The importance of marketing your app should not be overlooked. Developing a great app is a good start but its really just the first chapter in your success story. If you have just created the next big thing then you need to spread the word and have the word spread for you! As you research your application development consideration should also be given to customer acquisition. Once your app is live in the Appstore and the Android Market its time to ramp things up.
1. Website Development – Having a website developed to promote and showcase your app is almost essential, try to think of a high profile successful app that is not backed by a good website and we will be surprised if you can find one. Its not unusual for us to offer website development in conjunction with app development, its the perfect tool to showcase the features of the app, provide download links and gain valuable feedback from your users. It gives the media a point of contact as well and that can be used to great advantage.
2. Website Promotion – Promote your website and you promote your app simple and easy. The number one traffic source today is still search traffic and Google leads the way, a good search marketing strategy is important here. We manage SEO and SEM campaigns that help ensure our clients websites are correctly optimized and ranking for the key search terms that make the difference between a few downloads and a few thousand downloads..
3. Social Media – Plenty of people will argue about the effectiveness of social media, the one point they won’t argue is that you have to be there. Think social media and your almost always thinking of Facebook and Twitter first which is fine, however for brand building, traffic volumes and viral marketing its hard to go past Youtube. If you create the right Youtube clip and it goes viral that can often do the whole job for you! Run a Youtube channel, Facebook page and Twitter account in conjunction with your website and your heading in the right direction.
4. Press Release – The humble press release is still one of our favorites, its hard to beat a good media buzz and if you have your doubts look at the way Branson and other “pros” leverage the media to gain free publicity.
5. Blogs – There are a number of app review websites and / or “blogs” you should be contacting, bloggers love new stuff and are always looking for content to write about, they are very powerful and very efficient info distribution networks and its well worth the time and effort to use them as part of your strategy. People blog about everything, use Google to search out the best most relative targets and start making contact.
6. Print – This part should be easy, if your app is about fishing then fishing magazines are a great way to reach your target market. Again this is an opportunity to build your brand via your website that will in turn generate downloads and sales via the Appstore and the Android Market.