In 2024, a mobile app must be pretty special for customers to spend time talking about it. Mobile apps have never been more important to the consumer shopping experience, nor have they ever been more ubiquitous.
In an easy-come, easy-go app marketplace, apps are deleted or forgotten as quickly as they are downloaded. So, what are the best ways to promote your mobile app and maximise engagement in this social and cultural context?
In this article, we’ll look at a few crucial mobile app marketing and engagement strategies that you can incorporate into your development process:
The dividing line between ‘retail app’ and ‘mobile game’ is now blurry, at best. A growing number of retail brands are integrating gamified elements into their apps that encourage users to share their achievements or experiences to an app-based community or on social media. Allowing your users to unlock special badges or rewards for sharing engagement milestones can drive organic promotion on social media and encourage more downloads.
The Apple App Store and Google Play Store are busy and competitive environments in which apps struggle for visibility in response to user searches – very much like traditional search engines. App Store Optimisation, or ASO, is therefore best approached during the design stage, and not simply as part of a marketing strategy after launch. Think about how your app’s design elements, such as icons, screenshots, and descriptions can be optimised for greater App Store visibility and conversions, ensuring that your brand’s core value proposition is effectively communicated through both visual and textual elements.
Your customers are your best advocates when it comes to a mobile app marketing strategy, so it makes sense to make it as easy as possible for them to promote you to their friends, family, and colleagues. A good way of doing this is to enable users to invite their contacts directly to download your app through the app itself, expanding the app user base through existing social networks. Offering incentives or rewards for successful invites can further motivate your customers to share the app.
People like sharing movie trailers and clips on YouTube through social media and the same strategy can be used by luxury brands to increase social shares of their products and apps. To do this, consider integrating teaser content or sneak peeks of upcoming products or campaigns within your app that users can easily share with their network prior to its official launch. This can generate interest and anticipation among customers which could increase sales and also encourage more downloads of your mobile app.
A key part of app promotion is integration with social media, so it’s essential to incorporate features into your app layout that allow users to immediately share their interactions on their social media platforms within the app. A good example of this is the way that Spotify allows users to share songs, albums, and playlists through WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, and other channels at the click of a button, without any tedious cutting and pasting links and flicking between apps. The easier you make it for your customers to share their achievements, progress, or content through your app, the more your app itself will become a promotional tool, organically sustaining its own success.
Mobile app engagement is a key part of our design philosophy at Glance. It’s easier to build these marketing and promotional features into your development strategy than to try to bolt them on at the end, so we will work with you closely to create a personalised marketing and engagement strategy that maximises downloads, shares, and retention. To find out more, please contact us today by clicking here.