6 Tips For Marketing Your New App

By Justin Toy

Many people these days are starting new careers by developing apps in their free time. What might start off as a part-time gig can turn into a lucrative full-time business and a job that could allow you to escape the 9 to 5 life and enter a world of working from home where you can create your own schedule. However, coming up with a good idea and developing a great app are only part of the battle. Even if you build a useful app, without users you won't be able to quit your day job just yet! The various app stores are flooded with a sea of seemingly endless apps. Below is a list of ways to help make your app stick out from the crowd, get downloaded, and start making you money.

1)App Icon
Your app's icon, no matter what app store, will often be a user's first impression. People tend to evaluate an app largely based on the icon alone. When browsing Android or Apple's app store, you may only see the app's icon and name (depending on the device that is being used to browse). A user must click on your icon in order to reach a detailed description of the app. So, designing an eye catching and aesthetically pleasing icon can really help your app get downloaded. Some general guidelines to follow are to make sure that your icon clearly conveys the apps' purpose and functionality, leverages colours and branding images associated with the app, is unique, grabs attention, and is relatively clean and simple. Check out 99 Designs or Fiverr for crowdsourced designs for icons, websites, images, branding, and more.

2)Create a good Description
Now that people are clicking on your app to find out more, your description is going to play a crucial part in convincing the user to download your app. The first 167-257 characters, depending on which app store and device the user is browsing from, are essential as this will be the only part that is visible by default. The user will need to click to see the extended description. It is also important to have strong keywords because they will be used in search results.

3)Have a Professional Website
A website dedicated to your app will not only allow you to drive traffic that will translate to downloads, but also give you the ability to measure and analyse the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. A major drawback to app store listings it that they do not give you insight into any metrics, like how many people visit the listing, where they come from, who they are, etc. The only metric that app marketplaces usually provide is the number of people who end up downloading your app. This by itself is not enough information to measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. By having a website, and using tools like Google Analytics to analyse traffic, you will gain invaluable insight into the traffic patterns to and from your app. Once you've created a web site, you can use link-building and other common Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tricks to build your website's standing in search results. Creating a web site for an app is actually relatively easy. WordPress has a number of templates, including a free one, specifically with an app theme.

4)Get your App Reviewed
Be it restaurants, books, movies or apps, people love to rely on customer reviews when considering a purchase. Given the vast number of apps that are available, app review sites play an increasingly important role in regards to app marketing. When your app is in a state where you feel comfortable having someone write a public review of it, you should reach out to any number of the app review sites that exist to try and get your app reviewed.

In general, there are two types of app reviews sites, ones that are free and ones where you must pay a fee. The idea of paying for a review of your app may seem bit unethical. However, it is a well-accepted industry standard for gathering attention for an app. The truth is that most app sites receive so many free submissions from app developers that they do not have the manpower to review them all. As a result, most sites offer different paid packages that might include faster turnaround times and featured placement on their web sites. Getting reviewed on a couple of sites can not only help create buzz for your app, but the reviews they write will also provide SEO benefits if they include links back to your app's web site. Check out 148apps.com, The iPhone App Review, The Daily App Show, or FreshApps.

5)Press Release
Press releases are a straightforward and effective way to build awareness of your app. There are two main benefits for using a press release to promote the launch of your app. Firstly, it will increase the traffic to your app as press releases are often syndicated on numerous news sites. Secondly, it is a great way to build high-quality links back to your app and improve your SEO rankings.

A press release is a 500-800-word news report written to announce the launch of a new product, service or noteworthy event. It is usually submitted to a single wire service, which then syndicates the release to numerous other news outlets on the internet. It can cost anywhere from $50 – $400 to release a single article depending on which press release service you use.
There are quite a few press release sites on the Internet, you want to make sure you release on a service that provides syndication to high-quality news services such as the Associated Press, Google News, etc. Two such press release services are PR Web and PR Log.

6)Mobile Ad Networks
In-app advertising is one of the easiest ways to get your app in front of a large targeted audience. If you've downloaded a free app, then you've seen those ads that pop out at the bottom or the top of the screen. The best thing about these ads is that they can be highly targeted. The ad network delivers your ad to similar or well-matched apps to increase the chance a user will click on your app. Two major ad networks you should look at are AdMob, which serves up Google AdSense ads, and Apple's iAd. Before you start to think this form of marketing is probably too expensive, mobile ad networks charge on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis.

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