How do you launch an app? Do you bother with all those marketing activities as it’s said in all IT-consulting articles, including this one? If you do, you are on the right way to market your app successfully as it’s necessary to use every variant to improve your marketing campaign.
It is an open secret that innovational technologies are developing alongside with harsh rivalry. Keeping pace with competitors and being even one step ahead is possible with a well-considered mobile app launch strategy.
App launch marketing presupposes a comprehensive set of measures and these measures begin with the rational pre-launch marketing activities. Pre-launch buzz can contribute to promotion of your app long before the day your audience can behold it. The following tips may come in handy for framing the pre-launch marketing plan.
Read more: How to market your app
Handy tips for pre-launch marketing
• Define and monitor the target market
While launching an app, you need to come up with the core market, potential clients right off the bat. It is directly done with the help of social networks, there are also some tools to help you identify target customers.
Start creating your buyer persona by answering these questions: “Who will use my app? What kind of problem does it solve or which needs does it meet?”
Make sure you know your target audience, make an inside look into it and test the waters. Different web-forums are here for you to know and monitor opinions, to get the overall picture of your potential users. Another tip would be to use Quora, as a great source of questions people ask and needs they face in everyday life.
• Estimate the competitors
A comprehensive analysis of your competitors is very important for defining and developing your app launch strategy and improving your marketing methods. Moreover, by doing this you can gauge strength of others. It would be helpful to make a list of competitors and analyze their apps. Alternatively, an Excel Document can be created to get more structured analysis.
Here you can make as many categories for comparison as you wish. You can analyze direct competitors as well as indirect. Don’t forget to conduct this analysis even after weeks since launching the app to find possible mistakes in marketing activities. By the way, you should often keep up with new apps of your opponents and their number of installs.
• Design a landing page
When creating a landing page for your app, you can get some benefits. Firstly, it boosts the conversion. It also helps to attract customers and stimulate users to do certain things. There are programs which allow to integrate the landing page with the app (e.g. Launchrock, Unbounce, etc).
Marketing actions aim to get the maximum number of potential clients’ contacts. Landing page is the real thing to conduce it. In addition, it’s usable for your customers. Here they can find more information about your app, subscribe for news (date of launch), watch your app video, so get as much information as possible.
• Use sneak peeks
Most of us are visuals, that’s why a “sneak peek” is a good value for the pre launch app promotion. It can contain screenshots, promo video and in many cases the description of the app in a blog post. Sneak peeks can draw attention and kindle interest gaining potential users before the app launch. Offering sneak peeks, you can also lot upon the needed feedbacks.
• Rely on beta-testers
There are some platforms and sites, where people can have a look at the preliminary version of the apps. For instance, let it be Preaaps: here you have the possibility to get in contact with beta testers who are ready to take on your app. As a result, you can start building your email list and get a worthwhile evaluation.
• Don’t forget about blogging
Blogging plays an important role being the source of target keywords. But this isn’t the only advantage. When posting information about your app (even which isn’t launched) you give the audience a short presentation. Thus potential users are put in the picture. In fact, any content connected with this app is useful since “content is king”.
The maximal use of social networks offers big opportunities for promotion. Whether you inform about app update or want to present the forthcoming launch of your app, social networks and blogging will surely gain efficiency.
• Analyze recent reviews
Analyzing reviews of other apps in your market gives you an opportunity to find new marketing ideas. By correcting your mistakes you improve your old marketing approaches and also know what to avoid. Feedback provided by the users even on the topic of previous apps can become food for thought.
• Think ahead
It would be none the worse for searching possible websites for promotion. The more you do now the less will remain. Start writing down who could do a review of your app, who could post an article, so who could get in on the act. At the same time, you can learn prices for such work or some sources to market freely.
• Keep everything in order
For the avoidance of working mess, try to keep everything exact and clear. Make lists, write everything down and remember that having a pre-marketing plan helps to enhance and regulate the process of promotion.
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Eventually, nobody can guarantee that a particular method can bring you lots and lots of downloads. But as a marketer, you can do your best taking the most relevant measures, combining all the steps in one gainful marketing strategy. And keep in mind that preparations are always advantageous, what is more for launching an app, they are necessary letting you reckon on positive result.
