Despite the constant growth in the number of applications available on various smartphone operating systems, studies show that the typical user only utilizes about nine apps per day.
A web browser, one or two email clients, and several social media apps are all but guaranteed to be found on the average phone. So that means if developers want their apps to be among those nine apps that enjoy daily use, they have some tough competition.
Developers often get caught up in making the best possible version of the final product, working in as many cool features as they can in an attempt to impress users. While this is certainly laudable, it’s easy for developers to forget that cool features alone won’t sell an app; they also need a solid marketing plan.
The marketing and promotion process should begin during the ideation phase — even before creating the app — to ensure you have an audience.
For example, of the 2.2 million mobile apps available on Apple App Store at the beginning of 2017, more than 25% were games. By contrast, less than 3% were based on maximizing productivity.
Before you create your app, make sure you know whether there’s demand and what the competition looks like so you’re not inadvertently setting your product up to fail.
Savvy Selling
Often, the hardest part about turning a profit in any enterprise is getting the word out. Marketing involves many steps, including researching viability, creating a development strategy, and finally promoting and advertising the new app.
Developers who only consider themselves coders and not marketers are doing their products a disservice. That’s because knowing who the app is being designed to allow the developer to market it better and engage more people.
Developers are in the best position to know the ins and outs of their product, so they should position themselves to network and communicate with potential customers.
Without marketing, it’s tough for new apps to get off the ground. Within the Google Play Store, for example, 80% of apps have been downloaded fewer than 1,000 times. With some exceptions, most of these apps have failed to reach and retain their intended audience.
Here are four steps to help ensure your app doesn’t suffer the same fate.
1. Focus on Your Buyers’ Needs
Your app idea could be original and life-changing, but it needs to have a viable market to become successful. Think about the purpose of your product and whether it meets the needs of your target demographic.
The sales funnel is a process, and the first step is figuring out the most effective way to pitch your idea to prospective clients. Determine who is actually making the buying decision, then figure out how you can meet their needs or solve their problems.
Even the subtlest differences can have a large impact on your results, so it’s vital to accurately identify your target audience and their needs.
2. Capture Your Buyers’ Emails
Many developers think that once the app is downloaded, their work is done. But capturing emails is an invaluable way to follow up later, whether it’s for feedback or to communicate newly developed app functions or features.
There are many ways to implement an email capture tool, such as a dedicated landing page (which can boost your conversion rate up to 50%) and sending traffic to it by getting featured on app review sites, or pop-ups and slide-ins. Exit-intent pop-ups (or pop-ups that appear when a user is leaving the site) are especially effective.
In fact, SEO blog Backlinko saw its email subscribe rate double overnight after adding an exit-intent pop-up, which then led to an extra $82,125 in revenue in just a year.
However, not all emails are created equal, and you’re bound to find some fake ones in the mix. Using a validation service such as Email Checker will help ensure that the email addresses you collect are valid, and it’s also easy to integrate for use in real time.
3. Make Sure Your App Has a Social Side
People are social by nature, so make sure your app capitalizes on this. Adding social media integration can enhance the functionality of your app and make it easier for users to get the most out of it, but it also works as a marketing tool to help you get the word out about your app.
Two great examples of this in the app world are Instagram and Tinder. Both apps have social media sharing abilities integrated into them, making it easy to share content across platforms (for example, sharing Instagram photos on Facebook and Twitter).
By integrating social media into your own app, users won’t need to leave to share on social media platforms. And more time spent within your app is always a good thing.
This integration doesn’t need to be difficult. For example, when Google first launched Gmail, each email signature automatically included an invitation to sign up for a Gmail account. This is a very simple addition, but it still gets the word out and promotes the service.
4. Follow Your Users
It’s important to always know where your audience members are and what they want to see at any given moment, so why not utilize the data that users’ phones are already gathering?
For tracking the physical location of your users, companies such as PubNub provide geolocation and geofencing services that include live-updating maps. These services can increase engagement by providing users with the most applicable information.
Real-time geolocation can also prove valuable for a variety of services, including automatically dispatching emergency vehicles based on response location or organizing taxi fleets and delivery drivers.
For games, it can show which players are nearby and who is online or offline, and for home automation apps, it gives users to ability to control their devices in real time from anywhere.
The number of smartphone applications has exploded since 2009, which is a testament to the ability of developers everywhere to create engaging and useful products. Unfortunately, app stores are also crowded with apps that didn’t make the cut, even though many of them likely had great potential.
As a developer, keep in mind that your application is a product, and part of selling a product (even a free one) is identifying a market need and then letting your target audience know how your product can meet that need.
Thinking like a marketer — from the earliest stages of your idea to follow-ups with clients — will allow you to position your app for maximum success in a crowded and competitive marketplace.
