An app website gives prospective users a place to understand the product before visiting the store. Use it to answer the questions that block a download: who the app is for, what it does, which devices it supports and what happens after install. This guide explains how a website or blog can support discovery and an informed store visit, with activated users as the outcome to measure.
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The pre-launch stage
This stage consists of your marketing strategy that occurs before your app is launched. This stage will involve a lot of research on your part regarding multiple factors like your audience, competitors, product demand, raising product awareness, etc. There are two important things you need to research before you move on to the marketing phase of your app distribution. These include:
1. Understanding your audience
Understanding your audience is the most crucial step in app development and launch. Even before you start developing your app, you need to ask yourself the following questions: who is going to use your app? What is your target audience? How will people benefit from your app? Is your target audience too niche for your app to be successful? The target audience can be defined according to various factors such as age, gender, spending, and recreational habits. For example, gaming app developers develop apps that are targeted toward the younger audience, while business apps will be targeted toward more mature people who run businesses of various shapes and sizes. Many people also use behavioral characteristics to define their target audience; for example, a social media mobile app developer can target individuals who like spending a lot of their time on social media.
2. Knowing your competitors
In addition to understanding your audience, studying your competitors is also important. Competitors include applications that belong to the same category as your app. They serve a similar purpose and target the same audience as your app. Carefully studying the pros and cons of your competitors can prove to be highly beneficial while developing and marketing your app. See what your competitors are offering and what’s working for them. Also, take note of things that aren’t working for them. Try incorporating features and offering services that your competitors are lacking. If your competitor is offering their application on certain platforms or only in an exclusive region, take advantage of that gap in the marketplace. Make sure that your app stands out from your competitors. If your app is too similar to your competitors, it might be labeled by the public as a cheap imitator.
Marketing your app through a website
Once you are done with the research and development phase, it is now time to move forward with the marketing phase of your application. You don’t necessarily have to market your app after the development of your app is complete. Most app developers start the marketing phase while the app is still in active development. Not only does this bring more exposure to your app, but it also builds anticipation for the app’s release. There are multiple strategies you can use to market your app. For marketing your app through a website or a blog, you can take the following course of action:
Create your website and start promoting
Start with the pages people need to decide whether the app fits their problem. Explain the features, show an accurate demonstration, answer pricing and compatibility questions, and provide clear store links. Choose the site scope and maintenance budget before adding a blog; publishing more pages is not useful if they repeat information or leave the download path unclear.
Use social media to build an online presence
Choose social channels from audience evidence and the content your team can maintain. Link a useful demonstration or explanation to the relevant page on the app website. Check the path on a mobile device and measure store visits separately from installs and activation. Creating an account on every platform is not a substitute for a useful, sustainable channel plan.
SEO optimization
Website SEO and app store optimization serve different search environments. For the website, answer a real question clearly and make relevant pages easy to find. For the store listing, explain the app and evaluate discovery and conversion using that store’s reports. Research user language, but do not repeat high-volume keywords in place of useful information or expect guaranteed rankings.
Email marketing
Email marketing is another effective way to boost traffic to your website and app page. Once you have created your website, you can collect emails from people that are interested in your app. You can then use emails to keep people updated on the development of your app. You can inform them about app updates, new features, release dates etc. Email marketing can be used to gain subscribers even before your app has launched. This means by the time you have launched your app, you will already have an inbuilt audience. Make sure to optimize your emails for mobile phones, as most people access their emails through phones these days.
Outreach initiatives
Another way to advertise your app is by contacting influencers, publications, and bloggers for promotion. Posting your apps on the app directory sites can also help you gain more potential customers. Getting your app reviewed by different sites or blogs will also convince users to download and try your app. You can send out your app to bloggers and reviewers before your launch date so that reviews could be published early. Make sure to provide reviewers links to your website and app page so that regular blog readers can access them if they are interested.
Conclusion
In this day and age, creating a website for your business, product, app, etc. is a must. The website must be created before the launch of the app for promotion and SEO optimization. Make sure that your website contains all the information regarding your app, plus a link to the app page in the app store.
