I've built it... now, how do I sell it? I need some help marketing my new app.

Hello Ignasi,

Here's a list of how to promote your app in the most cost-effective way possible. I hope it'll help.

https://metrikal.io/blog/how-to-promote-an-app/

I have 2 apps with about 25k installs altogether, pasting the same advice I have in one of my own threads when someone asked for advice

TL;DR: ASO is your best strategy

1. Focus on you key words
   You title is good but might be opportunity to cram in some more key words as your title gives you the biggest boost (e.g. my title is "Scenario Game: would you rather")

2. Nail your screenshots and copy
   The logo is the first thing users see when they find your app in search, so you have to have the most appealing one of everything in the list a user sees. Compare you logo with other competitors and see if it pops more than the others. The logos in the "L" are a nice touch but make sure they're legible on a mobile device. Consider if the black background is going to appeal to your target demographic.

Then for actual screenshots make sure it's clear what the app does (people can be that stupid). I can see logos but I don't see the game itself. Make sure to sell the benefit and not the feature. "See how good you are" is a bit general so maybe something like "Discover hundreds of logos to guess" (I'm sure an ASO expert would suggest something better than me here though). If there's a leaderboard then another screen saying "Compete with the rest of the world"

3. Nail retention
   Retention is the tricky one. Make sure you have analytics in your app first of all, then find ways to keep users coming back. Is there enough content to keep them coming back? Do you notify them when this happens. Keep notifications personal to avoid users switching them off e.g. "Your friend Joe has passed you on the leaderboard"

4. Nail referral
   If you're not prepared or don't have the cash to boost your app store ranking via ads, then referral is your best traction channel. Do you have any features that will make users invite friends? Once idea that I roadmapped (but never got around to) was guess what the majority voted and turn it into a game to play with your friends. Have a look at the Quiz Planet messenger game to see an example of how it might work. If you have the option to invite a friend to play the game with you then you have free acquisition.

Oh one more thing, prompt users to rate the app after a number of positive interactions as ratings will give you an ASO boost. I think one of the stores even indexes keywords from comments (but don't hold me to that). For instance, I perform a prompt after about 20 questions are answered as that's what I determine to be engaged. You can even do A/B tests with this to find the magic number.

Also, try make it as native looking as possible and not interrupt the flow of what the user is trying to achieve (i.e. after they've completed a round as opposed to mid game). I didn't have a logical end point so I made a native looking scenario like "If you had the opportunity to make the developers days and rate the app, would you do it?". If they said yes, it redirected to the app store.

Original thread here for reference: https://www.indiehackers.com/product/prioritizely/23k-installs-later-quitting-the-b2c-game--Lru5hTZc1dtEU0A-x-Q

A bunch of people seem to think that you can "test" an idea and that "marketing it first" is the only way to know if you have a successful idea. I don't agree with that school of thought. I think the best way to find out if you have a great product is to build an MVP like you have and have people try it out.

I think a viable strategy here might also be to try and find a "Growth" or "SEO" expert on upwork or freelancer and have their performance tied to organic user growth.

tips:
-User your product name everywhere you post, build that brand recognition now.
-Maybe change "melon Home" to just "Melon" would be easier to tell your friends to go install it.
-make a video or something that runs through its features? You want to convince someone to install it by showing them its features, most people now if they don't understand 100% the features, they will not even give you a chance by installing it (even if they did they would find it really useful).
-When you create an account or add a role or type into any of your sections on my iphone in the new dark mode the "first name" "last name" and any type into sections on the app you can't read the titles, you have the names white on a white background.

• Generally I don't want to create an account just to test the features, there should be a setting to prompt you to create an account only when you want to start posting.
  -I know you are trying to make this a "family planning" thing, but your limiting your market needlessly, this could easily just be a better planner to have with anyone you want. You could plan with your friends, and everyone could just have a setting for "share my planner with these people" or "share only if we have common plans". Right now if I add my brother to this app, how will he be connected to it? how will he get the responses for it on his app? are the accounts connected?
  -I think you focused on so many different features on the app, that you might not have focused on the things driving the most value enough. for example: Seeing the To-do list that you have vs what your family members have and the status of that list to me seems more important to have that functionality be really easy and function perfectly over having a kind of a redundant calendar button separating out "tasks" and "events". Like you should be able to categorize and streamline all that into one calendar "Add" button and categorize what its type is by color or something. I think making the app more elegantly simple and intuitive in function by focusing on the important "Value Add" will pay dividends.

Hi, i think you have a common problem. Did you test your idea before jumping into development? How did you decide that there is a need for it?

I think one of the simplest ways to get started with day 1 marketing is to ask yourself:

Who are my people? Where do they hang out? Then go hang out with these people online and organically introduce this to them.

It sounds like you need to make some assumptions on who your users/customers would be and start there. "Everyone" isn't a market... You need to niche down as far as you can and try a few different niches.

For example, "young working dads in tech" could be a niche. Maybe there are some online groups out there that you could join organically and share what you have built.

Marketing is all about testing. You just have to try a lot of different things and see what gets some traction

Definitely try some content marketing ("5 Tips to managing a busy family life"). I could see PR maybe working here with parent blogs. They are always looking for content so maybe a guest post could work.

Hi!

I downloaded your app and i had issues trying to register.
The field labels are almost invisible when using dark-mode on the phone.

iPhone 7P, iOS 13

If your competitors do content marketing, this technique is a good one: https://backlinko.com/skyscraper-technique

Said concisely:
1- Locate who is linking to your competitors (many paid services like ahrefs .com for this, I don't know a free one)
2- Write better content than your current competitors
3- Reach out to those people linking to your competitors, and send them an email, highlighting that your content is more complete, more up to date, easier to consume, etc ...

Go to Mumsnet! It's like Reddit for mother's, they'd love it.

Why don't you get family-based influencers via YouTube to test it out and critique.

I suggest you address your singular review on App store first. The guy who wrote he can't figure out how to create an account. No amount of marketing can make up for bad onboarding flow. Fix that before you invest in growth.

You’ve got tons of advice already. There are loads of parent groups on fb you could join and carefully market to.

But, taking a step back... have you spoken to your immediate network? Especially the real life ones. Other families in your town, people you interact with on a daily basis (eg shop owners), if you’ve got kids then other parents you see on the school run, local parent groups etc etc.

There might be people you can talk to much more easily than finding them online. To get the first users anyway.

The best go-to-market marketing in this case is to compile a list of blogs where your target audience (moms, dads, family, etc) hangout and reach out to the bloggers and ask them to publish a guest post or ask them to review the app.

Better yet, go find out who wrote a review about your competition apps and reach out to them.

You have something there as the number of installs on some of those apps exceed 100K. That is a validation on its own.

Good luck!

Anyone suggesting that you approached this backward by building the MVP before doing customer validation is bringing up a moot point. You've already built it, so it's irrelevant whether or not it was "done right".

Anyways, what I'd do is identify a very specific niche that would love your app. You probably are considering your target market as "families". Instead, you should really be thinking of customer personas like, eg. "mothers of a certain age with more than 2 children". Then, try to figure out where those people hang out online, like certain forums, blogs, etc.

Another important thing to note is that you have identified several competitors. That's actually good - you can focus your marketing on positioning yourself as "The best alternative to XYZ app in 2020". You can even run PPC ads targeting keywords like "XYZ app alternative".

Don't give up hope! You know you have a valid market because of your competitor's success - good luck!

I think this could be backwards. I don't know what the spark was that caused you to create it, but have you seen evidence that anyone wants it?

Here's an analogy: if your friends keep talking about how they've really been wanting to eat $SOME_MEAL and then you go and prepare it, it's likely you can get some people at your dinner party to eat it!

But it might not work out if you go off on your own, make something you want to, and later emerge saying, "I've cooked a meal! Now I need to find people to eat it..."

Always market first to know if it's going to have traction, then build&market at the same time, and finally market it non-stop when it's ready. Both are mandatory.