What are your go-to marketing strategies for mobile apps?
I've spent the past year building my app. I've spent 95% of my time on the engineering, and only 5% of it on marketing.
I want to change that to 30% on engineering, and 70% on marketing; but I have no idea where to start!
What are your go-to marketing strategies for mobile apps?
Here's what I've tried so far:
- Build in public (Frequent updates on Twitter and LinkedIn)
- Launch on ProductHunt
- Blogging (including a featured Indie Hackers post)
- Basic SEO and ASO
- Starting to consider ads (and working on a video to promote)
It's gotten me to 1500 users, with 90 weekly active users; and 5 paying users; but I'm looking for ways to grow.
For context: I'm building an app to help people visualise their future net worth.
Landing page
iOS App
Android App
Trending on Indie Hackers
Hey @wisanishilumani, I like the product and I see your approach is very good, too. At the beginning you really want to focus on engineering, while later you need to turn your energy into marketing. However, what you describe is more growth hacking tactics. I am missing the "strategy" that would glue the activities and deliver results, to be honest.
Anyway, fast suggestion - I would try direct outreach (cold emailing, social community outreach etc.) and ads (search + video) for short term and content marketing for mid/long-term success.
Correct process, however, is different (also a little slower, too) - start with personas to understand the main pain points and get the messaging right, come up with some idea to simplify what your app does and then outline the journey. Ok, people will click your ad, what happens then (if they don't register directly)? Also, what will happen if they register? You want to activate them and then turn them into customers. This can be done by product notifications or emailing campaigns as well as other activities. Then you can run experiments to find the right activities bringing in new customers.
We've prepared a blog post about go-to-market strategy here: https://spacetime.ooo/plan-your-growth-with-this-7-step-go-to-market-strategy/
If you want us to help you do things correctly and faster at the same time, schedule a short call here, so we can discuss it: https://spacetime.ooo/free-20-min-consultation/
Hey @Marek_spacetime_ooo, thanks so much for the kind words!
That's exactly it, I've been missing the strategy. I've started with persona identification, and that has done a lot to clarify where I'd like to focus, so it's a brilliant suggestion.
I'm spending a lot of time updating demo vids and creating email campaigns to turn users into customers. I didn't think of notifications, so that's a brilliant idea too!
Thanks so much for the blog post, will have a read and reach out if I have questions. Thanks so much!
Feel free do that that 🙂 I'll be very happy if it helps you. Also, here are some growth hacking tactics examples I personally tried in the past, so feel free to take a look and ask, if you have any questions: https://spacetime.ooo/5-real-life-growth-hacking-examples-you-wont-find-anywhere-else/
I would 100% reach out to every single creator on TikTok and YouTube in the personal finance category and get their feedback on the product.
If you don't have $$$ to pay for a sponsorship then this "feedback" approach might earn you some free media from these influencers.
Love the product concept, btw!
Hey @marketercrew! Thanks so much, seems like this is a popular suggestion! I'll give it a shot on TikTok!
And thanks for the kind words!
You bet! and good luck!
Having had a quick look at your landing page, your testimonials have given you some GOLD copy lines to use as well, "You can't manage what you can't measure" / "Consolidate and visualise your portfolio" - interesting also that no one has said anything about 'financial freedom' so might be worth changing your headline to use things your users clearly care about (also as a rule, people who have a portfolio are already pretty financially free ;) )
I'd recommend focusing initially on outbound sales and marketing tactics rather than Ads and 'top of the funnel' stuff. You might get lucky but more likely you'll spend a lot of money with not much return. You've already got customers which is amazing, so now double down! Feel free to reach out if you'd like a further chat on it :)
Hey @Meri_Earthfound! That's amazing insight! I hadn't really done any persona exercises, nor really properly identified my target market when I wrote that copy! Now that you've pointed it out, I'm wondering how it's been there for so long!
I think you're right about focusing on outbound and marketing over ads! I'll definitely reach out to chat more! Thank you so much, this was very helpful!
No problem, I'm so glad it helped! :)
Hey Wisani, I read a post about 6 months ago about some mobile app doing a launch through TikTok influencers. That was BEFORE the creator marketplace was live. They reached out to about 250 influencers and ended up spending 2500 USD with I think about 20+ influencers. But the results were amazing: They had 150.000 mobile app installs. I need to add that the app was super boring and there was no option to include a button/link with the post. They had to rip the URL from the video. Now Imagine a direct marketplace to connect with influencers and there is a button to click to your website/download page.
This is a great idea
Wow that's amazing! That sounds like a much better approach than ads!
I've been doing some buyer persona exercises, I'll try and see who I can reach out to that would have the kind of audience I'm looking for! Thanks so much for the suggestion!
Following I’m about to beta test a todo app.
Amazing! Would love to try it out!
Check Twitter Dm
My go-to marketing strategy for mobile apps is to build a community around the app. I find that when you can make an app that people feel like they're part of, it makes them want to share it with their friends, and then those friends share it with their friends, and so on. This way you get word-of-mouth advertising that's free, but also creates a sense of belonging and ownership in the user base.
WoM is amazing once you have your first happy users. You can always incentivize this through a referral program as well -- similar to Dropbox, AirBnB, Uber
That's something I never gave enough thought! But it totally makes sense!
What's your approach to building communities? Is it omni-channeled (Like how you find Indie Hackers on Twitter, on the site, in meetups etc), or is it usually focused on a single channel? Say Discord?
Post at relevant subreddits- it worked for me.
@ultrajet That's a great idea! I haven't tried that yet. I don't want to come across as spammy and a net taker without giving; how did you navigate that?
https://www.reddit.com/r/algotrading/comments/rh141f/company_360_ios_app_for_finding_undervalued/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
This is how I posted. Note that forum is for stock market and my app is for stock research. I got feedback and improved my app and 600+ downloads over 2 days. However, only 10 people ended up buying a subscription.
That's brilliant, I love that you had a screen recording! Will try a similar approach. Thanks so much for sharing!
Your main goal is constant ASO and store a/b testing.
Did you localize your app and store front?
I made a Udemy course about it (my only one), message me at [email protected] and I'll give you a free coupon.
you can check out https://swipehouse.co if you want to get on tiktok
If you are considering going into ads, I would advise to go for an all-round strategy. Simple steps:
If you already have the blog posts, then you have enough content to engage your audience, just a bit of structure.
Perhaps look into some funding to sponsor integrated campaigns and grow.
I would also map out a few ideal profiles from different platforms and reach out with a request to try your app - LinkedIn, TikTok might be a good start. There are so many coaches out there hungry to stand out, and their job is to make sure people follow through with their plans.
I hope this helps!
Nice post mate.