My app is in the App Stores, now what?
Hi, both Apple and Google are now listing my app in their stores. What were the steps you took after your app went live?
Please share your app and your story
Hi, both Apple and Google are now listing my app in their stores. What were the steps you took after your app went live?
Please share your app and your story
My App is https://ballroomtracker.app/. I did pre-order, and it went live on February 1. I am using Segment/PostHog to see what my users are doing, but the activity has slowed down a bit since the launch day.
Not only that, but I started an Instagram meme page that I grew to 1200 followers where people from my niche are following, and I posted a single advert on the day of the launch which brought some downloads at a 22% conversion rate.
In a bigger picture, I am planning to add social networking features and sharable workout pictures in the likes of Strava to help my users promote the app with their friends and on social-media. Until then, I will focus on SEO and publish articles on the landing page. I am thinking articles like "Top 10 apps for dancers that help you train better", where I share some popular apps that can be used together with mine.
I think there are many ways to get traction to an app, in your case it's a bit harder since you need to reach a critical mass for your app to be helpful to people. Maybe you could look into targeting single cities one by one with a big university, since the app could be helpful to students, especially now during those lonely times.
Hey @gero, I didn't know PostHog. That's cool, thanks for sharing your tools.
Your app seems to be very specific: dancers who want to optimize their routine, have an iPhone, and also an iWatch (if I understand it right)
I'm impressed the results of your promotion. Thank you for sharing your practice.
The instagram idea is also nice. Do you plan to keep on using it to promote your app? I have an account too, but it's about the app. I have 36 followers 🤣 and most of them are family and friends. I might do another one, more generic like yours.
I also like, and am thankful for, your next steps. It seems like you're putting a lot of time on it. I wonder if you're working on it full time or it's just your side project.
I don't think I will be writing blog posts soon. I'd rather focus on talking to people around my city, since my app needs users in the area to be useful.
Thanks again for sharing your experience and your app @gero.
Learn about ASO/app store optimization.
I will have to look into this. I think that in my case it might not be so useful at the beginning, because I need people in the same area to have the app.
My guess is that ASO applies more globally, but I might be wrong precisely because my lack of knowledge on ASO.
Thank you for your comment.
Check out https://appradar.com . It's incredibly useful if you don't know much about ASO and they have a free trial which already enough to get the basics right.
ASO is the main thing you need to focus on if you want to grow your app organically. There are plenty of tricks and techniques. I suggest you first find the best ASO tool that could help you to understand where and for which keywords your app is discovered by users. After, try to focus/maximize the visibility on that keywords or maybe you need to find other ones. Also, you need to watch the competition, specifically, what strategy they use and how you can adapt that to your project. I worked on one project that I use daily I could share a promo code with you if you are interested.
My pleasure! I also don't know much about ASO! :)
I would use https://apptimizer.net/ to give the app some traction, by adding reviews so when people see it they don't feel like they are the first ones. But then I would spend money for the downloads themselfs. Since that brings the most traffic to the app, and also these people are the ones that will spend money on the app.
I did spend $1500 on Apple Ads that did nothing. I did spend $500 on an apptimizer and that gave me the most active users that actually paid for the app and actively use it. Not sure to whom Apple shows the ads, but they seem to be some bots since after an install the activity is zero.
Hey @0x4447, I didn't know about apptimizer. I bought some credits just to try it. Interesting. Thank you for the resource and for sharing your experience with Apple Ads.
Common advice is to target a niche first. In your case you could try to get people from your city first. So you could make flyers and hand them out or hang them up. You could approach people in malls and ask them to install your app for a $20 Amazon voucher. Tell your barber about your app. Ask bars if they can put little notes on all tables for a night for $500 and see if this results in signups. Talk to the local press, they like startup stories.
There are many ways, paid and unpaid, to promote apps like this in your own city. The difficult part is just going out and really approaching people.
Set yourself a goal, for example 100 signups in one month.
@Badestrand these are so many great ideas.
I actually received the flyers today (check them out) I have 4 variations.
The gift card and paying in the bar didn't occur to me. I can try that!
Regarding the local press, I've been looking on instagram but haven't found one that talks about startups.
The best two advices, in my opinion, are: target a niche first, and set yourself a goal.
Thanks for this @Badestrand.
The flyers look great, go get your users! :)
app: dilo - Find similar people to go out with tonight. App Store - Play Store
Steps after it went live:
I don't know what else to do :P
Do you have any suggestions?
Hi Jonathan!
I just checked out your app. I like the idea!
But the app description and the title are way too short. It is best to use the maximum amount of characters (but no spamming).
I only published one app to the Google Play Store 2 years ago. It nearly has 10k downloads and still ranks in the top 3 when i search "money quotes".
Thats my app btw: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=money.rich.richquotes.richquotes
I did that by optimizing the title aswell as the description and using keywords like "money quotes" and similar.
This is called App Store Optimization (ASO) - you should check it out!
Hope it helps :-)
That's a great tip. I guess that I was so tired after the coding that I didn't spend too much time on the listing itself.
I will take some time to improve the title and description.
By the way, I live in Hamburg, Germany. Are you also based on Germany @GermanIndieHacker?
Thank you for your comment.
Product Hunt
Hey @desmondhth, thank you for your comment.
Have you tried Product Hunt before? How do you think it can help apps like mine, when you need people around you to also have the app?
Thank you again