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You might think that marketing an app is easy. “There’s an app for that” implies that they solve a problem, and if they’re any good, they do, but there is more to the process than that. People can’t just search for the problem and find your solution. You’d be lost in a sea of other problem solvers. Instead, you need to make a conscious effort to tell people that they have a problem, a problem they might not even be aware of, and you have the solution. How do you go about this? Take a look at our guide to marketing your new app to find out and make sure the right people see it.
Think about your demographic
The first thing you should think about before you start thinking about how you are going to market to anyone is to think about who you are marketing to. And thanks to the fact that online marketing is very good at targeting, you will have to get detailed. Who is your ideal user? What gender are they? Where are they from? What is their lifestyle like? What is their budget? What are their problems? This will allow you to understand your users, which in turn will allow you to better understand why they will buy, who to target and how to reach them. With the amount of data absorbed today, it’s very easy to create a full picture of who you’re marketing to, which will inform your decisions going forward. It will also help you to make better decisions on the details of your app, like how much a subscription should cost or whether there are any practical reasons for your demographic not to use it.
Think about your SEO
You will need a business website to go with your app. There are so many apps on the Apple and Google Play stores that you will need to fight to be seen. This is especially important if your app is new and therefore isn’t attached to an established brand. Even then, that brand is likely competing with others.
A business website will give your users a starting point, and this means that you need to read up on SEO. A user looking for a solution to the problem that your app solves should go onto Google and find your business website directing them to where to find your app. But if they have to look more than a few links down, they’re going to miss you.
Similarly, if you get to the top of the app search results and featured lists in app stores, you will be better picked up. A business website can’t help you there, but you can visit apptimizer.net to give your app a boost.
Think about your social media marketing
Now we get down to the fun part that everyone loves because everyone looks at social media. You can get really creative here, but there are some ideas you might want to keep in mind.
Micro-influencers tend to be the leaders of their own little community. They allow you to get very niche with your demographic, but you can also approach many of them to target lots of demographics and have many loyal fanbases hearing about how good your app is.
Encourage user-generated content and, in turn, engagement on your social media. If needs be, it’s better to lower the number of posts you have but answer comments and replies in order to up your engagement. As a business, it’s particularly important because it looks like you’re taking on feedback on your app.
Think about your community
There are two ways to cultivate a community. You can either create one of your own with your own social media accounts, or you can infiltrate an already established community.
Methods like the ones detailed above, like user engagement and user-generated content, will allow you to create your own community, but there is a stumbling block with apps: no one knows they need you yet. There isn’t a clear link between you and a community, the way, say, romance or politics is linked to a book community. You can try and cultivate one. Maybe your app is particularly useful or created for a certain underappreciated demographic. If so, create content and marketing campaigns that tell them that your app is here for them.
The other way to get into a community is to use affiliate marketing, particularly with micro-influencers. Go out into the world (wide web) and find your people on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Linkedin, Pinterest, etc. They are bound to be part of a group, and that group will have a few leaders: micro-influencers. Micro-influencers have a smaller audience but a far more dedicated audience.
With affiliate marketing, these small leaders can talk to their audience and tell them that their app is solving one of their problems, and it can do the same for the audience.
