Promote Your App: 13 Creative Ways to Reach Out to the Users Easily

These are free offerings to promote your app

There are huge sharks in the market that every new mobile app developer or publisher has to compete with when launching a baby app. And believe me, it is not at all a cakewalk even for experienced entrepreneurs to stand first among the equals.

Being said that, it’s not the case that you can’t get the recognition that your potential app deserves. The tactic is to promote your mobile app in a way that it should reach out to the audiences in no time and with some offerings they can’t even ignore.

Promoting an app among audiences also states that:

• You are easily discoverable to audiences on prominent app stores

• The app downloads increase simultaneously, and

• The app referrals increase in sync

Does that seem tough? If it is yes, I have got the elixir for you. Follow it while remaining a prominent service provider in the market. Let’s get into the details.

App Store Optimization

It’s the king in the world of SEO or rather ASO can be termed as the SEO of the ecosystem we call the mobile app world. The more you can optimize your app store listing page, the more prominently your app will rank in different stores. Easy discoverability makes it easier for users to discover an app. Let’s find out more about it.

It is important to know what steps you should take to create a perfect pre-app launch strategy and what are the key caveats you need to be careful about app store optimization. No matter how phenomenal you have developed your product until you have applied the right strategy you can’t ask for the desired results. Here are other steps to follow.

1. Optimize App Store Title

Your App Store title appears at the app store listing and it is the first point of interaction for users to interact with the product. This makes it important to appear impressively for users and the ideas to follow here are:

• Be simple when creating the title

• Take an idea(name) that show resembles with your mobile app

• Reflect the brand image clearly

• If possible, focus on the keywords

If the name has been used earlier somewhere, it is not unique. You may lose the leading position while competing against already established names in the industry. And users may ignore your offering on the grounds of an immature offering that you have featured against the mature ones. So, research well before you titles your product.  

Some additional suggestions:

• Keep your title under 50 characters

• Apple recommends to keep it under 23 characters

2. Invest Your Time in Burst Marketing

How would it sound you to get exponential downloads for mobile apps? It seems soothing to ears. Right? And the way to get the desired result is to invest some efforts in the burst marketing campaign.

Such a marketing tactic is acted upon in a very short time period and gets you the desired downloads within a week or two. And all that it asks is to spend a considerable amount of money on your marketing campaign.

The burst campaign effect can get you the following results:

• Improved search result for your product

• Decreased CPIs (cost per install)

• Organic downloads increase

• Your user base growth gets massive

3. Reach Out to Your Customers

Marketing is one prominent aspect to promote your app successfully and it requires you to reach out to users along with all the offerings (functionality) it has for them. As the rule of thumb in the marketing domain, the promotion of the applications starts long before it even arrives at the market.

Mark that point as the most important of all. Reaching out to the customers is more important than having a daily discussion with the developers when you are brainstorming with them to create the perfect mobile applications for your users. Reaching to your users is important so that you can talk and include their feedback in the app development procedure.

You are building a product that is going to be an exclusive offering for users, why not create it in such a way that you can promote your app with it.

4. Talk To Influencers About Your Product

App marketing merely to the audience is going to do nothing except for you rather you will have to reach out to the influencers. Their potential connection is all that you would require for the word of mouth promotion of your application.

Do try developing authentic mutual connections with influencers who have got the right skills to promote your app to potential users. These influencers are sure to help you out with the product promotion.

Influencers as individuals harness the power to influence your product’s buying and selling along with bringing the engagement to it. While meeting with such experts you will come across a number of such professionals who may seem to help you out.

However, my recommendation is to find out a resource who can truly value your mobile app development company and the product.

5. An Official Blog Can Serve as a Prominent Tool

You have reached your audience, you are connected to an influencer who seems to fit the bill for you, you have invested wisely in a burst campaign, what’s next?

It is the official time for you to feature your app in a blog that seems relevant to the functionality of your application. This is a well prevailing promotional strategy that has got the potential to market the app perfectly in the market.

No idea on how to include your mobile app in the blog? Here is what you can do

• Write a paragraph about your product in a blog post. Highlight the prominent features

• Include a hyperlinked (app download link) CTA anywhere either in the middle or at the last of the write-up

• Dedicate a blog post solely for your product

When writing an exclusive blog post to promote your app, try to include every possible information in the write-up. Present your idea for the purpose of developing this product.

Tell the entire story to the users, add some screenshots, show the entire functionality through a video, and talk about the offerings that are exclusive to your mobile app.

6. Release Teasers Of Your Product

Images reach quickly to the users with an additional catch that they are more engaging than content. And teasers bring the message more prominent if we talk about any other communication medium.

It is in the psychology of the users to see things themselves first and then decide whether to believe something or not. Use teasers that give a sneak peek into your product, Don’t reveal everything but just a hint of your product. Let the users wait for it and till then create hype about your offering in the market.

There are a number of such ways you can promote your app or services. Here is a brief on them:

• Create screenshots and promotional videos

• Recreate the initial wireframing to help people understand the components of your product

7. Engrave Your Mobile Apps in the Emails

You cannot ignore the potential of emails when you are promoting a mobile app or any new product. As a business, you must be practicing the email campaign for every new product the business produces.

Why not add a few lines about the product you are going to develop and then wait for your advertiser’s, influencer’s and potential customer’s review on it. You will get to know the perception of top leaders who are in the business and from those also who will consume your services. In both cases, you are only going to get the best of advice.

While drafting the email copy, include the following elements:

• Besides developing an engaging email body, do include a separate PDF

• A newsletter that describes the functionality could also work for you

• Graphical representation such as infographic could also do the promotion for you

8. Register Your App In Alternative Stores

Registering your apps in prominent app stores i.e. on Google Play for Android and Apple App Store for iOS does have the benefit of its own but it comes with the additional burden of fighting against other prominent apps too. Why not take a way out of this and register your product at other prominent stores? Some renowned store other than Google Play and App Store are:

• GetJar

• SlideMe

• Opera Mobile Store

• AppsLib

• Amazon Appstore

• AppBrain

If a mobile app is registered at relatively less popular stores, the expected downloads can increase with a speed of 200%. All the app stores mentioned above will have a suite of other apps but the competition that you will be facing here is much lower as compared to the two most prominent app stores.

9. Join The Different Developer's Group

The developer's community is one such that could bring huge recognition to your mobile application. There is also an option of joining professional communities on LinkedIn. Communities on Facebook and Google+ can also help you to bring visibility to your application.

It is important to be known among developers and entrepreneurs. Making your offering prominent among these well-known personalities is important and it can help as an external marketing effort to bring recognition to your product.

After you get connected to any such group ask for the feedback either from the developers or from other prominent entrepreneurs who are in the business. These professionals have the required experience that can help developers to get that extra edge from their competitors.

Make it a practice to discuss the latest features, bug fixes, and other valuable points.

10. The App Icon Should Be Engaging

The number of icons available in the app stores has reached the million count in App Store and Google Play. Every category in any of the app stores is making a lot of noise and thus to make the presence felt of a new application in the market you need to be different at least with your icon.

So, what are those points that make an icon stand out from the rest of the crowd? Here is the round-up of the best suggestions that are the contemporary winners.

• Develop a unique shape that could easily stand out among a thousand icons

• When choosing the pallet, limit your choice to a max of 2 colors

• Avoid using texts. Don’t use pictures. Instead, design one to let it appear realistic

Look at these examples. Every icon has something to convey to the users and this is what makes them different from all.

11. App Landing Page Is Important Too

An exceptional landing page is a must for every product that is going to initiate the journey of reaching the users successfully. Having a great landing page is like having a great business card. It’s good to have with you in order to attract the clients towards your services and the products.

See this example here. It is the landing page of a prominent marketplace the page is exactly about what the business does for the clients. It has all the elements that first-time users would easily get even if there are coming to the website for the very first time.

Amidst all this information that is shared over the page, the most important of all is the link that makes it easy for users to search for the assistance they are looking for.

Many such landing pages also include the links of Google and Apple stores to gain the opportunity of getting shared by the users (more users will get to know about the business when the existing users will share the business links to other users.

In such landing pages, the placement of CTA (call to action), its design, and the tiny text over it matter the most in order to attract the clients.

In case you are confused about the design of your mobile application, here is a link to some great templates for you to start. There are well-known, globally recognized marketplaces that help you to design your own template by offering exceptional templates to edit as you like it.

12. Be Ready For The Press

Be prepared to publish your services or the product on prominent platforms. Talk about your services through press releases, invite journalists to cover a story on the same, do indulge in blog post practices about your services, and probably do it all that is required. You can practice the word of mouth advertising for your business.

Your users are only going to know about the business when they will hear more and more about it from different sources. Talk more and more about your services and let other social channels advertise for the same to promote your app.

Users have typical psychology to getting attracted to a service they often hear about. Let the users hear about your services in the same way. It can be a great tool to let users’ engagement flow into the business.

The Upshot

While many of the advertisers can get lucky with any of the above-illustrated practices, you may get the luckier one even by practicing a single one. Do brainstorm on new app development ideas or to promote your app for free. Offer services that users can never deny. Always remember, users, are still after great business deals, in case they like it they are sure to practice the same.