Six Ways To Ensure Your Mobile App Campaign Is Effective...
As the global smartphone and tablet market continues to grow, the importance of effective and well developed mobile apps increases. There are currently 1.2 million apps available to download from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store (Serrano et al. 2013). Therefore, making your app stand out from the rest has become ever more of a challenge. As shown in the image on the right, Smartphone users spend 87% of their time on mobile apps, compared to 13% of their time on the mobile web, therefore making mobile apps a powerful marketing tool (Nielsen, 2013). Through researching relevant articles and sources, I have developed six key ways to ensure that your app beats the rest of the field...
1. App Store Optimisation
63% of Apple App Store users rely on search to discover apps, therefore making ASO even more important. By enhancing your app title, description, and keywords, your mobile app is sure to become more discoverable. The secret to ASO is to ensure that your app gets on to the Top 100 Charts, as users are more likely to discover and download your app on featured charts.2. Mobile Friendly Websites
There is no point in having a mobile app if it is not compatible with your company website. Mobile apps can be used to direct traffic to your website, however if the website it not compatible with mobile usage then this campaign is destined to fail.
3. Social Media
The combination of social media and marketing is a brilliant resource to have. You should use social media in order to generate media and consumer hype. Tweeting, blogging and Facebook are a great way of developing your customer base and improving your download rate. The more people that know about your app, the more likely it is to be downloaded, thus improving effectiveness.
4. Differentiation
When developing a mobile app and campaign originality is essential. In order to get your app talked about and downloaded it needs to have 'added value' and something that others don't have. There are a number of generic apps already on the app stores which consequently have a short life span, making differentiation vital in order to having an effective mobile app campaign.
5. Testing
There is nothing worse than downloading an app which doesn't fully work, especially if you have paid for it. Therefore, ensure that the app and the campaign has gone through rigorous testing before its release. Following Apple's app development strategy rather than Microsofts is wise. Apple ensure that any software that they release is ready for market, where as Microsoft focus on getting software to market as soon as possible and fixing bugs further down the road.
6. User Engagement
It is highly important to keep customers engaged once they have downloaded your app. Once they have downloaded it, there is no stopping them from deleting it as soon as they see it as obsolete. This can be avoided by thanking loyal fans by sending push notifications which offer discounts, promotions, or new 'in-game content'. Also, updating the app regularly with patches or new contents will be sure to keep users engaged.
For more information regarding Mobile App Marketing, please follow the link below:
www.imediaconnection.com/content/35177.asp#multiviewwww.heidicohen.com/mobile-website-versus-mobile-app-which-should-you-use-charts/
www.socialmediatoday.com/syed-noman-ali/1791896/design-effective-mobile-app
References:
Steven Bellman, Robert F. Potter, Shiree Treleaven-Hassard, Jennifer A. Robinson, Duane Varan, The Effectiveness of Branded Mobile Phone Apps, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Volume 25, Issue 4, November 2011, Pages 191-200, ISSN 1094-9968, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2011.06.001.Serrano, N.; Hernantes, J.; Gallardo, G., "Mobile Web Apps," Software, IEEE , vol.30, no.5, pp.22,27, Sept.-Oct. 2013
Nielsen (2013) The Fast and The Curious: On-The-Go Consumers Drive Content and Connectivity [Online] Available at http://Http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2013/the-fast-and-the-curious--on-the-go-consumers-drive-content-and-.html [Accessed 2nd March 2014]
