App Marketing 101 Series: Paid Media (Pillar 5)

Welcome back to our weekly App Marketing 101 10-part series. In part 5, we tackle best practices in use of Paid Media to increase discovery of your app. Unlike some of the other marketing opportunities we have outline in our 101 series, advertising almost always requires funds to include in your marketing plan. That being said, paid advertising is both a great way to create discovery en masse and gain valuable insights on keywords and your demographic.

 

How to Create a Successful Ad

If you have some budget available, you can purchase ad space via the many ad networks that exist. Most are self-serve and are easy to access and utilize.

In order to maximize return on your investment for your ad purchase, most of your effort should go into creating your ad.

Before creating any ad, make sure you have a clear idea of your campaign objective. For the most part this will be to increase downloads for your app. Whatever the objective, make sure you keep your ad creative focused on achieving the copy you write to the image you select.

Keep your ads simple. There is not very much real estate to play around with for most of your ad opportunities, so you won’t want to clutter your ad with a lot of copy, busy backgrounds or too many images. Many ad networks cap the character limit image size forcing you to be extremely creative in how you get your message across.

Despite character and image restrictions, you will need to play around with copy and design to ensure that your ad grabs attention and is enticing enough to meet your objective. Images are the first thing that catches a users eye online and play a powerful role in the feeling and mood you are trying to convey with your message.

Mention your pricing or call out the promotion you are advertising in your ad. This is especially useful if your app is free or if a price change such as a giveaway or discount is in place for your product.

Above all else, include a strong call to action. If you are looking for downloads of your app, make sure you say, “Download this app”.  Be clear on what you are asking your audience. Ads are not the place to be vague, so don’t be afraid to be direct and ask for what you are looking for from this ad campaign.

 

Select the Ad Opportunities Best Suited for Your Audience

When it comes to advertising online, there are many opportunities to consider. Think about who your audience is and where they are more likely to find you to make your decision on where to spend your budget.

Paid Search: Search ad opportunities like Google’s AdWords allows you to purchase simple text or text & image ads. This is a great way to test out your SEO strategy and the results from these campaigns should always go back into making future search decisions.

  • Facebook Ads: These ads are best known for their social reach as interactions with the ad appear on the users wall causing a ripple effect with their network. Facebook ads also allow for extremely specific targeting based on the wealth of information it knows about its users.
  • Twitter:  Promoted tweets and followers as ad opportunities to consider with this social network.
  • YouTube: Paid promotion of your demo video or your channel connected acts similar to AdWords with the ability to choose keywords seeing YouTube is as much a powerful search engine as it is a social network.
  • Mobile Ad Networks: Since your product is mobile, it makes complete sense to advertise using this medium. Mobile ads see much higher click through rates (CTRs) but have the most limited space to express your message.
  • Incentivized app advertising: Although this area has been under some heavy scrutiny from some OEMs, purchasing ads which reward users with points within in-app game experiences for clicking or even downloading your app has proven to be quite successful for many app owners

 

Always Target Your Ads

Almost all ad networks will allow you to target your ads based on demographic. Always take advantage of this feature when trafficking your ad. This will, of course, mean that you will need a good idea of who your audience is for your app.

For ad opportunities, like Facebook, this will not only mean the basics like country, gender, age group and education level but also includes interests, martial status and workplace/occupation.

At launch, the choices you make for your demographic will most likely be based on stereotypes, commonsense and experience. But as your app matures in the marketplace and through the various marketing and ad campaigns your run you should be looking to the data available to you to refine your target.

 

Testing Ads is the Key To Ad Success

Testing your ads is an important tactic to ensure that you are maximizing your budget. Its extremely common to traffic one or two campaigns that have minor changes between the two to understand what works and doesn’t work. This method is called split-testing and should become a common practice to exercise when purchasing an ad campaign.

When split-testing ads you will want to keep on top of the metrics your ad provider has available for you in order to make decisions on what is working and what needs to change. Split-testing works by taking a single ad campaign and running multiple versions of that ad with minor changes. The easiest and usually the most effective change is through the ad image you decide to run with your message.

Before making any decision on the ads you are testing, let them run for a while. A couple of days is usually all you need to see what response you are getting from the ads you have running. Look at the click through rate (CTR) as the key metric for success with your ads. Compare this interaction between ads and keep those that work and kill those that are not maximizing your budget.

 

App Marketing 101 Series: Social Media (Pillar 4)

Social Media has become the holy grail for marketers and it’s no wonder as if done properly a brand can see tremendous success for significantly less money than traditional marketing and advertising.

Where social media saves you in money, it makes up in its need of significant time and effort. If you choose to use these as part of your marketing strategy for your app, make sure you are invested to keep your networks active.

Social networks need constant and consistent attention if they are to grow and be a successful part of your marketing strategy.

Facebook Page

The first thing that comes to anyone’s mind when you mention social media is Facebook.

The effectiveness of Facebook comes from its social reach. Interactions with your product Facebook page by one person has a ripple effect with their entire network, meaning you only need to convert one to instantly communicate to many.

Facebook’s made it pretty easy for brands to market their products through Pages. Your first step is to create a Facebook page for your app. If you already have a page for your brand, update it to market your app.

Some key marketing opportunities to take advantage on this page:

  • Create an effective cover photo for your page adhering to the Facebook Guidelines about marketing products with this image
  • Use your Info About & Description fields to highlight what your app is and the benefits they will provide to your user
  • Update your Info Website section to include download links to your application
  • Create an album featuring screenshots of your app as well as the QR codes
  •  Take advantage of defining a username (or vanity URL) for your Facebook page after reaching 25+ fans

Your Facebook page will only be effective if you have traffic and fans so you will need to include plans to grow this page as part of your marketing. Running Facebook ads is one way to do this. But also be sure to include mention of your Facebook page in all of your marketing collateral including your website.

As you gain fans to your page, you are going to want to interact with them. Some effective ways to keep them engaged are:

  • Create a poll surveying the most utilized scenario for your app
  • Start a discussion topic related to your app’s subject matter or asking for feedback
  • Ask questions to your fans via your wall
  • Post your announcements and product releases
  • Leverage your Tweets and YouTube videos

Facebook’s “insight” reporting is extremely useful and, beyond the social reach factor, is the other reason marketers and brands gravitate towards using it. Be sure to review your Facebook reports often to get a good understanding of your demographic and use this information to better your marketing and your product.

 

Twitter

The key to Twitter is to see it more as a broadcast tool than a community builder. You still have an opportunity to grow a following and interact with your audience using this social network, but it is less personal compared to Facebook.

Be sure to update your profile on Twitter with your app logo. Use the 160 characters they give you to state what your app is about and include the download URL. You can also take advantage of the background and new cover photo which are available visual assets on this page to market your product.

Once you are up and running start following to get followed. Follow people and brands that align well with your offering. The secret to growing your Twitter community is to follow others. When someone follows you, follow them back.

You can increase the discovery of your Twitter page through the use of Twitter directories but avoid opportunities to pay for followers as Twitter heavily frowns on this and could suspend your account.

Like Facebook, you are going to want to keep your Twitter feed active. And also like Facebook, you aren’t going to do well by hard selling your audience. Make sure you treat your tweets like micro-blog posts – something meaningful to you, your brand and what your app is all about.

It’s best to construct your tweets even shorter than the 140 characters Twitter gives you to set them up for re-tweeting. Re-tweeting is basically re-posting somebody’s tweet in your Twitter feed as is as commonly done as creating new Tweets. Your feed should be a good mixture of Tweets you write and re-Tweets from your followers.

You will also want to make sure that you are using hashtags in your Tweets. Hashtags are used by Twitter to organize Tweets. This makes it easy for users to search and find Tweets related to a certain topic or subject matter. Become familiar with the hashtags your followers use and incorporate them into your own posts. The use of hashtags will help introduce your Tweets to an audience outside of your following providing an opportunity for you to gain more followers.

 

YouTube

If a picture is worth a thousand words than a video is worth a million. YouTube is undeniably the powerhouse of online video that is why it is a fantastic marketing opportunity for your app.

Create a YouTube Channel for your app making sure that your app brand/icon; description and download links are in your profile.

Next, shoot and upload your videos.

You are definitely going to want to create a demo video for your app. These are becoming exceedingly common and can be leveraged in some app store product pages as well as your other social networks and your website.

For any video you upload, take some time to write a description that will convince users to view but is also packed with keywords to help your video show up in the search results.

YouTube also equips you with the ability to embed links in your video through the use of annotations. This is especially effective in your app videos to help drive users to download the app right from the video.

App Marketing 101 Series: App Store Marketing (Pillar 3)

Welcome to the third article in our 10-part article series on App Marketing. Last week we covered everything you need to know about Pricing your product and the use of Pricing as a Promotional Vehicle. This week’s marketing pillar covers this ins and outs of better use of the app store to market your product.

Since it’s inception, the application storefronts have been the most powerful merchandising and promotional vehicle for app discovery. With the app stores so influential, it is incredibly important to understand how to use them to your advantage.

App publishers need to look at their product page and other areas in the app store not simply as a distribution center but as powerful marketing opportunities which, if utilized correctly, will assist in increasing discovery and downloads for your app.

Your Product Page is a Marketing Opportunity

Be sure to put some thought into the elements that make up your product page in the app store. Don’t treat this as a just a mandatory step in the submission process, but rather an important marketing opportunity.Remember, all parts of this page need to be geared towards one goal – download. Your name, icon, description and screenshots are tools you have to convince the user to download your application. Make sure you use all options available to their full potential.

Some quick tips:

  • If you are not an already established brand, then choose an app name that is relevant to your app’s purpose
  • Your app icon is your logo so make sure it is creative, high quality and represents what your app is all about
  • Upload as many screenshots as possible, prioritizing those that showcase your features and content
  • Don’t waste screenshots on loading screens or standard device processes like calling, texting or shutting down – focus on your app
  • Include a video if the store allows it, a well done demo of your application goes along way to converting the audience to a user

 

Don’t Forget Your Keywords

The app stores search algorithm’s and their use of metadata is still somewhat a mystery. What we do know is that optimizing your description and utilizing keywords does make a difference.  Some app stores like provide fields to input keywords up to 100 characters.  If this is available use it!

When selecting your keywords:

  • Start first with keywords you may already have from your web SEO efforts.
  • Don’t need to include your app name.
  • Many developers believe that you only need commas to separate, not spaces, which should free up some characters.
  • Select keywords that will maximize results – avoid general terms and use words relevant to your app’s niche and purpose.
  • Additionally, write your app description including all of your keywords.  List your features, your content and even go as far as include the types of users or scenarios you feel your audience may use to search for an app.

 

Choose Your Category Strategically

When it comes to choosing a category for your app within the store, do your homework. Perform searches to see where your competitors show up. Look in the categories you feel you would most fit to see what apps are featured.You will want to choose a category that is a logical choice for your audience to find you. But be on the look out for opportunities that will allow you to stand out. Categories with fewer total apps or that have little to no other apps with your offering may be better suited to provide you the visibility you need.

 

Reviews & Ratings Can Be the Key to Climbing the Charts

When a user enters the app store they make most of their download decisions in the list view. Here they are given only a couple of things to help them make their decision: app name, icon, price and the rating and number of reviews.Ratings & reviews aren’t just great vehicles to collect feedback on your, they also help your app standout in the list. Apps with more activity (ratings & reviews) are more apt to be tapped on than those that have no star ratings or comments.Additionally, app stores have started to factor in activity (ratings & reviews) as part of the criteria used to build the merchandising areas – like the top chart.

Actively encourage feedback from users. Include a call to action in your app, your webpage and social networks to request reviews and ratings.Create an area in your “About” or “Info” area of your app that has a link to review and rate your app. Consider a timed pop-up to appear in the app while the user is interacting with it to remind them to give feedback.Make getting feedback from your users a core part of your ongoing marketing efforts for your app.

 

Add a Personal Touch When Submitting

The app store submission process is automated and for the most part the thousands of developers and product owners who submit their app have no visibility or access to the people behind the process.Just because you don’t have a name, doesn’t mean you can’t differentiate yourself by personalizing your submission using the notes & comments. Don’t leave this optional area blank. Use it to highlight how your app is unique. List new APIs that you are using. Spell out features or design that you feel differentiate your app. What you want to do is create a reason for the reviewer to remember your app. This is a great first step in building a relationship with this team and could help increase your chance of being featured in their marketplace.

 

Think Beyond the OEM Application Stores

 The manufacturer and carrier storefronts are not the only places users can find your app. There are many app catalogs, third-party app stores and app search engines you should utilize as part of distribution. Search these out and make sure you submit your applications so that they are available.

The alternative app stores usually have additional marketing opportunities you can take advantage of such as advertising and paid features. They also provide analytics and reports that can provide further insight into your users to feed back into marketing. The more places your app exists, the better chance your audience can find and download your app.

App Promo is proud to be an Innovator at Appnation IV Worldwide Developer Summit—–December 11&12,2012 — San Francisco

 

App Promo is proud to be an AppNation Innovator at Appnation IV Worldwide Developer Summit to be help in San Francisco at the Moscone West, San Francisco Dec 11 & 12, 2012. Gary Yentin, CEO  (gary@app-promo.com) and Tom Emrich, Principal (tom@app-promo.com) will be attending so please email us or tweet us @Apppromo to setup a time to meet!  Looking forward to seeing everyone in SF! We look forward to continuing the conversation on the business of applications: marketing, strategy and monetization at AppNation 2012. “AppNation is the only event focused on the business size of the App Revolution, APPNATION attracts not only developers, but also leaders from carriers, platform developers, media, government and commerce. This is the elite of the App world, gathered together in one place and one time, working to forge the next phase of market expansion.”

App Marketing Series 101: Pricing (Pillar 2)

App Marketing Pricing

Welcome to the second article in our 10-part article series on App Marketing. Last week we covered the importance of understanding and being able to clearly articulate your product. This week we will talk about how to price your app and using pricing as a marketing tool.

Determining the price of your app can be as complex as coding it, especially with the growing options available.

Free, paid or freemium? In-app purchase or subscription?

Pricing is not just a mandatory step in the submission process but is also an important part of marketing your app. Users will factor in price when making the decision to download and use your app, so choose wisely.

Determine Your Revenue Expectations
Start with understanding your revenue expectations.

Are you trying to recoup the cost of developing the app?  Or are you looking to turn a profit? Do you see this app as your primary business? Or will this app drive sales for a business already established?

Once your expectations are clear, it’s time to ask yourself how your app will meet these needs and what monetary goals will you set to gauge it’s success.

Do Your Research
To help with your pricing decisions, look to your competition to understand what pricing models and figures they are using.

Position yourself against these apps and make sure that your app is able to hold its own if not stand out from the crowd.

If you are expecting to make your app premium when other apps with the same offering exist as free, for example, you will need to either rethink your pricing model or modify your offering to ensure the value is there to increase your chance of success.

Price to Sell
Don’t forget the user when you make your pricing decision. Will your user pay for your app? Would they be annoyed with ads?

This is a good time to leverage your networks, existing database, social networks and forums if you have them. Getting some feedback directly from your potential users will help guide you in the right direction.

Test, Test, Test
Once you make a choice, give your pricing decision some time before making any changes.

Price changes should be planned and should be rooted either in marketing or as a reaction to your market.

If you do decide to modify your price, keep in mind that changes in price will have an immediate impact on volume (increase or decrease) so let things cool down before you make the call as to whether your decision was a successful one.

It’s Easier to Take Away than to Add
When setting your price, it’s better to err on the side of more then less.  Users are more apt to accept a price reduction than they are an increase so if you are teetering between two numbers it’s better to select the higher amount.

Starting high will also give more room for promotions.

Use Pricing as a Marketing Tool
Planning changes to your price in the form of sales, discounts, coupons and giveaways are great promotional opportunities for your app.

Sales & discounts work well to stimulate known lulls in purchase behavior as well as to spike growth related to calendar events and holidays that fit well with your product.

Coupons and giveaways act as great prizes for contests and rewards to your community and social networks.

Introducing the App Promo 10-part App Marketing 101 Series: Product (Pillar 1)

Marketing 101 - App MarketingWith such a positive response from the community for our App Store Optimization 5 part series, we have decided to continue offering a marketing series via our blog to help add to the conversation and education of the importance of marketing in the business of apps. We are pleased to introduce to you our 10-part App Marketing 101 series which has been constructed to provide you with tips, tricks and information on all 10 major pillars of app marketing.

Our first article focuses on the most important element of any successful marketing initiative – your product. Knowing who your audience is, defining your product to better articulate it to the market and ensuring your product meets the needs and the quality desired by your audience are topics we cover in our first of our 10-part series.

No matter what marketing efforts you put behind your app, the success of any campaign will come down to your product.

Being a product owner, it is extremely important for you to understand your app’s purpose and demographic and translate these ideas into a working product that has the utmost quality for your user.

 

Define Your App’s Purpose

Regardless if you are building a game, utility or a communication tool, the key to app success is to understand what you are building and why it will benefit your user.

Your app’s purpose should be extremely focused. Don’t try to accomplish too many things at once or you risk confusing, overwhelming and losing your user.

Look to your competition to help you define things. What are they doing well, what are they missing at and what can you do better?

A great exercise to help you fine tune your objective is to explain your app in six words or 140 characters (like a tweet) or less. This is not only a great way to clarify your concept but the output can also be used to create your marketing messaging in your upcoming campaigns or your unique selling proposition (USP).

 

Put Yourself in the User’s Shoes

Once you have determined WHAT you are building take yourself through the remaining 5 W’s to help understand your demographic.

Ask yourself:

  • Who are you building this app for?
  • Why will they use it?
  • When will they use it?
  • Where will they use it?

It is extremely important to know whom your user or users are and to continue to think like them throughout the idea, design, development and especially testing phases of your app project.

Keep this demographic in mind when it comes to your marketing. Target your paid media to this audience. Cater and create your marketing messaging using the answers to the questions above. Maintain a consistent vision of who your user to be sure that you end up with a product that your users want.

 

Don’t Cheap Out on Quality

Marketing is there to bring visibility and traffic to your application. But it can backfire if your application is not ready for the spotlight.

Be sure that when you kick-off your marketing efforts your product is available and working. Your project timeline should have a strong emphasis on testing – both from a code and user perspective, to flush out bugs that will cause the app to crash and give a poor user experience.

It is often wise to schedule a marketing launch a time after the actual production launch of your app (or general release). This will give you time to see traffic and usage of your application from real users in a manageable volume. The feedback you gain during this time will help determine how ready you are to

 

Use your Product Roadmap as a Marketing Tool

The app ecosystem is an active one. Users expect to see updates to their apps and look forward to fixes, design changes and new features when it comes to their favorite applications.

These updates act as a form of marketing to your current users as the notification they will receive will keep your product top of mind and will spike usage. Be sure to spread out your updates to allow for usage to drop before you release another version to maximize its impact.

Keep on top of new operating system software updates and update your product with features that utilize them if it makes sense.

Updates to your app are also a great reason to establish a marketing campaign outside of launch so start to view them as more than just code releases.

App-Promo’s new client ShanaTova App is now available in the AppStore! -http://bit.ly/shanatovaapp

The Shana Tova App -Now available in the AppStore

App-Promo’s new client the ShanaTova App is now live in the AppStore- http://bit.ly/shanatovaapp

The app is a great way to share with friends and family, mobile photo greetings for the Jewish New Year.
– Use any photo or image to create a personalized photo greeting card.
– Each card is automatically framed with a simple Rosh Hashanah theme.
– Download the app once and send as many photo greetings as you want, with the same photo or a different one for each card.

ShanaTovaApp also provides information on what Rosh Hashanah is all about: why we celebrate it, the blessings, what the rituals mean. You’ll be chatting up your rabbi in no time!

App Promo Facebook Page Now Over 6,000 Fans

App Promo Facebook 6,000

Thank you to everyone who has LIKED us on Facebook! We just surpassed our 6,000 fan mark.

We are so proud of the community that we have created to help share our commitment to the conversation on the business of apps.

If you haven’t had a chance to join the conversation – you can find us here: https://www.facebook.com/AppPromo

Gary Yentin Added as Panelist to Speak on Distribution Models for eBooks & Apps at Media App Summit 2012

Media App Summit 2012

Gary Yentin has just been added to the agenda for the upcoming Media App Summit which will be held at the infamous New Yorker Hotel in New York City December 3, 2012.

Gary will be speaking on a panel on the topic of “New Distribution Models for eBooks and Apps”. This panel discusses some of the tools and strategies available to market and publicize apps while also drawing attention to some of the websites and services out there that can be helpful. Gary will be joined by other leaders in the mobile app and eBook space including Atavist, Tiggzi and Arcade Sunshine Media.

The Media App Summit unites book and magazine publishers, developers, digital content strategists, editors, authors, and entrepreneurs for an extensive look into the cutting-edge world of media app design, demographics, and distribution.

For more information on this panel visit: http://www.mediabistro.com/mediaappsummit/program_day1.asp#at100

For a full list of speakers visit: http://www.mediabistro.com/mediaappsummit/speakers.asp

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