There a numerous ways to promote an app. This is no easy job and a considerable portion of the budget should be assigned to the marketing component of any mobile project. Having an amazing app is one thing but having no one download and use that amazing app is not cool. Below is some tips and advice on how to get your app from a lousy 10 downloads to a few thousand downloads.
1. App review sites and App Directories
Here is a comprehensive list of review sites with links to the contact pages. Avoid the ones which request money, i suggest working your way from the bottom up, more chance of getting a review. Install an add-on to your browser to check page rank. Page rank 3 and up is worthwhile. Better to have quality backlinks than tons of useless ones with no value. Try to get reviews on some of these bigger sites ,some also offer advertising on their site, thats another avenue to look into. Here are some tips for asking for a review.
2. Free and Commercial App
From what I’ve read I definitely think that you should have both a free and paid version. Free version should be limited in levels or functionality, perhaps 10 levels for a game. Enough to want them to buy the full app. Plus you can also generate revenue using ads in the free version.
3. SEO Content Writer
I’d also suggest finding a seo content writer. Outsourcing this is a viable option particularly if your app is targeted at a specific region. The content writer should be able to write good semantic keyword rich articles for you. You can use the articles a few times when doing submissions to the review sites, directory sites, on the app store in your game description and on your own site.
4. Social Marketing
Facebook, twitter, google plus and linkedin all generate great traffic and you be spend time on social networks building a following and promoting your app. Believe it or not but you can actually pay a celebrity to post a tweet for you. They have huge followings and this is a fantastic way to generate some downloads for your app, if you do decide to go this route then choose wisely as it does come at a hefty price. There is also some popular developers and tech guys out there who also have big followings. Also consider putting social sharing in the app itself. Perhaps on the home screen or do prompts as you would with the rating. One last thing, help others, promote for them and they will return the favour.
5. App Icon and App Name
Here is a guideline for creating your app’s icon. Perhaps measure your icon against these. From personal experience, I do tend to download my apps based on the icon. if its not too late to change your app name, consider including keywords in your app name as you would rank higher for those keywords. It seems to be like a website page title, if the keyword are in the title then it gets a higher ranking.
6. App Store Analytics
Keeping track of how many people is visiting your page is essential to your marketing endeavours. If you cannot measure your goals then its a pointless exercise. You could be successful in your marketing efforts of driving traffic to the page but people are not purchasing your app due poor marketing on the page. Check our mobiledevhq and appannie which can help measure stats.
7. Incredible Website
You have ab incredible app, you need an incredible website to match it. Hey here some examples of awesome app landing pages, I think they awesome, maybe yours just needs a few tweaks. Minimalistic with slider on the left with info and app store link on the right. Further down, you can fill the page with keyword rich information (provided by the SEO content writer). The site has got be responsive as well. All the social networks that you have must be on the site as well. I’d use something like http://www.hellobar.com/ as well to grab attention. It stands out very well.
If you want to buy a template then themeforest has some really excellent and cheap templates for sale.
8. Paid Services
Definitely check out admob and flurry. Try to advertise on there, seems to be the most popular ad services for iphone.
Conclusion
Marketing your app is fundamental to the success of any project and there are numerous ways of doing this. All of the above requires time and dedication, none of which will work overnight wonders. Marketing and promoting your app is an on-going process that needs to be carried out for several months. Good Luck!
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