5 App Marketing Tactics of Top Mobile Product Marketers

There seem to be a lot of blog posts out there about the basics of marketing an app (usually written for those who haven’t yet launched an app and are preparing for the first release). I’m not going to cover those intro tactics here. Instead, this article will provide 5 tactics in the “what’s next” level of app marketing. These are the tactics that top mobile product managers, marketing managers, and CEOs use after they’ve done the standard tactics:

Standard App Marketing Tactics (click to expand list)

• Landing page – Before launching your app, you have set up a website to capture search queries and provide some basic information about your app for PR purposes.
• Review sites – You’ve reached out to several app review sites in your category.
• Paid media – If you have the budget and found it to be cost effective, you’re already spending (fairly efficiently) on paid advertising.
• Social media – You are active on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and other social networks as appropriate (i.e. LinkedIn, Reddit, etc.). You’re not only broadcasting your ideas on these social networks but also engaging in conversations and leveraging feedback.
• PR – You’ve reached out to the appropriate journalists, bloggers, and influencers to get media coverage of your app.
• ASO (App Store Optimization) – You’ve optimized the most important pieces of ASO via having
  – a good app icon
  – good screenshots
  – a process to get users to write reviews and share
  – good keywords and description
• Blog – If appropriate, you write a blog to talk about your opinion in matters that are relevant to your users. This not only helps you maintain conversations with users on social media, it also helps your SEO.
• Localization – If your app is global in nature, you’ve created local language versions of the app for your main geographies.
• Videos – You have promotional videos that users can find on Youtube, search, and social media to create more understanding and desire around your app.

Many app product managers and marketers just stop marketing once they’ve done these things. While many apps can be successful just by doing the basics, here are 5 things that top mobile product managers and marketers do in addition to the list above.

1) Optimize User Reviews

The App and Play Stores’ basic agenda is to guess how well suited any particular app would be a for a given query. While no one knows for sure how Apple and Google rank apps in their respective stores, the prevalent theory is that they not only take into account keywords in the app name and description but also look at the quantity and the quality of app reviews. To read more about what most people think the ranking algorithms are, here are two fairly respectable articles: Play Store and App Store. Regardless of the exact equation different people suspect is the correct one, all the theories agree that app reviews/ratings are highly important.

Many good apps I see have some system to allow customers to write reviews easily. Users are either prompted by an in-app message or there is sometimes an icon/button that also allows users to review the app.

Great apps will have thoroughly tested icons and messages to optimize user reviews.

SafeTrek increased reviews by 900% while still maintaining a 4.7 star average just by A/B testing their share icon.

Read more about which icon won and why.

2) Viral Coefficient and user invites

The viral coefficient is usually defined as the invitation rate * the acceptance rate. In other words, it’s the average number of invites sent per existing user times the percentage of invited guests who actually become customers. In effect, the viral coefficient is an approximation of how your user base will grow organically given how many existing users you have. If your viral coefficient is greater than 1, then you have sustained organic growth.

There are several ways to increase your viral coefficient. If we simply look at the two components of the coefficient, it’s clear we need to increase the invitation rate and the acceptance rate.

Invitation rate:

• Test when you ask users to invite their friends. Is it to show off a recent purchase or achievement? Is it to share a discount or get help through a game level?
• Test the messages that you show users. Phrasing can make a big difference. Medisafe A/B tested these three sentences in their prompt for user shares:
  a) Help us keep MediSafe free. Invite your friends.
  b) Spread the love. Let others enjoy MediSafe too.
  c) We hate ads! Help us keep MediSafe ads-free by inviting your friends.
  Version (c) increased their invitation rate by 38.9%.
• Test the sharing options to get the optimal number of sharing options available. Also test which social networks are the most important to your users. It’s not necessarily Facebook and email for every app.
• Test how many invitation prompts each user receives. You can maximize the invitation rate both by increasing the number of people who invite friends as well as increasing the number of invites sent per person.

Acceptance rate:

• Test different default messages that are auto filled in the invitation. Most users don’t change the message you write for them, so you actually have a lot of control over what the invited user sees.
• Test promotions and deals. This could help both the invitation and acceptance rate.

Here is an excellent article that goes into the viral coeffecient in more depth. In addition to the coefficient itself, it also talks at length about the importance of making the invitation cycle faster. The cycle can be defined as new user signs on → invites friend → friend sees invitation → friend becomes a new user. The rate of growth can be increased by shortening this cycle.

There are also non-organic ways to get more friends of users. Consider prompting users to like your Facebook page. You can then purchase ads on Facebook to target the friends of your fans.

3) Regular SEO

It’s easy to get so focused on marketing within the app ecosystem that app managers sometimes forget about plain, regular web SEO. Some users will find your app because they search in the App or Play Store specifically for an app that will help them find X. But some users will just search for X in Google Search while on their mobile phone. Make list of what your top X’s are, and get your webpage to rank for those items. When users click on the search result, have the webpage prompt the user to download the app. If the user already has your app, the page should have a deeplink that sends the user to the part of the app that is relevant to their search query.

For example, if I search for a specific restaurant, I get Yelp as a result.

When I click on the search result, I’m taken to a mobile optimized page that automatically detects that I’m using a mobile phone. The page then prompts me to use the app instead of the webpage. This creates a better experience for the user because the native mobile experiences can offer much more than mobile responsive web (such as map integration and faster response times) while also increasing repeat engagement. If I didn’t already have the app installed on my phone, this message increases my likelihood of doing so. Once I do have the app installed, Yelp can then engage me on a more regular basis.

4) Building relationships

Getting your app reviewed by a top blog or thought leader is hard. Many popular review sites get hundreds of requests a day. Many app managers don’t have a lot of experience in PR, but getting your app reviewed (or featured by Apple/Google) is very much a PR game. If you simply send in a request to be reviewed and the reviewer has never heard of you or your app, chances are your request will be ignored.

The key is to always keep an eye on relationship building in your industry. Get to know the thought leaders in your space. Allow them to get to know you.

Oftentimes, an app gets featured not because the app is amazing, but thought leaders buy into the vision that the app creators have presented. For example, several months ago, the blogosphere was buzzing about the app, Jelly. People were writing about it before the app even came out because Biz Stone was known for great things and was incredibly secretive about what Jelly did. This goes to show that who you know can often be more important for generating buzz than what your app does.

5) Localize Marketing

Localizing your app for your top markets is pretty standard, but many app managers forget to also localize their marketing. If you’ve spent the time and resources to localize your app into Japanese and you’re paying for users in the US, why are you not paying for users in Japan?