The app has become an essential tool for Internet users. With the proliferation of terminals and applications (1.2 million applications available on the Apple App Store and nearly 2.1 million on Google Play), the application market is booming. Applications are becoming a lever of attractiveness for businesses. For your customers, the application is direct access to a practice, a service, a brand.
According to a study carried out by App Annie, the app would even become the leading BtoB and BtoC interaction channel. But before getting started, you need to ask yourself the right questions. What is your objective ? What is the development cost? How to optimize your app to gain market share?
The objective: to gain customers? An increase in turnover? Better monitoring of customer relations? Better loyalty?
The strategy to adopt for the launch of your application and successful acquisition
1. The launch 📈
Probably, in the first week you will increase the number of downloads significantly. This will likely be followed by a drop in downloads until users find your app interesting and start recommending it to others.
So you have to be ready for that. It is possible to have a significant increase then a decrease and so on. Success takes longer to achieve since you are just starting out.
Releasing an app doesn't mean you'll stop making updates. In fact, it's best to do them regularly. Users are used to receiving updates and they appreciate apps that give them new features a few times a year.
Also play with marketing events like Christmas, Black Friday, Easter etc. These are extremely beneficial events both for the number of downloads but also for your turnover. Your overall app SEO score also has a chance to climb since app stores like Apple Store and Google Play Store appreciate when an app updates its mobile app page.
All you need to do is modify your logo, update your metadata (keywords, screenshots, videos, etc.) and modify them to the colors / terms of the event.
People tend to forget your app exists very quickly. When you release a new version, it is important that you notify users. Register on social media and run advertising campaigns on Facebook. Notifying them of your release and giving them a good reason to download you again should help increase your number of users.
a - Content marketing 🗓
Do not hesitate to create a blog before putting your application online: Indeed, posting content related to your application is crucial to help you make yourself known even before your application is published on the stores .
For example, you can publish articles on your blog to explain to users why they might use the service you offer. Highlighting your skills and experience in this sector can be a good idea to attract the sympathy of Internet users.
b - Community management 👩💻
Launching your application, launching your Instagram account, creating a Twitter account, signing a publication on LinkedIn, investing in a newsletter, you can put all the chances on your side to achieve your objectives by mixing content marketing with the community management and thus make you known and reach a greater number of people.
c - Take into account the positioning of your application 📱
What is your positioning? What is that of your competitors? You can use the SWOT method to analyze this point.
Just like the positioning of your application, you can take into account the positioning of your competitors. This will allow you to address a crucial point for the launch of your application: App store optimization (ASO)
2- App store optimization (ASO)
Once your app is ready to go live, it is strongly recommended to prepare keywords, themes to talk about and features to announce to better develop your app description.
App Store Optimization (ASO) is a technique to boost your downloads. It consists of optimizing your App Store description by adding important keywords and optimizing your visuals to attract the attention of Internet users as much as possible.
Highlight the positive aspects of your application
It is important to have a good description to present your application to your users. This must be clear and detailed and be able to answer the following questions:
What will my application bring to the consumer?
Why is my product/service better than my competitors?
What are the technical characteristics of the application?
What are my main features presented in a video or a clear explanation.
Prepare a list of keywords to highlight
Every day, thousands of applications are created. Competition is therefore tough and it is therefore essential to choose the right search keywords to allow you to be found easily and grow your downloads.
Competitor analysis is therefore important on this point because it is with this analysis that you will determine the important keywords to add to your store profile. To do this, simply look at their website, store details and note the words that come up most often.
Important keywords are the words used by Internet users to find your product and the keywords that you must add in your store page are the keywords that give the most visits to your product.
You can add one or more keywords to the name of your application, in the subtitle, the description etc... Be careful however, you are only allowed a limited number of characters depending on the sections (30 for the title and subtitle (space included))
Prepare attractive visuals
App store optimization also affects the visuals that are highlighted on the store page of your application. You have the possibility to put a video, take advantage of this opportunity to show the functionalities and make people want to download your application through a short video.
3- Apple search ads and Google UAC the paid levers of the stores
To increase the promotion of your application, your downloads and acquisition, it is preferable to set up advertising campaigns on the application stores and not to rely solely on app store optimization.
Apple search ads
Apple search ads is an Apple service that allows you to advertise your application across different services.
In app events
“In app events” are advertising campaigns that highlight your application when it has an event (an important new update, a marketing event linked to your application, competitions in progress) they appear on the App Store in the form of event cards including images or videos, the name of the event and a brief description.
Users can tap to open an event details page, which provides a more immersive experience with a longer description of the event and whether an in-app purchase or subscription is required to participate. From this page they can share your event with others, for example via messages or social media.
Custom page products
With Apple Search Ads you will have the option to create up to 35 pages and when you create a custom product page in App Store Connect, you can choose to start with a copy of your default product page or with a blank page.
You can then customize screenshots, promotional text, and app previews for all locations on your page.
Once you have created your custom product page you will then have the possibility of sharing it via a unique URL to all the people you wish to target, whether by email or otherwise.
Google UAC
To carry out advertising campaigns with Google UAC, Adwords takes control and offers you the possibility of automatically creating your advertising visuals using your store profile.
Google will then broadcast several ads until only one is kept, which will obviously be the most efficient based on the results given.
By using Google AI machine learning to identify which ad performs best, Google claims this process can generate up to 140% higher conversion rates per dollar spent compared to other promotional tools. app from Google.
Targeting is automatic, however you can influence it by defining your conversion goals. Indeed, Google defines locations according to relevance and its inventories among its different networks:
Search: Google Play, Google Search and Search Network Partners
Youtube
Display: mobile applications, sites focused on mobile news, blogs and other thematic sites
Conclusion
Launching an application is always an important moment, so it is important to prepare for its launch online with several tips to allow your mobile app to be well referenced and visible to as many mobile users as possible. Playing on several axes, both paid and free, can allow you to successfully launch your app both in the short term with advertising and in the long term with app store optimization.