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Smartphones are taking the world by storm. Constantly, the world is witnessing the heavily increasing reliance on smartphones. No matter what the task is, smartphone lovers depend on the apps to perform daily life functions. Needless to say that we are living in a world of apps. Being said that, it is sheer important to know, Mobile app development isn’t something easy. It is a really tiring process. There is no magic lamp, therefore, you cannot find an easy way to build an application in just one night and can also not at all be sure of its success in terms of downloads. Ever wondered what a pathetic loss it would be if you invested your days and nights in developing a useful and one-of-its-kind app and still get a low number or users attracted towards your app?
Grabbing millennials’ attention towards your digital innovation aka your app, especially when the play stores have got the same ones in hefty amount, is indeed a tiring process. Nevertheless, as tiring as it may seem to you, generating people’s interest is not less than conquering a battle if you are 100% positive about your app, you can just sit back and relax after you have developed an ideal application and wait for it to reach a million downloads overnight. If that is not the case and the bubbles of uncertainty are paying a jig-saw puzzle in your brain then you have to do something about your app promotion.
A recent statistical survey of the usage and downloading rate of different genre of apps shows that the social apps are on the top with 22.7% of a monthly release and download rate. Here is a chart which shows the statistics for the rest of the apps.
Now, if you have developed an app which has relatively a lower usage and downloading rate, you obviously have no other option but to get your app promoted in such a way that people cannot avoid downloading it. However, you previously investing a lot of your time and finances in the process of app development obviously justifies your unwillingness towards spending more and more money for the app’s promotion. If you are going through the same intellectual and rational ups and downs of deciding how to boost your app’s downloads without huge monetary investments, then you have landed on the right page.
You would be surprisingly pleased to know that you have plenty of tried and tested ways to boost your app’s downloads and that too without investing a huge sum of money in its marketing. All of those ways will be discussed in detail for you below in this post. However, prior to that, it is pertinent that you know the ways through which users are introduced to a new app. You must keep those ideas in mind all the time if you really want your app downloaded more and more.
A survey by Google in 2016 demonstrated, how the users get introduced to and engage with an app. The results can be summarized as follows:
So now that you know all the ways of people getting introduced to an applet us proceed with how you can get people interested in downloading your app more and more.
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Name your app creatively
This should be the first and foremost step to follow in any app’s development. The name of your app is its identity and something through which people will refer it to. Try to name it in a creative yet a simple way that does not sound way too alien to the listeners. The name of your app should sound catchy but at the same time, must be a reflection of what your app will help people with. Try to avoid random names with no sense of meaning. If you want to give a name that is not much a reflection of what your app does, then try to add a phrase or two with the title of your app. These phrases must make your apps functionality clearer. According to the experts at RichestsSoft, a credible and well-thought app name can generate as many as 30% more downloads.
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Do not underestimate the power of app store optimization
ASO is a really helpful tool to boost apps downloads and is usually underestimated by the developers. It might sound like a complicated and crucial way to get users in your hold; it gets easy once you understand the basics of its working. All you need to do in case of your reliance on the ASO for users’ attention is to constantly keep on putting in efforts. App store ranking depends upon your keywords, rating, app descriptions, and what not, but there is a lot more to focus on too. You need to consider the ranking of keywords and work accordingly. Try to go for the keywords that have an easier way to be ranked. Other than that, you must link your app to social sites and must be able to find motivating ways to incentivize actual communal sharing.
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Make sure to have an appealing app icon
An enticing app icon and display can attract a lot of users to your app and encourage them to download it. An icon is the first thing that people get to see about your app, and hence it should neither be too flashy nor too dull. An icon must be a representative of the essence of your app, and what functions it is meant to serve either directly or indirectly. Make sure that it is appealing enough to be recognizable and unique. Your icon should be able to provide, at least partially, if not wholly an idea about the function of your app. Click here to see what the experts at Build Fire have to teach you about designing a perfect icon for your app.
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Prioritize the user reviews
A survey by Nielsen’s Global Trust in advertising niche reported that people always prefer a recommendation that comes from a general customer’s mouth over advertisements and other appealing app features. This means that no matter how enticing your app’s title or functionality is if it has not a good app store rating, you are doomed. Once the users find an app, there should be convincing reasons that compel them to pay for the app or invest their time in downloading it. This insurance comes better from nothing other than the real reviews and comments left about your app and the rating stars given to it by the users who have had an experience with your app. Always try to design an app that suits users’ experience and fulfills their expectations. If there is any suggestion or recommendation, make sure to look into it and make updates to your app whenever required. Doing so will help you get a lot of good reviews and positive ratings by the real users, looking at which more and more people will be obliged to download your app and use it.
You can ensure that your positive reviews reach a wider audience by encouraging those reviews via in-app messages. However, make sure that this won’t be sending too many unnecessary messages to the people as this can be annoying and may lead you to lose many of them. Keep your total reviews in track as well as the positive ones and use these to attract more audience as well as keep the old ones stay with you.
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Stay a freely downloadable entity in the start
No matter how much unique and useful, you might think your developed app is, try to offer it freely initially. This might not sound like a great idea in the beginning, but you will see its great benefits once you make it freely available to masses in the beginning. Your app downloads will shoot up in the start, and this will heavily enhance your chances to claim your place in the market as well as secure more users for future even if you make it a paid one afterward. In cases where your app needs the users to download paid in-apps, make sure that you offer even those IAPs for free in the beginning. Doing so will also improve your number of downloads and will enhance the chances for your app to be favored more by the users. Once an apps engagement rate increases, the app stores are obliged to boost your apps rankings too, making it an easily visible app and more frequent in suggestions too. If your app is already there on the app store right now and needs the users to pay, just try to make it free for a while and see the magic yourself.
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Take the app to social media
The consistent social media usage and marketing of your app is also sort of necessary in modern times when each and every thing reaches to the people through social sites. A strong and consistent online presence has a lot to do with the fame of your app too. Always try to make your social media posts relevant to what your app aims to do. If your app is more of an entertainment-related one, boring and bland tag lines won’t help you achieve your purpose at all. The language being used on your social media and the graphic content that you post in relevance to your app, must gel well with your purpose. Try to be creative and take risks. One can try creating memes by including the app’s functions in one way or the other in it. This can be a really cool way to boost the number of fans of your app and increase the app downloads. You can use platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Ask FM, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc. to market your app as much as you can. For more tips to take your app to the heights of success using social media, try to read this post too.
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Make sure that your app is crash free
One of the biggest issues an app user can face is the app being crashed over and over again, and this can be annoying beyond limits. Whenever your app starts crashing, its users are definitely going to complain about it in the reviews section no matter what. Make sure to read the reviews and take strong actions as soon as you can. The best course of action should be to ask your developers to fix the crashes in such a way that there is no more crashing ever again. Try to get your crash and retention rates calculated and get the issues resolved so that your users can freely refer this to their friends and family.
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Pay attention to the power of content
Be it an online blog, a detailed brochure or a long featured article, people’s perception does change after reading a well-constructed and properly argumentative content. Make sure to hire professional and top-notch content creators to get some impressive words written about your app. Once written, try to get this work published as much and on as many places as you possibly can. Try to inculcate every single detail about what your app has to offer and what makes it unique in the articles and blog posts about your content to make sure that people are compelled to give it a shot once they read about it. These written materials about your apps, even when you are mostly underrated, can drastically increase the number of your app downloads.
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Market through email campaigns
Let us suppose that you already have a huge fan base, whether as an individual or as a company. This means that people trust you and will surely consider an option of installing the apps you have developed at least for once. All you have to do in such a case is to get the attention of people attracted towards your app, and this can easily be done by an email campaign. Draft a detailed email about what app you have developed and what do you aim to go through it and send it to all the previous contacts through an email address they do recognize well. This will ensure that they all know of your value and have no issue in trusting you through their past experiences.
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Marketing through In-App and online ads
This one option might cost you a bit, but it is totally worth it. Most of the users that are not much active on social media and other forums have no way to get to know about your apps other than the online ads. According to Clutch Co, about 33% of the users get to know about an app through the ads they get to see while using another online application or browsing for something else. This kind of advertisement is more effective and relatively cheaper than the search engine ads that only generate 31% of the total downloads for an app. Another way to save money in such type of advertisement is to cross-advertise with other apps, which means that you will play their ads on your app and they will play yours. This eliminates the needs to even pay for the advertisements and also generate a lot of downloads too.
Final thoughts
These and many other ideas can be easily utilized not only to attract people to get to know your app but also to boost your downloads by intriguing people to give your app a try. Make sure to give your best while you are developing an app, be honest, be creative, and work hard. The rest is surely going to be managed by fate.
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