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Two apps launched with similar features, performance, and quality on the app store; one becomes successful in the market, and the other remains unknown.
This is the story of every other app developer and their applications.
Apps are big businesses and equally complicated one. Every company is investing in apps for its unique business objectives. However, not every app that is submitted to the app store becomes successful; instead just ascends the number of the apps by one.
The App Store market is saturated with numerous applications, and the numbers are growing daily. Talking about the top two most popular app stores, Google Play Store and Apple App Store, as per the latest stats generated by Statista–
In the first quarter of 2021, there were 3.48 million apps available in the Google Play Store for the users to choose from; and roughly 2.22 million apps on the Apple app store.
The users may find the stats appealing, but when it comes to the app developers, things are a bit different. With the rise in the number of apps submitted on the app store, the competition for the app developers also intensifies.
Having more alternative options in an app category, the probability of the downloads and subscription for an application divides. To help you with the same and increase your app downloads and boost engagement with the users, we have discussed some of the extremely powerful and actionable tips in this article.
Having said that, let’s dive in:
Top 7 Cost-effective Ways to Boost your App Downloads and Subscriptions
With each passing day, mobile applications are becoming more and more popular due to their convenience and usability. The user on average spends three hours a day using mobile applications. In 2021, this has now risen to 4.2 hours, 30 percent more than just two years ago, following the pandemic. Considering which businesses are investing in mobile applications.
The mobile app can be developed for different goals such as-
- Spread awareness about your brand.
- Boost productivity.
- Boost customer loyalty.
- Communicate and engage with the users.
- Leverage mobile commerce
Here are some instrumental tips that will allow you to stand out among other apps and increase downloads regardless of the goals of your business.
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1. Choose a Well-Designed App Icon
The foremost thing noticed and remembered by the user about your application is the icon. The app icon says a lot about the application, contributing to the app downloading decision of the user.
Poor quality or confusing app icons might prevent the user from downloading the application. Also if they are not able to recognize your application or understand the idea of your application, they will quickly skip the app considering it inauthentic.
To prevent this, here are some factors you should consider while designing your app icon-
- Application icons should be scalable to fit well on all the pages including the home page or the submenus.
- The icon should be recognizable and should reflect your brand.
- The icon should speak the app idea like displaying its main feature.
- The icon must comply with the design guidelines of the app store.
If icon designing is not your thing, it is recommended to hire a creative app designer who can create an impactful app icon that reflects your brand value and leaves an impression on the users that lasts longer.
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2. Focus on App Store Optimization(ASO)
Just like the concept of the website ranking on the search engines, the app that ranks better on the app stores has more visibility as well as downloads as compared to the low-ranked apps.
With App Store Optimization(ASO) techniques, you can improve the ranking of your app in app stores. Here are some useful factors to consider to rank your app better on the App store and be easily discoverable to the user. The classic of all is keyword research.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and App Store Optimization (ASO) are similar in approach. SEO is for website positioning on SERP whereas ASO focuses on the ranking of the applications; both do this through the main weapon that is the keyword.
Find the relevant app store keywords for your applications and seed them on the relevant places in your application. Along with this, also consider the following factors-
- Pick the right category for your application
- Draft an app title that’s simple yet quickly grabs the user’s attention.
- Optimize your application description
- Optimize your images and screenshots used on the product page of the App Store.
- Try to get users to rate and review your app periodically.
- Localize your app description so that it’s comprehensible to the local audience.
- Leverage video and animation in your app description to make it more comprehensible.
- Update your application frequently
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3. Build Your Online Presence
Along with the App store optimization, take the benefit of the Search Engine Optimisation too. Create a website and social media page for your application with similar images and icons included in it. Optimize the page and website through effective SEO strategies to create a strong online presence.
Websites and social media pages work wonders to create a better customer relationship. You can write blogs on your websites about some burning app-related questions in the market to help the user get through it, just like the Candy Crush Saga does. Or create a blog with some latest topics related to your app category. Optimize the blogs for the search engines to rank higher on the SERP.
Social media pages, owing to the popularity of the social media platforms like Facebook, give a platform to the users to connect with each other and also give your brand huge visibility in the market. For example, having a page on Facebook can give a huge exposure to more than 2.7 billion monthly active users.
Candy Crush Saga is a great example of how to leverage the power of social media.
- Source: Candy Crush Saga Facebook PageAlso, if in some cases the user is not able to find out your application in the top results of the App Store, there are chances that after reading some interesting stuff from your page or blogs they can check out your application.
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4. Build Audience through Email Marketing
Once you have created your online presence, you can start working towards building your audience. For this, you can build an email marketing campaign. Email marketing has the potential to yield an ROI of $51 on each dollar spent. Hence it can work for your app downloads and promoting subscriptions as well.
To leverage email marketing, start with collecting the email ids through the sign-up forms of your website as well as landing pages. These are the email id of the interested candidates who are most likely to download your application.
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Once you have an effective email list, share your app-related blogs, latest releases, as well as subscription offers through emails. This will engage your audience and encourage them to try your application for a seamless experience.
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5. Promote your Application through Social Media Marketing
Not only for creating your online presence, but social media can also be a great platform for promoting your application. Statista estimates that over 3.6 billion people used social media in 2020, a number expected to grow to almost 4.41 billion by 2025.
Hence promoting your application on social media with the right strategy in place can give your application tremendous recognition and popularity. In fact, a report from Mobile App Daily indicates that 70% of online businesses use social media to market their mobile apps.
Here is how you can leverage social media marketing to grow your app downloads/subscriptions.
- Opt for paid social media ads
- Reach out to the popular influencers to promote your application i.e. influencer marketing.
- Leverage user-generated content to tell users about the value of your app.
- Run contests to encourage people to download your app.
- Interact with your users on social media.
- Understand which social media platform will be more relevant to your marketing needs.
- Source: Statista In addition, you can also create hashtagged social media campaigns to join or create social media trends. You can use hashtags in several ways like promoting a prelaunch, increase brand awareness, or advertise new features.
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6. Employ Referral Marketing
The Forbes report shows that 78% of B2B marketers attribute good or excellent lead generation to referral programs, having lower cost-per-lead than other channels. Referral marketing proves to be an excellent marketing strategy that enables you to promote your application without spending a penny as it is completely carried out by the user.
You can include the referral marketing tactics within your application, encouraging the users to share and promote the app with their family and friends. For example, Candy Crush Saga facilitates the user to ask for life from their Facebook friends to continue the game.
Source: Whatmobile.net
Referral marketing not only encourages the existing users to engage more with the app but also works as word-of-mouth marketing for your application.
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7. Get Insight into the User Behavior Through In-App Tracking
To move forward you need to cut ties with the things that are holding you back. The same is the case with app downloads, if you want to increase your app downloads, first of all, you need to eliminate all the possible reasons that can prevent the user from downloading the application.
To find this out, you can leverage in-app tracking in your application. With this process, you will get an insight into the user’s behavior as well as the answers to some of the important questions like-
- What is the retention rate of your application?
- What is the most common stage of your application on which the users are uninstalling your application?
- What are the most performing features of your application?
- How much time is the user spending on your application?
- Is there any issue that needs to be addressed?
Once you have got the answers to all the questions, you can make the necessary changes to your application accordingly.
Along with this, you can also address the update requests initiated by the users and inform them about the same. This will upgrade the performance of your app, and it will also help you to gain your users’ trust and make them feel valued.
Are you ready to increase your app downloads?
While more apps are being used than ever, fewer are being downloaded, which clearly means that only a handful of apps are dominating the overwhelming majority of user attention. Not only this, an alarming statistic from Statista indicates that 25% of apps were only used once after installation from 2010 to 2019 around the world.
Hence, along with boosting the app downloads, you need to focus on app retention as well, as it affects the performance of the application in the market in the long run. Hence, it is critical now more than ever that app developers solve real problems with their products and opt for sound marketing strategies to reach out to their users.
The article guides you well about the factors that can boost your app downloads and make your application successful. Formulate an effective strategy considering these factors and march towards success.
If your search for a good mobile app development company has taken you to our website, we hope that our custom application development services are something that you want to take advantage of. Hire a competent mobile app development team, who will not only develop a powerful application for your business but also assist you in marketing it.
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