marketing strategies before, during, and post app development. The long-term success of your mobile app will depend largely on how well you can market it to your target audience. It is best to bring marketing into the fold at the very beginning of the app development process to ensure the highest level of success.