As a development startup, it is very hard for a company to understand the perceptions and realities of marketing automation. After you have developed your unique application, Now its time to face the marketing challenge. Marketing is a long run of procedures that any development company has to go through.
When Compared to large companies, new companies are likely to face a greater challenge in reaching out to their audience and making their voices heard, as they often lack labor, infrastructure, and capital.
Now the question is how a startup can invent in this competition and how they can make a successful marketing strategy for their application. Let's introduce five indomitable strategies that can help startups market their mobile applications more effectively.
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Low budget pre-launch marketing
From the initial concern like “where can I find an application developer”, has advanced and is ultimately about to get their application published. Now, it's time to get ready for the launch, right? But wait, you still miss something called pre-launch marketing.
These days, you should not wait until the development of your application is finished and ready to hit the market. You need to start your marketing way before it develops. This is something broadly conceived as pre-launch marketing. When your product is not ready, but you still need to sell the idea and create buzz among your target audience, this is precisely what pre-launch marketing is all about.
Now thinking about the pre-launch campaign you probably started considering all of the first-time media ads and advertisements on the front page of newspapers that occasionally advertise upcoming products and offers. Yes, you guessed it. They are mostly expensive and used by large companies.
For a startup that offers such capital-intensive campaigns for even a month or two before the launch of the product is very likely to be out of reach. Therefore, a start-up should consider the affordable means to reach out to your audience. Here are some tips for marketing pre-launch low budget.
1) Create a social media page for the app and start a pre-launch campaign on select social platforms.
2) Reach out to all your existing, fellow and well-received clients with the idea of applying and seek their advice as well as suggestions.
3) Get to know all the influential potentials of the industry with your future idea of the application. Start a small website. A single website specifically for the application is not a bad idea.
4) Develop promotional campaigns like a free subscription to the premium version, some gift items, promotional coupons, etc.
5) Start blogging about your app and how it can add value to the user experience.
6) Try to match your launch date with a significant event related to your niche or industry.
2. Social marketing: it's almost free
For a small business or start-up, social media marketing often comes as the first invaluable option since it comes almost free. But just because it is free and without restrictions does not guarantee success without a sustained, focused and disciplined approach. Consider the following tips to help your social presence produce an effective result for the application.
1) First, limit your social presence to a minimum number of platforms that are more effective. Since as a startup you are less likely to have a dedicated social marketing team and all the automated tools, it is best to focus on a minimum number of platforms.
2) Choose your social platforms according to your chances of getting attention from your target audience. Facebook and Twitter are invincible with a large presence of all types of public. Apart from that LinkedIn is good for B2B applications or business audiences. Pinterest and Instagram are good for visual content, and among them, Pinterest is particularly recommended if your audience is predominantly female.
3) Have social media content strategy with a mix of content ranging from visuals, media, and text. Never deposit too much in the text content, since users these days have a shorter attention span.
4) To engage with the valuable audience, you can troll some influencers and often get involved in the conversation.
5) Focus on relevant topics and trends to get involved with your audience and attract their attention.
6) You can also run paid campaigns on social networks by selecting a specific location, gender, age for quick attention.
3. Measure the KPIs that are crucial to your application market
While professional marketers always focus on setting a goal for their campaigns, often startups without dedicated marketing team lack such an approach. But even having a target for your marketing application is not enough. They have to be specific, realistic, achievable and measurable. Now the marketing objective of an application is associated with certain KPIs or particular parameters. These parameters vary according to the type of application and its target audience.
If you have a game application that can attract players quickly with their unique game but cannot remain as a source of fun for a long time, the acquisition of users is a very important KPI for a good gaming application. But if you have an application for fashion retail and consumer goods, you need to focus on the retention, commitment and lifetime value (LTV) of the users. Choose the most relevant KPIs for your app and continue to measure them from time to time.
4. Releasing the Power of Deep Linking:
A start-up should take advantage of all potential areas to give your application the possibility of discovery, prominence, and traction. Deep linking is one such strategy. If you want your application to be indexed by Google, you must make a deep link. If the content of your website has the link to your application, users can be attracted to the application page in the app store or in case they have already downloaded it, the corresponding page can be opened through the application. The deep link comes with a number of benefits.
1) First, it increases commitment and retention of existing customers. Secondly, it
2) Secondly, it continues to attract new users to the app.
3) Third, with deep linking across multiple web pages and content, you can easily increase reach. Finally, with relevant deep links, you can get your app indexed by Google app indexing
4) Finally, with relevant deep links, you can get your app indexed by Google app indexing
5. Focus on organic reach
In the initial stage where your application still has fewer downloads, opting for paid downloads is not a bad option. But paid downloads do not give an application to your actual user base, and therefore are not that much effective. Therefore, your marketing campaign should prioritize organic downloads through a number of initiatives. Here are some of the steps you should take.
1) First, do the App Store optimization through a rich keyword, short and direct description, high-quality app screenshots, a brief guide to the video guide and some credible testimonials and criticisms.
2) Second, do content marketing with relevant topics related to your application, use relevant application keywords and deep link to the application page.
3) Publish short video content about your app on YouTube and other video channels.
4)Provide a valuable content in your application and boost it through all social networks, social bookmarking channels, and discussion forums.
To conclude, we advise startups to consider the app market as a level playing field rather than a market in which established biggies always come as winners. The growing number of small business applications and indie titles that are winning the tough lawn of big player competition should be their motivation.
