Mobile App Promotion: 6 App Marketing Strategies You Must Know

Did you know that today there are close to 9 million smartphone applications in existence? What this means is that, regardless of which specific app store or niche you choose, you face a mighty uphill battle to stand out. To differentiate your app from the competition and cut through the noise, you need to use the right app marketing strategies. Otherwise, your app won’t get the traction it needs to take off at launch. On that note, here are some of the best strategies we use at our mobile app marketing agency to increase downloads, enhance user retention, and boost app revenue.

Email marketing

It may be one of the oldest forms of digital marketing but it’s still one of the most effective, no matter if you want to gain attention for a new product or a mobile application. As a matter of fact, you can recoup 40 to 50 times for each $1 that you put into email marketing.

That said, here are a few of my top recommendations for increasing app downloads and usage via email marketing.

Build your mobile app a great landing page then build your email list from them. You want to avoid buying email lists
Personalize your emails based on segments of your target audience
Highlight your apps top features and how users will benefit from it

It’s also very effective to include user testimonials of your app in your emails to substantiate your app’s performance.

Paid user acquisition

One way to hack app growth is through paid user acquisition, where you use paid ads or channels to attract new users. With app-install ads having grown by 40% in 2022, this proves just how effective paid UA has become as an app promotion strategy.

To get the best bang for your buck, here’s how I recommend that you go about paid UA based on the experience of our mobile app marketing agency:

Craft highly specific user personas that are likely to have high intent
Keep tabs on marketing trends and market your app around important and relevant events
Use multiple channels, then measure and optimize KPIs like downloads, sign-ups, in-app purchases, and more
The latter pointer will help you to identify your best UA channel and eliminate the rest to maximize ROI.

Retention campaigns

Getting users to download an app is one thing. Keeping them active is where the rubber hits the road. Just so you know, close to 6 in 10 app users become inactive within the first month. And on iOS, the retention rate is just 7% after 30 days.

If you are to be successful in getting users to download and use your app for the long term, then retention campaigns are crucial. To get this right, you want to:

Ensure an interactive onboarding process with simple sign-ups and engaging tutorials
Personalize app user experience for each user
Use bespoke push notifications
Identify points of churn so that you can address common issues

Overall, retention campaigns will help to boost your ROAS and user’s LTV.

Influencer marketing

I find that influencer marketing offers a shortcut to success because you’ll be tapping into an already established audience that has already built trust. Therefore, you don’t need to build your market from scratch.

At our mobile app marketing agency, we use influencers in the following ways:

Pre-launch promotions to get more people to sign up for your app
Introducing a mobile game app, for instance, by demonstrating gameplay
Post-launch promotions such as promoting feature additions

On average, 60% of brands rely on influencers in their app marketing strategy, with many of them going on to attain ROI that’s 11 times as much as that of banner ads. When seeking out influencers, it’s important to prioritize those who have a target audience with a relevant user persona to your app’s niche.

App store optimization

Are you familiar with how SEO generally works for websites? For instance, using the right keywords to make your content visible among search engine result pages is a popular aspect of SEO.

Well, app store optimization works similarly and it’s a great option for organically increasing your ranking and visibility on mobile app stores.

Here are some top ASO tips that we use at our mobile app marketing agency that you could borrow to your advantage:

Use a descriptive title that includes a popular keyword for your niche
For keyword research, use tools like MobileDev HQ to find relevant keywords. Generally, you want to go for keywords that are not overused by apps but still generate a good amount of traffic
Use the problem-solution approach for your app description

Finally, you want to leverage high-quality imagery- preview videos with text overlays and screenshots- which is vital because the average person makes up their mind about your app in just 7 seconds.

Social media and website marketing

I also recommend that you create a simple website, or at the very least, a landing page for your website. This will help you to tap into SEO strategies to make your app more discoverable and visibile. To succeed in this regard, keyword research is everything.

Additionally, social media marketing is also a great way to attract users for your app with an average ROI of 250%, and here’s how you can do it:

Leverage paid ads
Factor in SEO when optimizing your social media profiles
Use discounts and offers to generate buzz for your app
Incentivize app sharing and post engagement actions at large
Always go for the most popular platforms, e.g. Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and so on

Alternatively, you can also choose to work with an experienced mobile app marketing agency if you’re trying to juggle other duties in your workflow such as app development.

App success depends on marketing

When it comes to mobile app success, sure quality and providing a great user experience is beyond important. But none of that matters if you don’t promote your app correctly. You may do everything right in terms of development, but if you mess up marketing, the project is likely to fail. To put it simply, marketing is everything! Otherwise, your app may not generate enough interest and your ROI will inevitably be quite low. But if you put these six marketing strategies to work, you’ll give your app every chance to be a hit with your target audience and a financial success.