20 Best App Marketing Strategies To Drive Growth
As smartphones gain widespread popularity, the app market becomes increasingly competitive. To overcome this challenge, many app marketing services are innovating and applying various strategies to boost app growth. This blog post outlines and elaborates on the top 20 app marketing strategies in response to this evolving landscape.
1. User acquisition campaigns
User acquisition campaigns, often called customer campaigns, are digital initiatives designed to acquire high-quality users. These campaigns follow a user acquisition funnel, as illustrated in the image, with the primary objectives of:
Cultivating these leads until they are ready for sales.
Converting leads into customers.
Implementing strategies to retain and engage users.
User acquisition holds paramount importance for businesses, offering several key advantages:
Expanding User Base: It facilitates growth by increasing the app or website user base, potentially leading to higher customer lifetime value (LTV).
Revenue Boost: Effective user acquisition can drive revenue, which can be reinvested in branding and business expansion.
Enhanced Trust: A growing user base instills trust and credibility in your business.
2. Performance marketing, a popular app marketing strategy, guarantees results through campaigns where advertisers pay for specific actions like app installs, ad clicks, lead generation, conversions, and registrations. There are six critical steps to successful performance marketing.
How does performance marketing work?
Performance marketing operates by creating goal-specific ad campaigns across various channels like apps, websites, and social media. Ads begin performing upon successful placement, and payment is based on chosen metrics using payment models such as:
CPA (Cost Per Action): Payment for specific actions like clicks, installs, registrations, or sign-ups.
CPM (Cost Per Mille): Payment for every thousand ad impressions.
CPC (Cost Per Click): Payment for each ad click.
CPL (Cost Per Lead): Payment for acquiring leads through actions like form submissions or newsletter sign-ups.
Benefits of performance marketing
rapid business scaling, guaranteed app growth, budget-centric advertising, and high-quality traffic and conversions from diverse sources.
3. Programmatic advertising
Programmatic advertising is a marketing method that uses unique algorithms and technology to automate buying and selling of ad space. It even facilitates ad placement optimization while eliminating manual negotiation challenges.
Steps involved in programmatic advertising
Data gathering: The initial stage in programmatic advertising is to compile data about prospective clients, such as demographic details, web browsing patterns, and past purchases. With the aid of this information, the appropriate audience can be targeted.
Real-time header auction: Using real-time bidding, you hold an auction for your desired ad inventory.
Unified auction: The DSP employs special algorithms to gather direct purchasers, header auction bidders, and non-guaranteed bidders in one location, enabling the winning bid to purchase the ad space while giving direct purchasers priority.
Ad creation: To make advertising, you can use pre-made themes, images, videos, and text.
Ad delivery: The target audience sees the winning advertisement. To provide the optimum success, the DSP continuously optimizes the campaign by modifying bids and targeting.
4. App Store Optimization
App Store Optimization (ASO) is a strategy to enhance an app's visibility in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, organically improving its rankings and visibility.
Keywords are users' search terms. Ranking high requires selecting relevant keywords and integrating them into on-page metadata. For iOS, include keywords in the app title, subtitle, and a 100-character keyword list. For Android, use them in the app name, long and short descriptions.
Use relevant keywords only.
Opt for either singular or plural forms, not both.
Avoid 'app' or competitor names.
The choice of your app's name is a pivotal app marketing strategy as it shapes users' perception. Opt for a name that clearly represents your app rather than just aiming for flair or catchiness. Both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store permit up to 30 characters for the app name or title.
Moreover, in the App Store, you can include a subtitle of up to 30 characters. The Google Play Store allows a more generous limit of 50 characters for app names. To make the most of this character allowance, ensure your app's name is descriptive and informative. Examples of ASO-optimized app names include Spotify - Music and Podcasts, Google Maps - Transit & Food, and Weather Live - Local Forecast.
App description
Your app description should be user-focused. Write a crisp and compelling narrative describing your app's usage and benefits, encouraging the user to download it immediately. As touched on earlier, include relevant keywords, but avoid keyword stuffing. Also, it is essential to keep the description up-to-date with app updates and release notes so the user learns about the current version of your app.
The Play Store allows you to enter long and short descriptions. The long description can be up to 4000 characters, whereas the short description can be up to 80 characters. On the other hand, the App Store only supports long descriptions of up to 4000 characters with no special characters allowed.
Visual elements
The visual elements of your app listing are the app icon, screenshots, and videos. Let's talk about each element one by one.
App icon: The app icon is an essential branding element, and the first thing users notice. Moreover, the icon is shown on different app pages – app listing, category page, editor's choice, etc. Therefore, you need to design one that is simple, relevant, and easy to comprehend what the app is about.
Screenshots: Screenshots give users a sneak peek into your app and influence their decision to install the app to a certain extent. Make sure that the screenshots you include are striking and represent the features or functionalities of your app well.
Preview video: You can even include your app's preview video by keeping it short yet descriptive enough to convey the app's features and benefits.
Bad ratings impact the ASO ranking of your app, and these are the important app marketing strategies. Moreover, since they appear in the app listings, they affect the users' decision to download your app. Positive app reviews and ratings can always work in your favor; it is a given. So try to collect positive reviews from your existing users, especially for the latest version of your app. Reviews work like word of mouth for potential users.
One more thing you can do is localize the screenshots and other preview content according to the geo-locations. It helps you capture local audiences and connect with them much better.
Several UX factors, like crashes, session lengths, deletions, retention, etc., determine the ASO ranking. All these aspects indicate whether the app offers a positive experience to the users. If not, users might uninstall the app or leave negative reviews, which negatively impacts the ASO ranking.
This field is specific to the Apple App Store. You can add text about upcoming updates and events to your app. Promotional text can be up to 170 characters in length and can be updated multiple times. However, it does not impact the ranking. You can rather use it to promote app features.
Less acquisition cost as ASO is all about organic app growth.
Keyword-based marketing strategy for high conversion.
Improved app ranking resulting in increased visibility.
Increased app revenue through contribution to monetization strategies like in-app purchases, in-app advertising, etc.
5. Connected TV advertising
The placement of television ecosystems with internet connections, such as smart TVs, game consoles, and streaming devices like the Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, and Roku, is known as connected TV advertising, or CTV.
Advertisements for connected TV can be interactive, display, or video ads. Then, to display their advertisements on the proper CTV channels, advertisers work with CTV advertising platforms like GreedyGame, The Trade Desk, SpotX, or LiveRamp. The target audience sees the advertisement after it is posted, and they can view it while streaming their preferred TV series and movies. The advertisement is presented indistinguishably from the content, guaranteeing visitors an unobtrusive experience. See the illustration below to better understand how CTV advertising functions:
Benefits of CTV advertising:
Easy access to excessive, high-quality ad inventory.
Smart and effective audience targeting.
Measurement of ad performance in real-time.
Referral marketing, a proactive form of word-of-mouth promotion, incentivizes people to use your app, giving you control. Both existing and potential customers are rewarded in referral programs, benefiting both parties and enhancing your app marketing strategy.
Apple Search Ads (ASA) is an iOS-specific strategy allowing app owners to bid on top-searched keywords. Winning bids place your app at the forefront of search results, making it an effective tool for mobile app promotion. ASA offers two plans, Basic and Advanced, with varying tools, controls, and budgets.
Google App Campaign (formerly Universal App Campaign) runs promotions across Google platforms, including Search, YouTube, and Google Play. It covers app installs, engagement, and pre-registration, with conversion tracking for key metrics like cost-per-install, cost-per-action, or cost-per-pre-registration, vital for your app marketing strategy.
9. Social media ads
The increasing popularity of social media channels has made them a potent app marketing strategy. Mobile app promotions on social media follow two main approaches: Organic and Paid. Organic engagement necessitates establishing a social media presence, targeting your desired audience, and sharing regular, meaningful, and well-organized content to promote your app. In contrast, the paid method involves app install promotions, where targeted advertisements are used to drive app installations among your audience. This method is a valuable app marketing strategy with the potential for significant results.
Platforms like Facebook and Instagram offer app install marketing, directing viewers to your App Store or Play Store listing upon clicking the ad's call-to-action (CTA). While not all apps may find success with social media ads, thorough research can help you determine your app's specific requirements and tailor your promotion strategy accordingly.
Content marketing aims to create and distribute valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a specific target audience, ultimately driving profitable customer action. Instead of directly promoting a product or service, it focuses on educating and engaging customers.
Benefits of content marketing include:
Higher Audience Engagement: Valuable content fosters stronger and quicker relationships with the audience.
Increased Brand Visibility: Effective content strategies boost brand visibility and position your brand as an industry thought leader.
Improved SEO: Quality content enhances search engine rankings, improving discoverability.
More Leads and Conversions: Various content formats (images, videos, text, podcasts) educate customers and simplify audience targeting.
Better Customer Loyalty: Consistent, informative content builds trust and enhances customer loyalty.
Higher Revenue: Content marketing attracts and retains customers, potentially leading to increased revenue over time.
Email marketing, a facet of digital marketing, involves sending promotional messages or ads directly to a group via email. Its objectives include raising brand awareness, driving sales, and fostering customer loyalty.
Benefits of email marketing encompass:
Cost and Time Efficiency: It offers a budget-friendly and time-saving approach to attract prospects with effective strategies.
Targeted Reach: Precisely target potential leads, ensuring your message reaches the right audience.
Measurable Results: Track campaign success through metrics like click-through rates (CTRs), conversions, and inquiries.
Enhanced Engagement: Email facilitates customer engagement, relationship-building, and loyalty.
Personalization: Customize emails with recipient-specific details (name, location) for a more impactful message.
Improved Lead Generation: Email campaigns capture quality leads, nurturing them through the sales funnel for increased conversions and sales.
12. Paid advertising
Paid advertising is a digital advertising approach where brands bid in real-time to secure ad slots, displaying ads across various formats like search engine ads, PPC ads, app store ads, banners, videos, and native ads.
Benefits of paid advertising include:
Targeted Reach: Precisely reach the desired audience based on demographics, interests, and location for improved conversions.
Immediate Results: Unlike organic marketing, paid advertising yields rapid outcomes within hours or days.
Measurable Results: It provides data-driven insights and metrics, facilitating campaign performance assessment.
Cost-Effectiveness: Compared to traditional methods like TV, radio, or print ads, paid advertising is often more cost-effective.
Increased Brand Awareness: Paid advertising enhances brand visibility and positioning, establishing your business as an industry leader.
User onboarding involves guiding new users to understand your app's value. This process can encompass live training, webinars, demos, and success stories to educate users about the app's features and unique selling points. The ultimate goal is to transform casual app visitors into proficient, engaged users.
Benefits of user onboarding include:
Increased User Retention: Onboarding aids users in grasping the app's functionality, enhancing their ability to use it effectively and thus promoting user retention.
Enhanced User Experience: Onboarding delivers a seamless, intuitive, and personalized experience, fostering trust and improving overall user satisfaction.
Higher Conversion Rates: By educating users on app usage, onboarding can boost conversion rates, driving sales, sign-ups, and other desired actions.
Improved Feedback: Onboarding facilitates user feedback and inquiries, making it easier to identify pain points and enhance the overall user experience.
Elevated User Satisfaction: Empowering users to maximize app potential leads to greater satisfaction and an improved overall user experience.
Increased User Engagement: Understanding the app's features through onboarding results in higher engagement and greater app usage.
14. Featured apps
The Featured sections in the App Store and Google Play Store are where the app stores recommend your apps to the users. However, getting featured in this section is not a piece of cake. Some critical criteria must be met to feature on the app stores, which is why it is a lesser-known app marketing strategy.
Some common criteria an app must have:
Localization according to geographical location, culture, etc.
15. Word of mouth
A straightforward approach to app promotion involves leveraging your friends and family network. Word of mouth functions as an app marketing strategy by identifying potential users interested in your app's offerings. For example, if five friends install your app, and they, in turn, inform five more people each, a cascading word-of-mouth effect spreads the word about your app to a substantial audience without cost.
Trust plays a pivotal role in the success of this app marketing strategy. According to a study, 88% of individuals consider word of mouth from acquaintances influential in their purchase decisions. Positive recommendations from friends or family carry weight, leading to increased adoption. In an era of easy access to information, such endorsements are particularly effective. Consider how you have relied on product reviews and ratings before installing an app to appreciate the potential of word of mouth.
16. SEO-optimized content
An indirect app marketing strategy worth noting is the use of an SEO-optimized website. There are three primary reasons why having a search engine-optimized website benefits your app:
Organic Reach: SEO optimization boosts your website's search engine ranking, increasing organic traffic. More traffic means a larger audience for your app marketing efforts.
Exposure: When users search online, your website can appear in search results, introducing your app as a solution. User-intent-based searches on the web can lead many users to discover your app.
Legitimacy: A website signals that your app is legitimate. Your website should feature comprehensive information about your app to convince users of its authenticity.
How to optimize your website for SEO:
Collect user data and generate user behavior reports to understand engagement metrics like session duration and bounce rate. Analyze this data to identify high-performing pages and make improvements.
Conduct thorough keyword research, including long-tail keywords that reflect user intent. Create content and pages tailored to these keywords.
Invest in content marketing, particularly long-form content, which tends to rank higher than shorter content.
Focus on both on-page and off-page SEO. On-page optimization involves meta tags, headings, and URLs, while off-page SEO includes activities like link building, social sharing, and influencer marketing.
Ensure your website is mobile-friendly in design and responsiveness, optimizing it for mobile devices.
Improve page loading speed to enhance the user experience.
17. Public Relations (PR)
A Public Relations (PR) campaign aims to bolster a business's brand image, facilitating extensive outreach to potential customers, competitors, and investors.
How to execute a PR campaign:
There are various approaches to running a PR campaign:
Issue a press release to announce your app's launch.
Host a launch party and invite media and influencers.
Seek coverage in newspapers and relevant blogs.
Write guest posts for reputable blogging platforms to enhance your visibility.
PR campaigns offer several advantages as an app marketing strategy:
Creates Wide Awareness: PR campaigns, particularly for pre-launch promotions, expose your app to potential customers, significantly increasing visibility. Additionally, PR mentions can boost your Google ranking.
Expands Investor Reach: A well-crafted PR campaign can help you connect with more investors, potentially securing additional funding for your app business.
Influencer marketing has proven invaluable for countless brands seeking to reach their target audience. Identifying the most suitable influencers and partnering with them to promote your products or services can be a highly effective app marketing strategy.
Here are some popular influencer marketing platforms:
Additionally, here are other influencer marketing solutions:
Conducting searches on social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
Partnering with influencers who have the right audience can significantly enhance your app's visibility and engagement.
19. Quora Marketing
App marketing through Quora is an often overlooked yet highly beneficial strategy. With over 300 million users on Quora as of 2022, the platform offers substantial exposure potential for your app. Here are some tips for leveraging Quora effectively:
Appoint a reputable individual, such as the CEO or Product Manager, to respond to questions.
Identify topics closely related to your app and actively answer questions within those categories.
Target questions that are popular but have few answers, as this increases your chances of gaining visibility.
Structure your answers in a clear and readable format, ensuring they address the topic comprehensively.
If you already have relevant content on your app or blog, repurpose it to provide thorough answers on Quora.
This approach may be most effective for certain app categories. For instance, if your app is related to retail and has physical stores, traditional advertising methods like pamphlets and banners can be utilized. To enhance this app marketing strategy, you can offer special discounts and incentives to users who download the app, creating a mutually beneficial scenario.
These are some of the most sought-after app promotion techniques. However, if you're interested in exploring additional app marketing strategies, consider engaging with an app promotion platform or user acquisition platform. On these platforms, you can specify campaign details such as goals, budget, and targeting, and the platform will manage the rest of the process.
