Marketing a Mobile App: 13 Advanced Tactics You Need to Know

Organic tactics involve targeting relevant keywords\xa0your audience will be searching or partnering with a creator.

With the wrong targeting, you can focus your efforts in the wrong place.

Building a mobile app from scratch is only half the battle.

A few of the top retention tactics\xa0include:

• Push Notifications:\xa0Sending out native app messages to your users who opted in to highlight new features or get them to open the app
• Engagement: Providing offers, loyalty programs, referrals, or constant communication to your audience
• Personalization:\xa0Customizing your content based on user preference
• Regular Updates: Announcing new app updates to your user base in hopes they will try them out
• Chat Support: Providing users with a channel to give feedback or adding a helpful chatbot\xa0to your app or site

There are many types of awareness tactics you can deploy:

• SEO: Producing optimized articles with relevant SEO keywords\xa0that are indexed in search engines
• Social Media Marketing: Building an online community of passionate fans who engage with interesting, original content
• Paid Advertising: Promoting brand content through paid social ads, search engine marketing, native ads, and display ads
• Influencer Marketing: Partnering with micro and macro influencers to share your app with their followers
• Content Marketing: Highlighting your app’s value and features in short-form blogs and long-form guides

Acquisition

A beta group can act like a core focus group that provides valuable insights.

Wherever you are, try to get strangers, colleagues, and friends to download the app and share their experiences.

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In addition, you can run Twitter ads\xa0that are set up in a way to drive downloads for your app.

After all, you don’t want to focus on acquiring users that delete the app after a few days.

It’s never ideal if you acquire a bunch of dormant users. You need the right balance of active users that grow with you as you scale.

YouTube is another channel to showcase your app. What better way for someone to learn about it than from a YouTuber they adore or an engaging demo video?

Each phase requires different strategies and tactics. Let’s dive into each one in more depth.

Marketing a Mobile App: Fundamental Tactics

Marketing a mobile app requires consistent coordination across many channels.

It is essential to have ongoing evergreen tactics to make sure that users stay connected to the app and continue to use it on a daily or weekly basis.

Next, you want to nudge your prospective user closer to converting. These types of campaigns are called acquisition campaigns.

However, there are critical steps that must happen in order to nudge a user toward conversion.

With an effective marketing campaign, you can reach your target audience and drive downloads and engagement at a low cost.

How Does a Mobile App Marketing Strategy Work?

Product Hunt is the go-to site for new product launches.

This dramatically opens up your total addressable market.

Use Reddit’s search function to explore keywords related to your app. Participate in the conversation by engaging with other posters and by providing valuable insight.

Remember, downloading an app is a commitment for users. They only have so much space on their phone and it takes a few steps to convert.

As the leader, though, you should make sure you structure the meetings with the intent to make sure you get the insights you need.

Featuring your app on this site could result in tens of thousands of new users —\xa0but only if the launch is executed correctly.

Tips for a Successful Product Hunt Launch

• Launch your listing early in the morning, right after midnight on the West Coast. This gives you an entire day to focus on driving “upvotes,” and you can generate a solid amount before the West Coast even wakes up.
• Plan a coordinated campaign across all your channels for how you’ll want to promote your Product Hunt listing.

4. Build Excitement on Twitter

That, for some application developers, can be even more difficult than coding, securing the database hosting, and getting the app off the ground.

Now that you have them, it’s important to retain those to continue to use the app. For those who drop off, you may need to launch re-engagement campaigns to win them back.

Discord communities are often informal communities centered around a specific topic.

This is great for testing, feedback, and word-of-mouth promotion.

Tips for Your Beta Group

• Use friends, peers, and social media platforms to establish a beta user base. It’s also valuable to invite those who do not know you or what you’re building. A fresh set of eyes is always important for unfiltered feedback.
• Create a virtual beta user group community using a platform like Discord or Slack. Keep in touch with your group and gather feedback in real time.

13. Create Burst Campaigns

By integrating yourself into the community, you may make the right relationships to accelerate your app’s growth.

Paid tactics include running sponsored ads or paying an influencer\xa0to talk about your app in a video.

Tips for Marketing Your App on YouTube

• Publish a demo video of your app and a video of you explaining why you created it.
• Reach out to growing YouTubers in your niche to see if they’d test your app or promote it in their videos. If you have the resources, contact larger YouTubers for paid partnerships and sponsored ads.

10. Write on Indie Hackers

By selecting the app destination for your ad, Twitter can detect which type of mobile user is engaging with the ad, and it will serve them the appropriate download link.

Tips for Driving Downloads on Twitter

• Create engaging content, including screenshots and videos from your app, to share on Twitter.
• Use Twitter’s Advanced Search function to target specific users with high influence who may be interested.
• Test out a Twitter Ad campaign. There is a specific App Install destination that you can select, which creates a customizable Twitter card.

5. Make Podcast Appearances

There are so many ways to market a mobile app.

Share on your personal social media channels and encourage those around you to do the same. Make it your mission to get a few people to download your app everywhere you go.

Tips

• Collect opinions and user experience feedback from people in social environments, universities, cafes, and other spaces.
• Offer small rewards —\xa0virtual currency in the app, free trials or promo items —\xa0to those who are willing to download on the spot.
• Partner with colleges for user testing to get a lot of students to download at once.

12. Establish a Beta User Group

In this post, we’ll cover everything you need to know about marketing a mobile app. You’ll discover advanced tactics that you can infuse into your marketing plan today.

As those engaged audiences listen to an ad or get an endorsement from a host, they will be inclined to download the app.

That’s a lot of options for users to choose from. You need to entice users to download your app instead of other similar apps in the same category.

It is your job to keep them engaged. After all, it’ll be more costly to go find other users to replace them.

For many, you’re in it for the long haul. A cohesive app marketing campaign isn’t a sprint but rather a marathon.

If you get the chance to appear on the show, take advantage and share what you are building with the loyal listeners.

Tips for Marketing Your Mobile App on a Podcast

• Focus on the value that your app will provide to its users and state it clearly for them. Be concise and compelling when sharing your value proposition.
• Have the host give a review of the app on the air or an endorsement. Their credibility with their listeners is essential for driving more downloads.

6. Start Discussions on Reddit

Let’s dive into a few advanced tactics that you should incorporate into your mobile app marketing strategy today.

13 Advanced Tactics For Marketing A Mobile App

Finally, once you acquire your users, you need to retain them.

However, acquiring users is only half the battle of your marketing strategy. Retaining them is just as important.

Some of the best acquisition tactics include:

• App Store Optimization (ASO): Making sure your app is using the right keywords and tags that users are searching for
• Giveaways: Promising your future users a chance for a prize in place of downloading
• Landing Page: Adding user proof and ensuring there’s an optimized place to collect potential users’ email addresses and info
• Paid Advertising: Launching effective conversion-based ads on social media sites and search engines

By focusing on creating different versions of your app —\xa0both for various languages and devices —\xa0you can make sure you are expanding your market and reaching new people.

Apps need a compelling value proposition as well as an effective marketing strategy to succeed.

As one of the most popular social media sites, TikTok is a ripe channel with many engaged users who could be interested in your app.

After you post and optimize your app in the app store, you still need to find your users.

Natively weave in mentions of what you’re building in an authentic way.

Tips for Marketing Your App on Reddit

• Post on relevant subreddits that have 100+ active community members. Even if the group is small, it can still drive valuable downloads.
• Get user feedback from those in the community. Ask them what they think of your app. They will feel a closer attachment to it when they feel like they are contributing to its success.
• Promote the app in r/Apple. The channel allows developers to promote their work on Sundays.
• Create your own subreddit once the app has launched and gained traction. You can begin to build a community of passionate users with a shared interest in your app.

7. Post on Hacker News

There is a continuous cycle that marketers experience when trying to attract and retain app users.

Tips for Marketing Your App on TikTok

• Your video doesn’t have to be the most professionally-shot piece of content ever. Instead, make a compelling, genuine pitch and showcase your app.
• Partner with a TikTok creator to amplify your post. You can do this by paying them, giving them an exclusive link to share with their followers, or providing them with unique access.
• Don’t forget that content that works on other social networks doesn’t always work on TikTok. Create original, native content specifically for the platform.

2. Implement an App Localization Strategy

Acquiring interested users for your mobile app is no easy task. Clutter from millions of companies bombards potential users from nearly every angle. For a new app, it’s tough to cut through and stand out.

All of these tactics are important for acquiring and nurturing users.

Tips:

• Don’t just join and spam the community. Take time to invest and contribute. Make relationships. Get feedback. Share your app when it’s the right time.
• Ask community members to share the app with their networks.

9. Partner with YouTubers

However, it’s important to know which tactic is useful for the current stage you’re in.

As Discord’s growth continues to soar, so will its value as a viable marketing channel.